Air Force Language Training: What Works and What Doesn't

Anyone interested in language training programs in the US military needs to read The Dilemmas of Providing Language Instruction for the US Air Force in the issue of Air & Space Power Journal released today. The article was written by Lt Col Jay Warwick (retired), the deputy director for education and training at the Air Force Culture & Language Center at Maxwell AFB. It assesses the language training problem the Air Force faces, lessons learned from Air University's attempts to integrate language education, and recommendations for the future.

For years I've been baffled by the military's half-hearted strategies for teaching language. I've ranted to anyone who will listen about why Rosetta Stone is a terrible standalone program for learning a foreign language. Rosetta Stone's widespread utility has for more to do with a slick marketing than its utility for actually learning languages. Essentially, Rosetta Stone sells a myth: you can buy a single piece of software (with no grammar required and with convenient bulk licenses for government agencies) to do the hard work of teaching people to communicate with other human beings in a foreign language.

In this article I found the statistic I needed to back up my soapbox rantings: of the 2,677 students at Squadron Officer College who applied for Rosetta Stone licenses, only 67 (2.5%) completed more than 50 hours of instruction. I haven't seen statistics for licenses available to the broader Air Force, but I suspect the completion rate is even lower. Meanwhile, Rosetta Stone is reaping some hefty rewards. In 2007 the Army signed a $4.2 million renewal contract for its licenses. According to this glowing article, we find that Army soldiers have completed 500,000 hours of instruction between September 2005 and October 2007 and 4,000 new soldiers sign up every month. Sounds good at first, but wait... if student enrollment is anything close to 4000/month then 500,000 hours doesn't go so far. Is this worth $4.2 million?

I was also perplexed when Air Command and Staff College began mandating language training for its students. I was glad to see the Air Force taking language seriously, but was skeptical that officers could learn sufficient language with a year of part-time study to be useful--especially given that the primary means of instruction was Rosetta Stone. The feedback I heard from colleagues at ACSC was overwhelmingly negative.

The good news is that Air University has paid close attention to what works and what doesn't, and they've come to the same conclusions. They've identified Rosetta Stone as a weak tool; they've also realized how beneficial it is to have face-to-face instruction with native speakers. They are shifting ACSC away from formal language training; instead they are focusing on cross-cultural competence and language familiarization. They also recognize that language training is a "career-long, progressive language-learning journey" that should begin early in an officer's career. The recommendations in this paper reflect that.

Learning a foreign language is extremely difficult. Developing adequate programs to develop foreign language capabilities across the US military is even more difficult. Because it takes years of dedicated study to develop foreign language proficiency, language training programs demand leadership from the very top. Lt. Col. Warwick argues we can only enact a comprehensive language learning program "if senior leadership makes a commitment to follow through on bringing all the working parts together—education and training, policy, and the personnel system."

Will this happen? I certainly hope so.