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Defense Language Institute Foreign Language CenterBILC 2008

Colonel Sue Ann Sandusky, USAColonel Sue Ann Sandusky, USACommandant, DLIFLCCommandant, DLIFLC

Presenter: Donald Fischer, PhD Provost, DLIFLCProvost, DLIFLC

Trainers: Educators With an Objective

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Disclaimer

The opinions expressed in this presentation are that of the presenter and do not

necessarily represent the views of the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center; its staff, faculty or

students; the Department of Defense; the United States; and probably the world in

general.

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Educators

• Everyone wants to be an educator, not a trainer• Educators get to teach neat subjects• Educators get to prescribe their curricula• Educators get sabbaticals• Educators get to go to conferences• Educators have great titles• Educators are not generally held accountable by

someone else (unless Ray Clifford is their boss)

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But…

• Trainers also teach for the limited, near and far transfer

– We train how to change oil, clean rifles, et al..– We train non-commissioned and commissioned officers to be

leaders– We train people how to be Chief Executive Officers– We train people to be linguists– We train people to be culturally aware– Trainers work toward automaticity through practice, use of rubrics,

demonstrated competencies

– And trainers are accountable through assessment and evaluation means

• Who would want to be a trainer?

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Training and Education

• What is the difference?• Maybe who is responsible, particularly the

individual’s role, probably degree of accountability

• Maybe Education is our source of values and training forms how we express those values

• Maybe Training is what we do when we want to make sure objectives are achieved…

• Such as teaching language to a high proficiency in a very short time

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Languages Taught

• Cat I, 26 weeks: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French

• Cat II, 36 weeks: German, Indonesian• Cat III, 47 weeks: Russian, Persian-Farsi, Persian-

Afghan (Dari), Pashto, Turkish, Kurmanjae, Sorani, Uzbek, Urdu, Hindi, Thai, Tagalog, Hebrew

• Cat IV, 64 weeks: Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Japanese

• About 55 other low demand languages organized in the National Capital Region through the Foreign Service Institute and various contractors.

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• 0+: Immediate survival needs

• 1: Limited practical capability, simple courtesies and greetings

• 1+: Satisfy limited social situations, can read simple materials, gets some main ideas

• 2: Gets the main idea and most details, able to satisfy routine social and limited working environments

• 2+: Able to satisfy most work requirements, can understand most factual material, capabilities can deteriorate under pressure or in unfamiliar domain areas

• 3: General professional proficiency, able to ‘read between the lines’, can discuss areas of interest and special fields with ease, can accurately follow the conversations of native speakers

Proficiency vs. Time/Difficulty

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The Task

In terms of Interagency Language Roundtable Guidelines:

Moving from 80% 2/2/1+

to achieving 80% 2+/2+/2 in Fiscal Year 2009

with career linguist goal of 3/3/3 and beyond

With no addition to course length

S1S1+

S2

S2+

S3

S4

S5

Examples: Speaking Levels

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• S2: Limited working proficiency, gets the main idea and most details, able to satisfy routine social and limited working environments

Speaking Proficiency Levels

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• Training mentality (defined competencies, measurement of accomplishment)

• Collaboration• Extensive Support and Resources

–Curriculum Innovation–Technology Integration–Reduced Class Size

• Diagnostic Assessment• Formative Testing• Summative Assessment• Teacher and Student Participation and Development• Situated Research/Community of Practice

The How

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• Education is like an integral

• Training leads to the competencies, skills, experiences that are the differentials that make up the integral

• Training consists of skill definition (including higher levels on the Bloom Taxonomy), needs analysis, design, assessment, and evaluation

• DLIFLC output is measured. Leadership, faculty, military service, and students are accountable

• Methods, structure, resources are continually evaluated and made subjects of research

Training Mentality

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Collaboration

• Diverse faculty from everywhere

• Diverse educational backgrounds

• Military command structure

• Union

• Academic Senate

• Academic-Military Task Force

• Military-civilian-student

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Curriculum

• Move from highly structured classes to flexible and creative approaches. Create a high level training and education environment

--Lesson plans--Authentic materials

• Technology--Interactive White Boards--MP3 Devices--Tablet PCs--Commercial software to reflect what is being used in government

agencies--SCOLA--Learning and Knowledge Management Systems

• Emerging connectivity/wireless/Virtual Private Networks• Student Learning Center and Faculty Development• Tailored instruction• 4+2 (Creating learning independently of the prepared curriculum)

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Formative Testing

• ACTFL OPIc (Oral Proficiency Interview, Computerized)

• Computerized telephonic/web-based oral proficiency assessment

• Online Diagnostic Assessment

• Achievement, Prochievement, Proficiency/Competency based testing

• Diagnostic Assessment

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Diagnostic Assessment

• Certified speaking proficiency testers

• Face to Face

• Also over distance modalities

• Pre- and Post- Immersion Assessment

• One teacher per six person team

• Diagnostic Assessment Center in Continuing Education

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Summative Assessment

• Defense Language Proficiency Test (DLPT II, IV, V)– Web delivered reading test—multiple choice,

constructed response – Web delivered listening—multiple choice,

constructed response

• Oral Proficiency Interview—two rater, third rater verification

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• Language Familiarization

• Mobile Training Teams (MTT)• 109 MTT events provided training to 21,704 students• Training events tailored to meet unit and mission requirements

• Language Familiarization Products• About 986,000 Language Survival Kits (LSKs) shipped to field units

• 16 new LSKs developed

• Headstart program available in Iraqi, Pashto, and Dari

DLIFLC Expansion: Support to the Field

Successes

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Teaching culture at DLIFLC

• Initial cultural training received at the Student Learning Center (SLC) prior to class start • 6 hours spent on cultural topics associated with target language

• Area Studies Requirements are met through the DLIFLC developed courses now integrated into the curriculum• 32 hours per semester provided in CAT IV languages• DLPT and Final Learning Objective domains addressed• Topic areas include: Military/Security, Economic/Political, Scientific/

Technical, Cultural/Social, Geography (physical, political, economic)• Outside expert sessions on area studies

• Chaplains’ Corps provides a 6-hour instructional series on the impact of religion on military operations

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Teaching culture at DLIFLC

• Iso-Immersion Field Training Exercise (FTX) participation: Ord Military Community, Seaside, CA• 3,437 students participated in 153 FTX events• FTX length may range from 1 to 5 days• Emphasis on “learning by doing”

• Students are immersed in language and culture• Students required to talk in their target language only and participate in

culture laden activities

• Outside the US immersion experiences• 25 programs conducted in 10 countries• 233 students have participated to date• Promotes increased motivation and awareness as military linguists

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Support to the Field

• Providing Post-Basic proficiency maintenance and enhancement support to the language professional in the field

• Extension Programs: Language Training Detachments (LTDs)• Established at sites with high concentration of language professionals• Seven active Language Training Detachments in CONUS and OCONUS

locations• Over 90 assigned faculty met the training needs of 1,940 students• More than 67,000 instructional hours taught in 15 languages

• Distance Learning• Provided training to 1,258 students through 253 classes• Mobile Training Teams (MTT)• Video Tele-Training (VTT)• Online Learning (OLL)• Broadband Language Training System (BLTS)

Sustainment After the Basic Program

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Research and Evaluation

• Optimum Training Environment– Class size reduction– Use of technology– Teacher behaviors– Student behaviors

• Immersions• Post-basic Curriculum• DLAB-Lite and DLAB II (new apptitude approaches)• Effect of Homework• Machine Translation• Brigham Young/ADL-CoLab evaluation of alternative

approaches to computer analyses of speaking proficiency

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Public Resources

• www.lingnet.org

• Global Language Online Support System• Language Survival Kits• Countries in Perspective• Iraqi, Pashto, Dari HeadStart• Online Diagnostic Assessment (Arabic and Korean, Listening and

Reading; Chinese Reading w/listening under development; Russian Listening and Reading under development)

• Weekly Training Events (Arabic, Korean, Chinese, Russian)• Online Language Courses (Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Persian,

Russian, Serbian Croatian)

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Needed from Educators

• Training in major languages• Training in English usage and writing• Students accustomed to a high standard of

output (as with many non-American students)• Standards/Competency-Based testing to assess

and eventually insure readiness for high-level learning

• Resources in early schooling to match the task

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Are we training or educating?

• A Socratic question, I hope…

• What is the greater good?

• Perhaps a lot of both…

• Most certainly, our students are getting the tools that will help fill up that integral…

• We need some help from the educators

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Omar Khayyam …

“When I was young I did frequent doctors and lawyers and heard

great argument and always came out the same door wherein I

went.”

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Disclaimer

The opinions expressed in this presentation are that of the presenter and do not

necessarily represent the views of the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center; its staff, faculty or

students; the Department of Defense; the United States; and probably the world in

general.

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Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center

Colonel Sue Ann Sandusky, USAColonel Sue Ann Sandusky, USACommandant, DLIFLCCommandant, DLIFLC

Presenter: Donald Fischer, PhD Provost, DLIFLCProvost, DLIFLC

Achieving Production and Proficiency in the Less Commonly Taught Languages