DOD Kicks Off Program To Recruit, Train Critical Language Speakers
Inside The Pentagon
December 15, 2005
The Defense Department last week launched a program that would help native speakers of languages deemed critical to national security acquire English proficiency so they may “effectively” function in federal government or private-sector positions, project officials tell Inside the Pentagon.
Under the “English for Heritage Language Speakers” (EHLS) program, participants will partake in a six-month, 720-hour intensive course designed to raise English language skills, while familiarizing students with the federal government’s use of language, Kevin Gormley told ITP Dec. 12.
Gormley is a program officer with the National Defense University-based National Security Education Program, which is managing the new effort.
NSEP offers scholarships and grants to students and universities focused on languages and cultures less commonly taught but considered crucial to protecting the United States from today’s threats. The defense secretary sets NSEP policy in consultation with a 13-member National Security Education Board.
Although there is no cap on the amount of students who may be accepted at this stage, nearly 30 scholarships will be awarded to U.S. citizens who agree to make a “good faith effort” to find work with the federal government, a move that could include many DOD positions ranging from translators to interrogators to military liaison officers, a feasibility report on the pilot program states.
The program’s first session, which kicks off in March, will focus on bolstering the English language skills of native Arabic, Russian and Chinese speakers. All these language groups will be represented in the program at the University of Washington in Seattle, while only those who speak Arabic will be at Washington’s Georgetown University, Gormley said.
Funding for the project became available with money in the fiscal year 2005 Defense Appropriations Act, and officials expect it will receive $2 million a year, Gormley said. The funds are dispersed from the Intelligence Community Management Account.
In a way, EHLS is a departure for NSEP, which usually provides grants for native English speakers to learn foreign languages. The new program is one of DOD’s attempts to tap into an existing pool of language experts in the United States.
A heritage language is the first language a person learns or the predominate language spoken during someone’s childhood, said Deborah Kennedy, EHLS program manager at the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL), the organization contracted to administer the program.
Partnering universities are reaching out to community centers to attract heritage language speakers with fluency in their language and some knowledge of English, Gormley said. Many of the applicants may be “under employed” persons who have advanced degrees but because of their weakness in English may have not advanced professionally in the United States, he added.
The intensive course will use “authentic materials” like memos, reports, terminology, mannerisms and acronyms that articulate the culture and language of the federal government and especially the Defense Department, Gormley said.
As part of the program’s feasibility study, CAL surveyed 12 military organizations that indicated Arabic, Persian, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Pashto, Urdu and Korean as the most critical languages for national security interests. The same respondents listed translation, interpretation, conversation, presentations and reading as the primary work-related purposes for non-native English speakers currently on staff and highlighted writing as the weakest skill.
Language activities at Defense Department organizations range from data interpretation, listening and reading news sources, reconnaissance work, and speaking to elicit information, according to the surveyed respondents.
Gormley and the feasibility report also noted the importance of acclimating students to military mannerisms such as joint military terms, acronyms and concepts, so they may become familiar with military culture.
“Each job skill has a different set of requirements,” the report notes. “Collection involves listening and speaking; analytical work mostly involves reading and understanding. Either way, the linguist must be able to write a report in English that effectively conveys the information.”
A goal of the program is to recruit and train more language specialists who can meet the government’s Interagency Language Roundtable scale, a one- to five-level metric used to measure language proficiency. Under EHLS, applicants must be at level three proficiency for their native language and at least at level two in English.
The increased proficiency level, Gormley says, is an attempt to employ speakers with a heightened grasp of both their native and non-native languages to discern and relay subtleties in communications, he added.
The program, which has “no slated sunset day,” may run into challenges while recruiting and attempting to hire graduates, the feasibility report states.
“Participants are likely to be immigrants who came to the United States as adults,” it states. “Many of them will have difficultly obtaining security clearances, which will limit their ability to fulfill the federal service requirement.”
Slimming the pool further is the requirement mandating all scholarship applicants to be U.S. citizens, which reduces the program’s ability to recruit current graduate students, the report states.
In addition, it acknowledges that many adults may not be able to participate full time for a six-month period or support themselves and their families while in the program.
Despite the obstacles, EHLS is consistent with DOD’s language transformation roadmap, and is a result of post-9/11 discussions on the need for Americans to have a higher level of understanding of different languages and cultures, Gormley said.
In February, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz approved the new “Defense Language Transformation Roadmap,” a 19-page plan to overhaul military policy, doctrine and organizations to improve the diversity of foreign languages spoken in the armed forces (ITP, March 10, p1).
U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq “reinforce the reality that the Department of Defense needs a significantly improved organic capability in emerging languages and dialects, and a greater competence and regional area skills in those languages and dialects, and a surge capability to rapidly expand its language capabilities on short notice,” the document states.
December 15, 2005
The Defense Department last week launched a program that would help native speakers of languages deemed critical to national security acquire English proficiency so they may “effectively” function in federal government or private-sector positions, project officials tell Inside the Pentagon.
Under the “English for Heritage Language Speakers” (EHLS) program, participants will partake in a six-month, 720-hour intensive course designed to raise English language skills, while familiarizing students with the federal government’s use of language, Kevin Gormley told ITP Dec. 12.
Gormley is a program officer with the National Defense University-based National Security Education Program, which is managing the new effort.
NSEP offers scholarships and grants to students and universities focused on languages and cultures less commonly taught but considered crucial to protecting the United States from today’s threats. The defense secretary sets NSEP policy in consultation with a 13-member National Security Education Board.
Although there is no cap on the amount of students who may be accepted at this stage, nearly 30 scholarships will be awarded to U.S. citizens who agree to make a “good faith effort” to find work with the federal government, a move that could include many DOD positions ranging from translators to interrogators to military liaison officers, a feasibility report on the pilot program states.
The program’s first session, which kicks off in March, will focus on bolstering the English language skills of native Arabic, Russian and Chinese speakers. All these language groups will be represented in the program at the University of Washington in Seattle, while only those who speak Arabic will be at Washington’s Georgetown University, Gormley said.
Funding for the project became available with money in the fiscal year 2005 Defense Appropriations Act, and officials expect it will receive $2 million a year, Gormley said. The funds are dispersed from the Intelligence Community Management Account.
In a way, EHLS is a departure for NSEP, which usually provides grants for native English speakers to learn foreign languages. The new program is one of DOD’s attempts to tap into an existing pool of language experts in the United States.
A heritage language is the first language a person learns or the predominate language spoken during someone’s childhood, said Deborah Kennedy, EHLS program manager at the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL), the organization contracted to administer the program.
Partnering universities are reaching out to community centers to attract heritage language speakers with fluency in their language and some knowledge of English, Gormley said. Many of the applicants may be “under employed” persons who have advanced degrees but because of their weakness in English may have not advanced professionally in the United States, he added.
The intensive course will use “authentic materials” like memos, reports, terminology, mannerisms and acronyms that articulate the culture and language of the federal government and especially the Defense Department, Gormley said.
As part of the program’s feasibility study, CAL surveyed 12 military organizations that indicated Arabic, Persian, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Pashto, Urdu and Korean as the most critical languages for national security interests. The same respondents listed translation, interpretation, conversation, presentations and reading as the primary work-related purposes for non-native English speakers currently on staff and highlighted writing as the weakest skill.
Language activities at Defense Department organizations range from data interpretation, listening and reading news sources, reconnaissance work, and speaking to elicit information, according to the surveyed respondents.
Gormley and the feasibility report also noted the importance of acclimating students to military mannerisms such as joint military terms, acronyms and concepts, so they may become familiar with military culture.
“Each job skill has a different set of requirements,” the report notes. “Collection involves listening and speaking; analytical work mostly involves reading and understanding. Either way, the linguist must be able to write a report in English that effectively conveys the information.”
A goal of the program is to recruit and train more language specialists who can meet the government’s Interagency Language Roundtable scale, a one- to five-level metric used to measure language proficiency. Under EHLS, applicants must be at level three proficiency for their native language and at least at level two in English.
The increased proficiency level, Gormley says, is an attempt to employ speakers with a heightened grasp of both their native and non-native languages to discern and relay subtleties in communications, he added.
The program, which has “no slated sunset day,” may run into challenges while recruiting and attempting to hire graduates, the feasibility report states.
“Participants are likely to be immigrants who came to the United States as adults,” it states. “Many of them will have difficultly obtaining security clearances, which will limit their ability to fulfill the federal service requirement.”
Slimming the pool further is the requirement mandating all scholarship applicants to be U.S. citizens, which reduces the program’s ability to recruit current graduate students, the report states.
In addition, it acknowledges that many adults may not be able to participate full time for a six-month period or support themselves and their families while in the program.
Despite the obstacles, EHLS is consistent with DOD’s language transformation roadmap, and is a result of post-9/11 discussions on the need for Americans to have a higher level of understanding of different languages and cultures, Gormley said.
In February, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz approved the new “Defense Language Transformation Roadmap,” a 19-page plan to overhaul military policy, doctrine and organizations to improve the diversity of foreign languages spoken in the armed forces (ITP, March 10, p1).
U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq “reinforce the reality that the Department of Defense needs a significantly improved organic capability in emerging languages and dialects, and a greater competence and regional area skills in those languages and dialects, and a surge capability to rapidly expand its language capabilities on short notice,” the document states.
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 2:07 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home