The ultimate solution to the foreign language deficit in the United States

DISAM Journal, April, 2007 by Thomas Molloy

Statement of Problem

In the 11 October 2006 edition of the Washington Post, some five years after September 11, 2001 there was an article about the Federal Bureau of Investigation's lack of ability to cope with tasks requiring Arabic language because of a lack of Arabic speakers. On December 7, 2006 the Cable News Network reported that only six Americans at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad were fluent in Arabic and added that the training of Iraqi personnel was faltering because of a severe shortage of interpreters. If you read between the lines of the September 11, 2001 Commission Report, the September 11, 2001 tragedy might have been averted had there been enough Arabic linguists to listen to all of the flagged conversations between suspected terrorists. Just go to any browser and key in "Lack of Arabic speakers" or a similar phrase and you can read numerous articles about the lack of qualified Arabic linguists in U.S. government agencies. Of course, Arabic is just one of those critical languages for which there is a shortage of linguists. Reportedly, various U.S. government agencies cannot cope with the demand for personnel proficient in such "exotic" languages as Arabic, Farsi, Dari, Tajik and Uzbek. I suspect that there are recordings of suspicious conversations that are not being listened to on a timely basis because of a lack of qualified linguists.

To a layman, who has never had any affiliation with the intel or security business, it is astonishing and downright frightening that The U.S. government does not have a sufficient cadre of linguists. Judging from the pitiful state of foreign language training (FLT) in our schools and colleges, one would never guess that the foreign language deficit (FLD) is a source of great peril for our country. In general, compared to many other countries, the expectations of students in high school or university language programs are low and fluency is not demanded. I learned from reading spy novels that most of the people in the world who want to harm us do not conspire against us in English. It behooves us to understand what they are saying to one another.

United States Government Foreign Language Training Resources

One interesting initiative is the National Security Language Initiative. There is a fact sheet about this initiative in the DISAM Journal, Winter 2006, page 115. The purpose of this multifaceted initiative is to strengthen national security by providing money to train Americans in critical languages such as Arabic and Farsi.

It appears to me that the structure of this initiative is flawed. I believe it leaves open the possibility that many students will take courses in these critical languages, but few will study long enough (six to eight years) to achieve a high level of proficiency. Undoubtedly, students who study two or three years of Arabic will derive educational benefit, but the purpose of this initiative is not to educate students; it is to reduce the FLD. For example, one leg of the initiative calls for providing resources for 400 high school students and 400 teachers in five states in 2007 and up to 3000 students and 3000 teachers by 2011 in additional states. At first blush, these are impressive numbers, but I predict that, whatever, the results of this allocation of resources, there will be very little impact on the FLD.

In the Winter 2006 issue of the DISAM Journal, I presented guidelines for the allocation of resources for language training. I have not seen this initiative before I wrote the article. This initiative appears to be a text book case of what not to do. One of the guidelines I set forth with respect to FLT is: "Don't give a little, if you won't give a lot." That is to say, training individuals to a low level of proficiency is futile unless they continue to study the language and achieve a high level of proficiency. To the degree that the following conditions are met, the high school FLT program will be successful:

* Only academically gifted students with a high level of language aptitude should be admitted into the program

* High standards must be established and maintained

* Students who fail to meet the standards should be eliminated from the FLT program

* High school students should study the language for four years

* Courses should be a minimum of 5 hours per week

After four years of high school FLT, the students should achieve a minimum Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) of 2. Detailed information about the OPI is on the DLIELC web site: http://www.dielc.org/. Click on "testing" and then click on OPI

* There should be a mechanism for those who meet the OPI requirement to continue study on the college level

* After four years of college study, students should achieve a minimum OPI of 3

* An individual who achieves an OPI of 3 is on the threshold of high proficiency

I may be selling the managers of this initiative short, but I have evaluated language training programs all over the world and I smell a rat. Foreign countries have launched similar initiatives to train their personnel in English and had poor results. There is simply no room in this article for me to point out all of the apparent inefficiencies in this initiative. I would suggest that those who implement the various legs of this initiative contact Defense Language Institute English Language Center (DLIELC) or Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC) for assistance and read the following articles: