Middle East Language Learning after 9/11: “Needs” and Challenges

Elizabeth A. Anderson, American University Jeremy Browne, State University of New York, Brockport

“Need” for Language Specialists

Prior to 9/11: “readiness level was only 30 percent when it came to the ability to translate languages used by terrorists.”[1]

Recent Iraq Study Group report that found out of 1,000 personnel at the US Embassy in Baghdad, 31 spoke Arabic and only six of these spoke it fluently.[2]

“Student who speak a second language have a leg-up on everyone else.” (Albright, 2009)

Purpose

Examine the disconnection between the federal government’s “need” for Middle East

specialists and… the ability of Title VI Middle East Study Centers to

produce competent language specialists

Data and Methods

Qualitative and quantitative data6 Middle East Study Centers

74 interviews and focus groups

EELIAS database FOIA-requested early 2006

SSRC Survey of NRC graduate students N=238

Four Challenges: #1

University structures hinder the development of competent language

Length of MA programs Unrealistic expectations

2 years = ?

An Associate Director: students do not have enough time “to think deeply and thoughtfully about issues.”

Graduate requirements: One center requires a “reading and speaking competency.”

Four Challenges: #2

Some disciplines discourage advanced language learning“Trends” within disciplinesField work is a disadvantage

“Trends”

“Now the disciplines in the social sciences have, as I say, have drifted into a very scientific definition of their purposes and their standards. Which means two things: One is that there is no reward to doing work that is out in the field when basically our definition of science tends to be numbers. And there is a disincentive to working with what those scientists would call dirty data sets - that is to say that if you go off into the field and realize that the numbers are bad, what are you going to do? So, why should you bother doing that kind of work at all.”

Disadvantage

Foreign language not required: “the study of statistics [is] a foreign language”

Extends length of PhD Graduate student advisor: “Nobody cares

about area studies”

Four Challenges: #3

Attrition is negating most of the increased interest in ArabicDifficult to learnNecessity of study abroad/immersion

An Assistant Director:

“ I don't think the folks in the academy have been very forthcoming in really making sure that the government understands that you do not produce someone who is fluent in Arabic in 2 years. It just doesn’t happen…I mean at the end of couple of years of language training at Middlebury, they have the polished speaking skills of an Egyptian 3rd grader but they can't read. It is a real problem and something that we grapple with here everyday...”

Four Challenges: #4

Inadequate recognition of language instructorsInability to keep up with demandInsufficient response

Director of Language Study:

“After 9/11….only noticeable change is the quintupling of Arabic language classes. Thirty years [ago] in 1975, we only had one section of first year and one section of second year. Now we have five sections of first year and four sections of second year, and two sections of third year.”

Conclusions

More realistic expectations Re-think language learning With “internationalization” efforts, make

language learning a priority Sustained support

EELIAS

I heard a nasty rumor…Someone said I had created EELIAS.

I support purposeful and effective data gathering.“Ask not what would be interesting to know,

but what you would do if you knew it.” (Browne, IEPS Workshop, 2007)

EELIAS

Massive database Purpose: Report Title VI activities to program

officers It does this well.

Many issuesCumbersome data-retention requirementsLimited utility for research

Still an authoritative source of data (if you can dig it out).

Four Challenges #1 & #2

University structures hinder the development of competent linguists at the M.A. level

Disciplines that discourage language EELIAS can neither confirm nor deny

these findings.

Four Challenges: #3

Attrition is negating much of the increased interest in Arabic.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

y1 y2 y3 y4

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

Average cohort enrollments by level and year

Average cohort enrollments by level and year

Four Challenges: #4

Inadequate Recognition of Arabic teachers“The only thing that’s changed is demand.”Demand changes everything.

EELIAS Data

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

2001 2002 2003 2004

Lecturer

TeachingAssistant

Tenure-eligible

Tenured

Arabic instructor rank

How is this related to past demand?

How is this related to future demand?

NMELRC Data (used with permission)

Demand continues to increase

NMELRC Data (used with permission)

Only 47% of Arabic instructors would recommend language teaching as a profession to their students.57% of Assistant Professors 64% of Associate Professors 50% of Full Professors

39% of Lecturers Currently filling the need44% of Senior Lecturers

Four Challenges: #4

Inadequate Recognition of Arabic teachersMost Arabic language courses are taught

by lecturers.Lecturers do not beget other lecturers.We could be in for a rude “second-wave”

shortage.

References

1. National Research Council. International Education and Foreign Languages: Keys to Securing America’s Future, Committee to Review the Title VI and Fulbright-Hays International Education Programs, M.E. O’Connell and J. L. Norwood (eds.). Center for Education, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington D.C.: The National Academy Press, 2007, pg. 47.

2. Ibid., pg. 52.