How to Invest in Language Training

After September 11th, the US military recognized its dire need for speakers of "strategic languages" like Arabic and Chinese. Very few members of the Armed Forces speak these languages; of those who do, many can't speak them well. Arabic has a particular problem. Most American students of Arabic study the formal Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and not the wildly different dialects spoken across the Arab world. Linguists who score top marks on the DLPT can't necessarily communicate with Arab people on the street. The DOD met its shortfall by offering extraordinary tax-free salaries to civilian translators. It also developed long-range strategies to develop its capacity for languages. Speaking solely from the perspective of an Arabic student, I'm not convinced that these measures are enough.

The military offers three general ways (that I've found) to learn a language: (1) enlist as a linguist and attend the Defense Language Institute (DLI) (2) learn on your own, aided by resources the DOD provides (3) for officers, get picked up for FAO/IAS or an international exchange program during Intermediate Developmental Education (IDE).

LINGUISTS: Linguists perform vital functions in the military, but they will not meet the military's foreign language needs on their own. Linguists perform specialized functions like listening to and translating intercepted signals. The DLI is built around this framework. Students focus almost exclusively on reading and listening; they spend comparatively little time speaking, and the current curriculum contains almost no dialect training. This is an endlessly frustrating to a class of officers like myself, who will live in Arabic countries and want to communicate with the local people. From everything I've seen as a dedicated student of Arabic, the military provides almost no resources or training to build this kind of capacity in its officer corps.

LEARN ON YOUR OWN: The military is going to great lengths to encourage its members to learn languages on their own. They offer generous monthly bonuses for high-level speakers of strategic languages, they are adding language components to intermediate schools like Air Command & Staff College, and there is even discussion about making language proficiency a requirement for promotion to flag officer. The problem is that the military provides virtually no support to students who want to learn a strategic language. The military's standard solution is to buy Rosetta Stone licenses to offer DOD members. I wish to make this abundantly clear, as a diligent and highly motivated student who spent three years trying to learn Arabic on his own: Rosetta Stone is NOT an adequate resource to learn a language. It can be an asset, but it is not a comprehensive learning program, especially for difficult languages with non-Latin alphabets. I will happily write an entire post about this in the future. After trying and giving up on Rosetta Stone, I spent hundreds of dollars on books and CDs, looking for the best resources. Some of these were helpful, but Arabic simply proved too difficult to learn on my own. I developed a strong foundation, but I ultimately decided to compete for an Olmsted Scholarship--the only way I saw that I could possibly learn Arabic.

FAO/IAS/FOREIGN IDE PROGRAMS: The military allows some officers to become Foreign Area Officers/International Affairs Specialists. It also offers a few academic study programs in foreign universities and military schools. If an officer gets selected, he or she has the opportunity to study the required language at DLI prior to moving overseas. These are excellent programs, but they are extremely competitive and are available only to a handful of officers. Also, due to institutional culture in the military, these tracks are often viewed as "career killers." In my view, these are the single best option for developing the foreign language capacity of the officer corps.

One problem--with all three of these options--is that learning a strategic language takes an incredible amount of time. I have been studying Arabic at one of the top language schools in the world for six straight months now. I'm near the top of my class and am scoring excellent marks on tests, but I can still barely function in the language. I expect to learn a lot during my remaining my months at DLI, but not enough to be fluent. I can only hope that after two further years in Jordan I will be close to fluent. But if it takes three years for a highly motivated officer to really learn Arabic, after intensively studying for a year at DLI and spending two years immersed, what hope is there for building the capacity of the military at large?

SOME IDEAS ON SOLUTIONS

I can only throw out a few ideas here, because I'm treading above my pay grade. These are based entirely on my own experience as a student of Arabic.

SHIFT FROM ROSETTA STONE TO PIMSLEUR. The military's primary offering to language students should not be Rosetta Stone; it should be Pimsleur audio CDs. Spend ten hours with Rosetta Stone, and you'll know phrases like "the horse jumped over the fence." Spend ten hours with Pimsleur, and you'll know--confidently--how to exchange greetings, ask the locations of landmarks, and order food. These CDs are widely respected among language students, and they use a methodology that's fun, effective, and that emphasizes speaking.

FOR INDEPENDENT LEARNERS, THE GOAL SHOULD BE TO BECOME CONVERSATIONAL--NOT FLUENT. AT LEAST AT FIRST. If officers are studying a strategic language for one year at their IDE school, they will not become fluent and shouldn't be expected to. Instead, they should learn how to converse. These officers will not be able to watch and understand Al Jazeera, but they could probably hold a brief conversation with visiting officers from Jordan or Egypt--winning respect and strengthening alliances. Preparing officers for these encounters should be the goal in time-limited language programs. Again, this means shifting from Rosetta Stone to Pimsleur. It also means giving giving students the opportunity to converse with native speakers.

MAKE PRIVATE TUTORING AVAILABLE TO EVERY OFFICER. I have no idea how this could actually be implemented, but I believe it's essential to build language capacity outside DLI. I'd love to see the military build up a program, where the military would match self-motivated students with native speaker tutors and then foot the bill. The Tuition Assistance program currently allows officers to use government money to enroll in language training, but I believe this must be for accredited courses working towards a foreign language degree. It's too inflexible for officers who want private tutoring and who are frequently deployed.

BREAK LANGUAGE LEARNING INTO MILESTONES, AND INCENTIVIZE THEM. Right now, the military has only one metric to measure language ability: the Defense Language Proficiency Test (DLPT), which rates Listening and Reading ability on a 0-3 scale. This test is WAY too hard for beginning students. A student who has been studying Arabic for 3-4 months might get a handful of questions right, but then he must slog through hours of difficult authentic material that he won't have a chance with. There's no reason to subject a new student to a test that is so discouraging and so far above his level. I believe the military should create a series of "milestone" tests for early learners, and should incentivize results. For example, the first milestone in Arabic is learning the alphabet. Perhaps the military could institute an alphabet test. An independent learner who masters the alphabet and passes the test should be able to claim the achievement on his Performance Report. As students cross more and more milestones, perhaps more resources, funding, and school opportunities would be "unlocked." This would give students a sense of accomplishment, encourage them to stick with the language, and reward progress. It would also separate those who are serious about language from those who aren't--and allocate the best and most expensive resources to those students who have proved their sincerity.

REWARD LANGUAGE TRAINING IN COLLEGE. This idea didn't occur to me until I saw it in the headlines yesterday. ROTC is now offering incentive pay to students who enroll in strategic languages. I like the idea. Learning a strategic language takes years, but an officer's career is so crammed full of schools and assignments and deployments that it's difficult to work in language training. What better opportunity to learn the language than in college?

DEVOTE MORE TIME IN AN OFFICER'S CAREER TO FULL-TIME LANGUAGE STUDY. I know. I'm dreaming. Language & Culture advocates have been saying this for decades, but the institution never learns or remembers. Still, I'll just say this: I spent years learning to fly airplanes. Sailplanes at the Academy, Cessnas, trainer aircraft in Undergraduate Pilot Training, and multiple schools for the C-17. An operational pilot also spends much of the time training, keeping his or her skills sharp. But when it comes to language--a skill that is far more difficult than flying airplanes, and just as important to the effectiveness of our military and national objectives--the training pipeline is short, and officers who learn strategic languages have few opportunities to advance or refresh their skills. Until that changes, the DOD will always be behind on strategic languages.