Dan Clapper

Clapper is an applied linguist, learning architect, entrepreneur, and project manager with 30 years of international experience.

After graduating Stanford University Phi Beta Kappa in English, he earned advanced degrees in Second Language Education in Tokyo and in Cybernetic Systems in Silicon Valley.  He now holds a Project Management Professional (PMP®) credential as well.  As an applied linguist, his areas of expertise are assessment, sociolinguistics, and adult second language acquisition at advanced levels of proficiency.  A member of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), and the Project Management Institute (PMI), he has presented at many professional gatherings.  Among these was the 2004 National Language Conference in the United States (US), where the US Department of Defense and the Center for Advanced Studies of Language invited him to speak on foreign language education for the post-9/11 world.

A leading architect of experiential learning, he has built or contributed to innovative programs in sixteen countries.  Participants develop their potential by constructive interaction in preferred relationships, that is, by doing projects in communities of choice.  Hallmarks are authentic input, interactive tasks, and outcomes that have meaning and value beyond the classroom.  In Silicon Valley during the 1980’s, he designed prize-winning courses for foreign university students of business and computer science.  In 1988, the US government ranked his career programs for at-risk high school students as number 1 in the US (out of 101 US Job Corps programs).  In the 1990’s, he joined World Learning, a private educational institution widely recognized for its experiential approaches and its commitment to intercultural understanding.  In his first six months, the organization funded his design for a networked multimedia language lab, one of the first to enable collaborative study via the World Wide Web.  Later in the decade, he led faculty at World Learning’s School for International Training in developing a standardized system of best practices in business English for the Exxon Mobil Corporation.  By the year 2000, he had helped the company begin competency-based language training per its standard in six countries.

As a manager of innovative education projects at enterprise-scale, Clapper has had two decades of success.  His track record includes work with government, schools, universities, and business.  His programs in Silicon Valley provided for 400 at-risk youth at 8 locations via a 19-member staff.  He helped two premiere international organizations – Temple University Japan and World Learning – launch new divisions, in both cases, to extend customized education and training opportunities to adult participants beyond their campus walls.  He went on to manage a business that delivered training in 10 languages across the US, achieved a million dollars of annual revenue in its first few years, and provided good margins for its owners.  More recently, as Senior Consultant at World Learning for Business, he has advised ExxonMobil, Siemens, and other major corporations on human capital development needs, designing business models, evaluation metrics, workflow, and pilot programs as needed in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.

In this new millennium, people around the world increasingly organize work, play, and learning as purposeful activities in virtual teams and communities.  As a result, communication requirements for individuals, groups, and organizations have evolved dramatically.   People in these networked contexts need to make every turn of conversation contribute - both to the project and to relations in their group.  To support communication and team performance in these contexts, Clapper established the company Cogent Language in 2005.   Cogent Language addresses this challenge by identifying, designing, and building learning ecologies.  These are high-quality, experiential learning opportunities, pervasively available to participants via cost-effective systems and media.