Tongues Untied

Written by Maura McCarthy

MAE 2012 Volume: 7 Issue: 1 (February)

Years ago, if a student declared they were majoring in a foreign language, they were often met with the proverbial question, “What do you plan to do with that?” Those days have long passed. While the study of foreign languages has always been a worthwhile endeavor, the expansion of the global marketplace and the events of September 11 bestowed upon the field a validation that in some people’s minds it had previously lacked.

Cognizant of the pressing need for professionals with advanced competency in critical languages, in 2000 the DoD’s National Security Education Program (NSEP) launched the Language Flagship Program, which encourages higher education institutions to create advanced language programs. Created in 1991, NSEP is the only federally-funded initiative that focuses on language proficiency, national security and the federal workforce and aims to develop professionals in various disciplines who possess advanced language skills. In 2002, the Flagship Program awarded its first grants to institutions, and programs are now offered in Arabic, Chinese, Hindi/Urdu, Korean, Persian, Russian and Swahili.

Intensive Instruction Students who successfully complete the Flagship Program receive the prestigious Flagship certification, which requires that they achieve Superior Proficiency, or level 3 in the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) scale. The rigorous teaching model used by Flagship programs is critical to students’ success. “Arabic is perceived as a difficult and demanding language, but the Flagship model has demonstrated that when you pair qualified, motivated students with competent instructors and a meaningful overseas experience, level 3 is quite achievable in a short period of time,” stressed Dr. Mahmoud Al-Batal, director of the Arabic Flagship Program and professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. In fact, the model is so effective that the university has expanded the program. “Thanks to the support we have received from NSEP, we’ve managed to make our entire Arabic program a Flagship program. We increased the number of contact hours in all years of instruction; all students of Arabic at UT are trained in this new intensive model that we have developed.” The only meaningful difference, then, between Flagship students and those not enrolled in the program is that only Flagship students receive additional weekly tutoring and support during the overseas year in Alexandria.

In 2006, the University of Texas at Austin also created the nation’s first undergraduate Flagship program in Hindi and Urdu, which is part of the only nationally-funded South Asia National resource center, the South Asian Institute, in the southwestern United States. With close to 60 core faculty members throughout 10 schools and 23 departments, the institute’s reach is wide, and in recent years nine military officers have received Master of Art degrees in South Asian studies before being posted to Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Dr. Rupert Snell, director of the Hindi Urdu Flagship Program (HUF) at the university, explained the unique approach to linguistics that the Flagship program adopts. While instruction of South Asian languages traditionally emphasized the written word and grammatical intricacies in lieu of listening and speaking proficiency, listening and speaking skills are beginning to be stressed more. “The key to attaining aural/oral fluency is a disciplined and structured process of drilling. While teachers have often relied on passive listening, using such sources as film, song and dialogue as training for their students, most people learn more effectively if their encounter with such authentic materials is mediated through a process of formal repetition, drilling, structured question and answer,” noted Snell.

North Georgia College and State University was recently awarded $720,000 from DoD to establish a Chinese Flagship program, building on a well-established Chinese program that has grown quite quickly in size and scope. North Georgia first offered Chinese in 2006 and signed an exchange agreement with Tsinghua University in Beijing; in 2008 the school added an intensive six-week summer language institute and in 2011 the school received approval to offer a major in Chinese language and literature. Following the Flagship award, “we will spend 2011-2012 preparing to add another faculty member for fall 2012; we will advertise the program, and we will begin selecting students to participate. For the year-long study abroad at Nanjing University, in order to achieve the program’s goals, we will be focusing on students who have already achieved an ILR score of 2. Otherwise, cadets will be eligible to enroll in our existing intensive program in an effort to study as much Chinese in a short period of time,” explained Dr. Chris Jespersen, the dean of the School of Arts & Letters.

University of California, Los Angeles received its first Flagship grant for the 2005-2006 academic year along with Bryn Mawr College, University of Maryland and Middlebury’s summer school. While it was a small grant to be split among the institutions, it was sufficient to get the program off the ground, said Dr. Olga Kagan, professor and coordinator of the Russian Language Program and director of UCLA Center for World Languages and National Heritage Language Resource Center. “In 2005-2006 there was an understanding that the program would mostly attract seniors or possibly even recent graduates. For a while, that’s how the program worked: We accepted students who had already reached a level of proficiency, which at that time was at least intermediate high on the actual scale or 1+ on the ILR scale. Then in 2009 it changed because Flagship wanted to push all programs down to undergraduate level. Now we admit students who are freshman and may not have any Russian language skills, although we will admit students at other junctures. If students come in with some language skills we will place them accordingly,” Kagan explained.

The intensive instruction that characterizes Flagship programs set the students on a path toward higher proficiency. “Research shows that a traditional Russian program graduates students at the Intermediate/Intermediate-High level of proficiency (ACTFL)/1 (ILR). The goal of the Flagship program is for students to reach level 2 (ILR)/Advanced (ACTFL) proficiency by the end of domestic study at UCLA and level 3 (ILR)/Superior (ACTFL) by the end of the capstone year in St. Petersburg. Students with this level of proficiency are able to meet the demands of professional interactions and carry out professional level tasks in the areas of their specializations,” noted Kagan. This level of professional proficiency makes graduates sought after job candidates for NGOs, the government and international corporations.

Linguistic and Cultural Immersion

While rigorous and demanding instruction is imparative, complete immersion in the language and culture is critical to fully acquire level 3 proficiency, which is why Flagship programs require students spend a year overseas. In fact, “Capstone year is perhaps the most important element of the flagship program. When we send our students overseas, they are usually at a level 2 or 2+; in order for them to reach the superior level, they need this extended immersion experience, culturally and linguistically. We’re talking about a full calendar year overseas. This is a requirement for all students to be certified as a level 3. Currently our program is in Alexandria; we had two locations, Damascus and Alexandria, but the Damascus program was closed due to turmoil in Syria,” said Al-Batal of UT’s Arabic program. For the HUF program, all students must complete a year in India, which is run with the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) at its centers in Lucknow and Jaipur, state capitals of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. During the year, “students attend credit-bearing intensive courses in Hindi and Urdu at AIIS, pursue credit-bearing courses for their majors (taught by locally engaged professors following UT syllabi), and undertake individually-arranged internships that normally relate to their choice of major. Students are housed in carefully selected host families, to ensure that a true degree of immersion is maintained throughout every aspect of their stay in India,” emphasized Snell. UCLA’s overseas program is coordinated by the American Council for International Education. “Students live in homestays—it’s a requirement—and study on campus. They have two kinds of classes, some Russian as a foreign language, and also some as direct enrollment. They also have internships during their second semester in St. Petersburg,” said Kagan.

Downrange Implications

For servicemembers who strive to acquire, enhance or maintain their language skills, there is a number of options available to them within DoD. A component of the Army Training and Doctrine Command, the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC) in Monterey, Calif., offers language instruction in 23 languages and two dialects. DLIFLC has long aimed to develop more effective and efficient means for delivering language training. One problem has been accessibility; logistically, many linguists in need of sustainment training simply cannot travel to study in-house in Monterey. Capitalizing on the widespread availability of the Internet, in 2007 DLIFLC launched the Broadband Language Training System (BLTS), which conquers the accessibility issue and allows DLIFLC to deliver the highest quality of language and culture training and education through broadband Internet.

“Mainly we’re using it to train linguists who are fairly isolated. For example, we have foreign area officers who may be in an embassy in Africa or Central Asia who would have a very difficult time getting training in a particular language that they may not be using for that day-to-day job, but that they’ve been trained by the military in and need to sustain. We can very inexpensively get training to them,” explained Colonel Danial Pick, commandant of DLIFLC. “Additionally, it’s especially helpful to reservists and National Guard folks because they don’t need to travel from their home stations and it’s a flexible schedule, so whatever their civilian career is, they can tailor their language instruction around that career and still maintain their skills. DoD civilians can also use the system,” Pick continued. In its first year, BLTS performed approximately 2,500 hours of language training; by 2011 BLTS trained 148 students in 17 languages, totaling over 3,500 hours of instruction.

Classes are conducted both synchronously—where students in different time zones can come together for in virtual class time—and asynchronously, with students completing assignments and leaving them for the instructor to examine. BLTS combines an Internet connection, a software that allows teleconferences, such as Adobe Connect, and a learning system like Blackboard that allows lessons posting, interactive writing online and data and information sharing necessary to conduct the class. For the most part, this software is easily obtainable, but in the instances where a linguist may not have access to it, DLI can arrange to get it to the linguist. “We do everything we can to help the linguists make the connection where there is need. We’re also adapting these technologies to take full advantage of smartphones and iPads for example, so that we make it simpler for linguists to access this training and education,” said Pick.

Language proficiency is not merely nice to have, but an operational imperative in many instances. In a recent trip downrange, Pick was able to assess firsthand the effectiveness of AFPAK Hands (Afghanistan/Pakistan), a program DLIFLC supports with language and culture instruction. Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen established AFPAK Hands in 2009 to provide officers and senior enlisted with language and culture training to facilitate their interaction and relation building with Afghans. Meeting with AFPAK Hands in Kabul, “I was really impressed by the level of language and culture training they had achieved through their initial 16-week intensive language training they received in Washington, D.C., before deploying. I was also able to talk to Hands that were already working and was profoundly struck by the impact the AFPAK Hands are having using their cultural and language training to further our mission in Afghanistan—whether it was working with ministries of interior defense, rural development or out in the field with district development teams and provincial reconstruction teams.” The program has gained high level attention as a critical mission enabler in the region. “General Allen, who recently took command of ISAF from General Petraeus, talked with the AFPAK Hands and put it concisely when he said he had watched Generals McChrystal and Petraeus try to develop key ways of succeeding in Afghanistan. Of the top three programs that he had seen those two general officers develop, AFPAK Hands was one of them,” Pick emphasized. While AFPAK Hands is a limited program, general purpose forces deploying to Afghanistan receive DLIFLC language and culture training at their home bases. “We’re seeing some terrific feedback from commanders who have deployed with this capability, saying that they need more of it and that it is a critical enabler in a counterinsurgency environment,” Pick explained.

Following the Navy SEAL team strike on the Bin Laden compound in Pakistan, the increased use of special operations forces and their advanced skills have attracted significant media attention. Lieutenant Colonel Cody, director of language at the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School (SWCS) Education Group shed light on a different element of their training, emphasizing that Army special operation forces’ (ARSOF) strength is derived in large part from their ability to communicate. “We treat language as a key enabler to allow us to accomplish our mission. When you’re working with other nations, language and cultural understanding provides the key to creating partnerships. We begin to lay the foundation in the school house, when students first arrive at the language school for their respective qualification course, that language—from recruitment to retirement—is lifelong learning. It is as important as physical fitness, selective target engagement or anything an ARSOF soldier is required to do. In ARSOF we communicate first, move second and shoot last. Language is a weapon system,” he explained.

The Special Warfare Education Group (Airborne) at SWCS is working to develop three levels of instruction in 17 of the center’s core languages for special forces, civil affairs and military information support operations. The basic level of instruction embedded into qualification courses aims for soldiers to acquire at least a 1 but has the goal of a 1+ score on the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) for listening and speaking. The top 15 percent of students in the basic language courses then enroll in the intermediate course that aims for students to achieve at least a 2 but has a 2+ as a goal in listening and speaking. The advanced language course is under development and will be designed for soldiers demonstrating the highest aptitude for the language and is designed for them to achieve a 3 in listening, speaking and reading. Explaining the evaluation rating, Cody noted, “OPI focuses on participatory speaking and listening, which is really important for ARSOF. For us, communication is our primary tool to accomplish our missions, and we do that by being able to speak the language of whatever partner nation we engage with. The Defense Language Proficiency Test focuses mostly on reading, writing, speaking and listening; we are heavily focused on speaking and listening in the OPI.”

Sustaining Skills

A challenge with language skills is that if not maintained they risk atrophy. To address this need, DLIFLC has developed sustainment material, which general purpose forces, SOF and professional linguists such as foreign area officers (FAO) and crypto-linguists can download for free. Pick speaks from experience when emphasizing the importance of sustainment and the value of DLIFLC’s resources. “I’m an Arabic speaking FAO and I use DLIFLC sustainment material available online to help sustain my language skills as well,” Pick said. Cody agreed. “What we have learned is that in order to get to the language proficiency that we are achieving is that language must be constantly sustained. This is critical; you can’t just teach it in one phase for 6 or 8 months and then not speak it for months because atrophy normally sets in. We’ve embedded language throughout our qualification courses for our SOF regiments.” ♦

Back to Top