Language Training

[Commando Spirit]

I know that the topic of language training has been a topic discussed mainly in passing on SWJ but my interetst lies in whether we have got it right yet? I'm very interested to hear what members have to say on this issue.

Language and cultural training are often linked, and for very good reason, with a number of companies developing technical solutions for both (Alelo as just one example, as advocated by our colleague Nicolls in here!); but are these technical methodologies the best? Is there any real substitute for being taught from a warm blooded native speaker of a language?

NATO STANG 6001 suggests that we [NATO] should adhere to developing language capability in terms of an individual's ability to listen, speak, read and write; scoring each out of 4. Whilst this categorisation seems to work, has anyone heard of, or even been exposed to, another method or categorisation of assessing linguistic ability?

A lot of question I know, with many more to follow (like linking linguistic capability to pay) but for now, I'd be very keen to see what you have to say here in the SWJ.

Good luck and stay safe all.

[Jason Port]

Send a PM to Paul Nichols. He can likely point you in the right direction on this.

[Commando Spirit]

Thanks Jason, I have spoken to Paul Nichols about this, assuming he is the Nichols who has a hand in Alelo(?), in the past, then it was linked to cultural training which I believe can be very well supported with technical delivery solutions; this time I am more interested in the intitial delivery of language trainnig rather than the follow up support.

Thanks for your suggestion.

[Stan]

There's literally dozens of threads herein on the very subject.

Just a few from all of us

Language Issues

The Army's FAO Program -- Room for Improvement?

Anthropologists and a True Culture War

We still don't grasp the value of translators

Lost in Translation

Language and Cultural Awareness Transformation

And this one you in fact started way back when...

Delivering Cultural Competence

And from Nichols...also way back when, but seems we never got our evals
Need Help

[Dayuhan]

Is there any real substitute for being taught from a warm blooded native speaker of a language?

I would say no, and I'd add that the native speaker needs to be someone who lives or has very recently lived in the country. Languages change faster than we sometimes realize, and a "native speaker" who has been a language teacher in the US for 20 years is likely to be way out of touch. Could tell a funny story illustrating that...

Best way to do language and culture at the same time (for me) is a fairly short intense course of classroom study followed by total immersion: get yourself out in the field in a place where everybody speaks the language you're learning and as few people as possible speak the language you know. There's only so far the classroom will take you.

[Stan]

I would say no, and I'd add that the native speaker needs to be someone who lives or has very recently lived in the country. Languages change faster than we sometimes realize, and a "native speaker" who has been a language teacher in the US for 20 years is likely to be way out of touch. Could tell a funny story illustrating that...

Best way to do language and culture at the same time (for me) is a fairly short intense course of classroom study followed by total immersion: get yourself out in the field in a place where everybody speaks the language you're learning and as few people as possible speak the language you know. There's only so far the classroom will take you.

I'll echo Dayuhan's post with some funny examples of my own. My Estonian teacher was only in the States for 3 years when I met her and had already lost some of the colloquial language changes. When she returned, I was using expressions she had never used nor heard before.

The classroom was fine for starting, but there's no substitute for being immersed in-country, and all the better to struggle without the benefit of an English speaker.

I'll close with one final comment regarding virtual language or cultural training. While my results with Nichol's test were inconclusive (and I had lived in Africa for over a decade in 11 different countries speaking two foreign languages), it's not a cure-all. But, has some less-than-obvious benefits - soldiers hanging around anywhere in the world can log-on and give it a spin.

[Dayuhan]

Deep in the dark recesses of the last millennium I was hired to be the main character in an interactive laser disc (yes, that long ago) Tagalog instruction program contracted by the US State Dept. They needed a Tagalog-speaking white guy and I was in the down and out in Manila and Davao phase... another story.

This got surreal when I saw the script, which had been prepared by a woman who had apparently been DCs top Tagalog instructor for a few decades, during which time she had apparently not been home. I speak gutter Tagalog well enough to pass for local on the phone. This thing was completely incomprehensible, like another language. Half the Filipinos I showed it to couldn't understand it. The other half was like "damn, my grandparents used to talk like this when I was a little kid". To make it more complicated, the instructor had apparently given strict orders that not a word was to be changed.

To make a long story short, I recruited a bunch of local stage actors to play the Pinoy parts, including the girlfriend of the day, who was a comedian by profession and a bit of a wild thing. We quickly realized that the people doing the filming and recording didn't have a clue what we were actually saying. They went home, blissfully unaware, with a course in modern urban Tagalog, a bit raunchy in places but eminently usable.

I'd like to think we did someone a favor, but the scene when they unpacked it would have been something to behold.