interagency language roundtable ray t. clifford 23 may 2003

Interagency Language

Roundtable

Ray T. Clifford

23 May 2003

Topical Overview

• Is language adequate for human communication?

• Why aren’t foreign languages required subjects in U.S. schools?

• Why is there a Defense Language Institute?

• How can U.S. language schools respond to changing national needs?

The U.S. Language Challenge

• For most Americans, language, like the air they breath, is not noticed until there is something wrong with it.

• Therefore, other’s mistakes in English may be useful in raising the awareness of others.

Sign in Moscow Hotel

If this is your first visit to Moscow, you are welcome to it.

Hong Kong Tailor Shop

Ladies may have

a fit upstairs.

Instructions for Thermostatin Japanese Hotel

Cooles and Heates: If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself.

Cocktail Lounge in Norway

Ladies are requested not to have children

in the bar.

Test of Reading Comprehension;a Newspaper Headline

IRAQI HEAD SEEKS ARMS

Test of Reading Comprehension;a Newspaper Headline

DRUNK GETS

NINE MONTHS IN VIOLIN CASE

Test of Reading Comprehension;a Newspaper Headline

JUVENILE COURT TO TRY SHOOTING

DEFENDANT

Test of Reading Comprehension;a Newspaper Headline

MINERS REFUSE TO WORK AFTER

DEATH

Test of Reading Comprehension;a Newspaper Headline

Young Marines Make

Tasty Holiday Treats

A Century of Language Teaching in U.S. Schools

A Brief History

• WWI created a distrust of things foreign, including foreign languages.– Foreign language enrollments plummeted– States passed laws restricting foreign language

teaching

A Brief History

• 1923: The Supreme Court overturned laws in twenty-two states that restricted FL instruction.– Societal attitudes didn’t change– Enrollments remained low

A Brief History

• 1940: The national report, What the High Schools Ought to Teach, concluded– The overly “academic” curriculum in high

schools was causing too many student failures. – FL instruction was among the subjects

recommended for elimination. – FLs were not only difficult, but they took so

much time that new courses could not be added.

A Brief History

• 1954: The National Interest and Foreign Languages reported– Only 14% of high school students were

studying foreign languages.– Most U.S. public high schools (56%) offered

no foreign language instruction at all.

A Brief History

• 1958: In response to Sputnik, the National Defense Education Act was passed to prepare more and better Foreign Language teachers.– Immediate improvements were evident.– Then funding waned, and progress ceased.

A Brief History

• 1975: The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement published the results of a study titled, The Teaching of French as a Foreign Language in Eight Countries.– In the U.S., the researchers could not find enough 12th

grade students with four years of language study to complete the study as designed

– The U.S. students ranked last in competence.– The study found that “…the primary factor in the

attainment of proficiency in …any foreign language… is the amount of instructional time provided.”

A Brief History

• 1979: The President’s commission on Foreign Language and International Studies reported,

“Americans’ incompetence in Foreign Languages is nothing short of scandalous, and it is becoming worse.”

A Brief History

• 1983: In A Nation at Risk, the Commission on Excellence in Education– Heard testimony that in the U.S., FL instruction

had yet to attain mediocrity. – Recommended longer course sequences.

A Brief History

• 1999: A senior DOD official summarized the situation with the statement, – “We face a number of challenges in meeting the

immediate and long-range language needs in the Department of Defense …”

– “Perhaps the greatest challenge we face is the general apathy toward learning foreign languages.”

Limited Experience Leads to Naiveté

• The general public believes:

– Every English word has an exact match in the second language.

– Second language learning is simply a

re-lexification process.

– High levels of language competence can be attained in two years of school classes.

Limited Experience Leads to Naiveté

• Even teachers often believe:

– Students’ failure to attain meaningful levels of proficiency is solely the result of poor teaching.

– There is a single, best teaching method.

The Reality of FL Learning

• “Time on Task,” not teaching method, is the best predictor of success in second language learning.

• Of course, how that time is spent does make a difference.

• Nothing clarifies the debate about teaching methods like a definition of goals.

Proficiency Level Summary

5

LEVEL FUNCTION/TASKS CONTEXT/TOPICS ACCURACY

4

3

2

1

0

All expected of an educated NS

All subjects Accepted as an educated NS

Tailor language, counsel, motivate, persuade, negotiate

Wide range of professional needs

Extensive, precise, and appropriate

Support opinions, hypothesize, explain, deal with unfamiliar topics

Practical, abstract, special interests

Narrate, describe, give directions Concrete, real-world, factual

Intelligible even if not used to dealing

with non-NS

Errors never interfere with

communication & rarely disturb

Q & A, create with the language Everyday survivalIntelligible with

effort or practice

Memorized Random Unintelligible

Bloom’s Taxonomy• Evaluation and persuasion through refined use of

professional, literary, and rhetorical skills.• Synthesis of concepts to produce and comprehend

abstract ideas and hypothetical situations.• Analysis and definition of factual relationships in

paragraph length communications.• Application of skills to create and understand new

communications.• Comprehension and use of words and phrases.• Memorization of facts.

Language and Cognition• Levels 4 & 5, evaluation and persuasion through

refined use of professional rhetorical skills.• Level 3, synthesis of ideas to produce and

comprehend abstract comments and hypothetical situations expressed in essays, chapters, etc.

• Level 2, analysis and definition of relationships expressed in multiple interrelated paragraphs.

• Level 1, application of skills to create and understand sentence length communications.

• Level 0+, comprehension and use of words and phrases.

• Level 0, memorization of facts.

Why is there a Defense Language Institute?

Viewed from the outside, one sees that the Defense Language Institute . . .

• Is the world’s largest language school.• Employs more than 1,000 full-time

faculty.• Teaches more than 600,000 class

hours and 5,000,000 student hours every year.

• Is accredited by WASC as a degree-granting, Junior College teaching upper division courses.

Viewed from the inside, DLI is an Institute that. . .

• Promotes good teaching.• Knows the importance of

professional faculty.• Focuses on students and their

learning.• Has a culture of accountability with

defined learning outcomes, data collection, and data-driven innovations.

Innovations

• Team Teaching– Student focused instruction– Accountability for student results

• Faculty Personnel System– Rewards accountability for student outcomes– Pay increases only through merit pay– Competitive rank advancement procedures

• Technology Enhanced Classrooms– Enhances rather than replaces teachers

“What I’m describing might be called the New American College, an institution that celebrates teaching and selectively supports research, while also taking special pride in its capacity to connect thought to action, theory to practice.”

Ernest L. BoyerThe Chronicle of Higher EducationPage A48, March 9, 1994

We believe our real-world approach to education qualifies us for the label,

The New American College:

So Why Is DLI Needed?

• The rest of the world doesn’t speak English -- especially when they are communicating with each other about us.

• The U.S. educational system does not graduate individuals with skills in the languages needed by DoD.

Annual Number of Graduates(Data Source: IPEDS)

Total U.S. DLILanguage BA Degrees GradsArabic 6 366 Chinese 183 182Farsi 0 97Korean 8 266Russian 339 271

How can U.S. language schools respond to changing

national needs?

A Proposed Process

• Establish a list of commonly requested language services.

• Define Levels of Support for those services.

• Group languages by the level of support needed.

Frequently Requested Language Services

• Proficiency and performance testing

• Instruction

• Curriculum design and development

• Diagnostic skill assessment

• Translation or interpretation

• Research and linguistic analysis

How Much Support is Enough?

“You have plenty of moneyto do your assigned missions.”

Les Ismore, DoD Comptroller

“Sure, we can do anything . . .but not everything at once!”

I. M. Trying, Program Director

4 Levels of Language Service Capabilities

1. Provide all language services concurrently.

2. Provide multiple services, but not all services at the same time.

3. Create a minimum contingency capability by offering proficiency assessment and occasional instructional services.

4. Maintain a list of candidate languages for potential addition to the capability levels of 1, 2, or 3.

Language Service Capabilities:Capability Level 1

• Provide all language services concurrently.– Language programs in this group can support all 6

priority services at the same time.

– Requires a minimum of one or more language departments (18 or more faculty).

– Historical demand has justified maintaining about 0.1% (6 or 7) of the world’s languages at this level.

Language Service Capabilities:Capability Level 2

• Provide multiple concurrent services, but not all services at once.

– Language programs in this group can support 3 or more language services at the same time.

– Requires one or more teams, (6 to 17 total faculty).

– Historical demand has justified maintaining about 0.4% (25 to 30) of the world’s languages at this level.

Language Service Capabilities:Capability Level 3

• Create a minimum contingency capability by offering proficiency assessment and occasional instructional services. – Maintain the assessment capabilities necessary for

quality control of contract programs and for rapid selection of government personnel if demand increases.

– Requires a small staff of assessment and instructional experts, who identify, train, certify, and maintain cells of language testing and teaching capability in non-school government jobs, academe, and NGOs.

– World situation indicates a limited, but ongoing demand for this level of support in about 1.5% (approximately 100) of the worlds languages.

Language Service Capabilities:Capability Level 4

• Maintain a list of “candidate languages.”– Regularly review the rest of the world’s languages

and identify those that are candidates for promotion to Level 3.

– Requires 2 to 4 linguists to • convene working groups of defense planners, intelligence

analysts, and homeland security specialists to identify the languages of potential interest.

• Compile information about those languages, including sources of expertise.

– Experience suggests that no more than 1% of the world’s languages (about 65) would be included in this level at any one time.

Benefits of aResource Allocation Model

• Identifies and focuses resources on the 3% (about 200) of the world’s languages of greatest interest.

• Distributes available resources across languages based on national security and defense planning guidance priorities.

• Creates a rapid response capability to handle emerging requirements in other languages.

• Establishes a classification taxonomy that should enhance communications between schools and customers.

Questions?

Thank you.