[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 110-175]
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE'S WORK WITH STATES, UNIVERSITIES, AND STUDENTS TO
TRANSFORM THE NATION'S FOREIGN LANGUAGE CAPACITY
__________
HEARING
BEFORE THE
OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
SEPTEMBER 23, 2008
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OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE
VIC SNYDER, Arkansas, Chairman
JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
LORETTA SANCHEZ, California ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina
ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey JEFF MILLER, Florida
SUSAN A. DAVIS, California PHIL GINGREY, Georgia
JIM COOPER, Tennessee K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas
HANK JOHNSON, Georgia GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky
JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania
John Kruse, Professional Staff Member
Thomas Hawley, Professional Staff Member
Sasha Rogers, Research Assistant
C O N T E N T S
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CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2008
Page
Hearing:
Tuesday, September 23, 2008, Department of Defense's Work with
States, Universities, and Students to Transform the Nation's
Foreign Language Capacity...................................... 1
Appendix:
Tuesday, September 23, 2008...................................... 31
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2008
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE'S WORK WITH STATES, UNIVERSITIES, AND STUDENTS TO
TRANSFORM THE NATION'S FOREIGN LANGUAGE CAPACITY
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Akin, Hon. W. Todd, a Representative from Missouri, Ranking
Member, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee.............. 25
Miller, Hon. George, a Representative from California, Chairman,
Committee on Education and Labor............................... 2
Snyder, Hon. Vic, a Representative from Arkansas, Chairman,
Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee...................... 1
WITNESSES
Bourgerie, Dr. Dana S., Associate Professor of Chinese, Director,
The National Chinese Flagship Center, Brigham Young University. 8
Givens, Dr. Terri E., Frank C. Erwin, Jr., Centennial Honors
Professor, Vice Provost, University of Texas, Austin........... 6
Slater, Dr. Robert O., Director, National Security Education
Program, Department of Defense................................. 4
Walker, Dr. Galal, Professor of Chinese, Director, National East
Asian Languages Resource Center and Chinese Flagship Center,
Ohio State University.......................................... 10
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Akin, Hon. W. Todd........................................... 37
Bourgerie, Dr. Dana S........................................ 96
Givens, Dr. Terri E.......................................... 62
Slater, Dr. Robert O......................................... 39
Snyder, Hon. Vic............................................. 35
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Dr. Snyder................................................... 117
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE'S WORK WITH STATES, UNIVERSITIES, AND STUDENTS TO
TRANSFORM THE NATION'S FOREIGN LANGUAGE CAPACITY
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee,
Washington, DC, Tuesday, September 23, 2008.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:07 a.m. in
room 2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Vic Snyder
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. VIC SNYDER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
ARKANSAS, CHAIRMAN, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE
Dr. Snyder. We will go ahead and get started. My Ranking
Member Mr. Akin said that he wanted us to go ahead and get
started, that the Republicans are caucusing and thinks he will
be a little bit later, but he should be joining us shortly.
Good morning. Welcome to the Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations hearings on the goals and directions of the
Department of Defense's (DOD) efforts to improve its language
and cultural awareness capabilities. Today's session is the
third in a series of hearings that were examining efforts to
improve the foreign language, cultural awareness and regional
expertise capabilities of the United States general purpose
military forces. Witnesses at both the previous hearings noted
that the U.S. population is generally marked by a lack of
foreign language skills, a notable exception being those skills
found in recent immigrant communities.
So where does that put us? Well, it puts us in a situation
where the Department of Defense and the American people and the
folks who care about our national security know--we certainly
learned this last decade--that we need foreign language skills
and cultural awareness to achieve our national security
objectives, and we expect the DOD to be able to meet those
needs. However, they have inherited a national problem, and you
all as well, better than anyone else, knows that we Americans
are not very good at foreign languages. And so we expect the
DOD to meet these foreign language needs, and yet, starting at
early ages, most Americans don't venture into the kinds of
languages that it turns out that we may need for our national
security purposes.
So we are asking DOD to solve this problem for us, when, in
fact, it is a national problem. And as you all are going to
testify today, we actually now have Department of Defense
dollars going in some states for K-12 education programs
because the DOD has recognized that these problems may only be
solved by starting at very, very young ages. The key programs
we will be discussing today include DOD's National Security
Education Program, or NSEP; the Interagency National Security
Language Initiative, NSLI; the National Language Service Corps
(NLSC); the Flagship Program; and the State Language Education
Roadmaps or Strategies.
We are joined today by four great witnesses: Dr. Robert
Slater, who joined the National Security Education Program in
1992 and has served as its director since 1996. Dr. Slater had
a key role in the language of both the Language Flagship and
the National Language Service Corps. As a director of NSEP, he
also serves on the National Security Education Board.
Dr. Terri Givens is the Frank C. Erwin, Jr., Centennial
Honors Professor and vice provost at the University of Texas at
Austin (UT). Texas-Austin is one of three Arabic Flagship
Centers, and it is also the sole Hindi/Urdu Flagship Center.
Dr. Dana Bourgerie--did I say that, Dr. Bourgerie,
correctly--is an associate professor of Chinese and the
director of the Chinese Flagship Center at Brigham Young
University (BYU). His research interests include dialect
studies, and he has published an article on computer-aided
learning for Chinese.
Dr. Galal Walker is professor of Chinese and Director of
the National East Asian Languages Resource Center and Chinese
Flagship Center at Ohio State University (OSU). Ohio State
University, along with Brigham Young University, is one of four
Chinese Flagship Centers.
Welcome to all of you here today. We appreciate your
presence. When Mr. Akin comes, we will give him a chance to
make an opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Snyder can be found in the
Appendix on page 35.]
Dr. Snyder. But I am also very, very pleased today that we
are joined by Congressman George Miller from California, who is
the Chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, and Rush
Holt, who is a member of that committee, to participate. And
Chairman Miller will have to leave shortly, but Dr. Holt is
going to be staying with us for a while. But I really
appreciate their attendance because both these men understand
that this is a national--a national problem, not just a DOD
problem. And I want to recognize Chairman Miller for any
comments he would like to make.
STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE MILLER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR
Mr. Miller of California. Well, thank you very much. And
thank you for having this hearing and inviting our
participation from the Education and Labor Committee. We have
tried since I have become Chair of the committee to work with
other committees and sort of forget the jurisdictional lines
and see if there is things that we can do to complement one
another. And clearly the witnesses you have before us today can
tell us a lot about the opportunities for young people to learn
languages, and to become proficient in those languages and
perhaps even develop careers using those foreign languages.
I am not sure that many young people understand that
possibility. Foreign language study seems more like a burden
than an opportunity. And I think just as sometimes we think
about developing career ladders in so many other fields, we
have to show them that there is a career ladder that is
available here, and one that is probably getting better and
more attractive all of the time with the globalization of the
world and our economy.
Obviously we believe this is very important on the
committee. During this Congress we have tried to put some
emphasis on this under the leadership of Representative Rush
Holt. We have supported investments in this area, including the
Foreign Language Assistance Program, which provides grants to
establish and improve and expand innovative foreign language
programs in the K-12 students, and also developing, again under
his leadership, the idea that we would have international
education that focuses on foreign languages and area studies
with respect to diplomacy and national security and trade
competitiveness, that we would put an emphasis on that in the
Higher Education Act that was just passed. We would also put an
emphasis on foreign languages with respect to understanding
science and technology. And again, that was in the Higher
Education Act. Under Mr. Holt's leadership, those were
successful programs with bipartisan support, and also his
initiative to create a new Deputy Assistant Secretary for
International Education within the Department. I think it
starts to show the kind of shift that we are doing.
But we also know there is a great deal to learn from the
Department of Defense and from other agencies of the government
that not only put a value on foreign language, but essentially
need the skills and the talents of these individuals. And we
hope to be able to work with you when we do No Child Left
Behind, the reauthorization of that act next year, because
again, we are getting an awful lot of people coming to us and
telling us this is a very important place to reemphasize
foreign language studies and competencies, and that will also
be done under the leadership of Rush Holt, who has really,
really done remarkable work on our committee to bring a sense
of urgency and importance to this matter as we have gone
through the reauthorizations as he did with higher ed. And we
look forward to that in No Child Left Behind.
Thank you again for including us.
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for being here, and we
appreciate your comments.
Before we begin your opening statements, the staff and
folks who have been here before are very familiar with these
two anecdotes that I am going to share because we showed the
tapes at the first hearing, but it is the contrasting between
Senator Inouye's World War II experience in Germany with a man
named Guy Gabaldon, who was in the Pacific theater. And I
talked to Senator Inouye about this, and it was in the Ken
Burns World War II story. But he came upon a wounded German,
and they were trying to communicate with each other, and he
said neither one of them spoke each other's language. And at
some point this wounded German reached in his coat, and Senator
Inouye killed him with the butt of his rifle, and as he hit
him, the man's hands flew with a photograph of his family. He
was reaching in his coat to bring out pictures of his family.
And Senator Inouye in this Ken Burns film talks about how he
had to go get counseling for that because here was this man who
was just trying to share with him his family, but he didn't
share the German language.
Guy Gabaldon was recruited by the Marines in the early
1940's because he spoke some Japanese. He had picked it up from
Japanese friends as a teenager in the neighborhood he was in,
and he ended up in one of the islands. And, of course, we all
have this illusion that the Japanese would never surrender, but
because of his Japanese language skill he learned as a kid in
the streets and the orchards where they were doing work, he got
over 1,500 Japanese soldiers to surrender, and he did it on his
own. He would go to the mouths of caves, holler at them in
Japanese, they would come out and surrender, and he would--in
one night--he did this mostly at night--he stumbled into a
regimental headquarters and got 800 Japanese soldiers to
surrender at one time. So that is 1,500 Japanese that are still
alive. But think of the numbers of Americans who would have
died if that had gone the way everything else had gone on those
islands that were held by the Japanese.
So these are very real issues, and the needs are different
now of our military, but when we talk about the role of foreign
language in our military forces, if you are the person that is
doing street patrols, this is not some academic exercise. These
can be the kinds of misunderstandings that can lead to people
getting killed.
So I appreciate you all being here today. Dr. Slater, we
will begin with you.
Oh, Rush, would you like to--I will be glad to recognize
you, Rush, for any comments you would like to make. Rush Holt.
Dr. Holt. No, thank you. I appreciate Chairman Miller's
remarks, and I will join in the discussion with the witnesses.
Thank you.
Dr. Snyder. Dr. Slater, we will begin with you. What we
will do is we will put on this clock, and it will go green and
then yellow, and then it turns red at the end of five minutes.
But we want you to share with us any thoughts that you have.
All four of you gave fairly lengthy written statements. If
you were to actually read those word for word, we will be here
until Friday. But I know that you intend--we appreciate the
fact--I have read them, and the staff has read them, and we
appreciate your thoroughness. They are very helpful, But
obviously you are not going to do that today. But if you have
other things you need to tell us after the red light goes on,
feel free to share those with us. But I know Members will have
questions.
Dr. Slater, we will begin with you.
STATEMENT OF DR. ROBERT O. SLATER, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SECURITY
EDUCATION PROGRAM, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Dr. Slater. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the
distinguished committee, Congressman Holt, Congressman Miller.
Thanks for the opportunity to speak with you today.
The National Security Education Program represents a
critical piece of the puzzle in how we address our longstanding
national deficit in languages and cultures critical not only to
our national security, but to our broader national well-being.
Since 1994, NSEP, has engaged in the national effort to expand
opportunities for Americans to develop proficiencies in
critical languages and to ensure that the federal sector has
access to this extraordinary talent. More than 1,200 NSEP award
recipients have and continue to serve in positions related to
U.S. National security throughout the federal sector. In fact,
just a few minutes from here up the street, we have about 125
of our former scholars and fellows meeting with 35
representatives of 35 federal agencies to talk about jobs in
the Federal Government all morning.
As Director of NSEP almost since its inception in 1992, I
feel compelled to note that the DOD leadership's very ambitious
goals of the defense language transformation plan have been
enormously successful in expanding NSEP's capacity to influence
the educational process not only in U.S. higher education, but
also in K-12. My testimony focuses on three of six major NSEP
efforts: Language Flagships, State Language Roadmaps, and the
National Language Service Corps. Each of these represents an
important shift in paradigm as we endeavor to make available to
the Nation a new generation of globally proficient
professionals.
Just a few words about the Language Flagship. Just a few
years ago, we started an experimental grant program with four
universities. Today we have expanded to 20, accompanied by 3 K-
12 national models and 8 overseas emergent programs involved in
what is the first systematic national effort to develop and
implement higher education infrastructures whose objective is
to graduate university students at what we call the superior
professional or level 3 level of proficiency in critical
languages.
Flagship represents the most ambitious and aggressive
effort to date to transform language education in the U.S., and
we are committed to a goal of at least 2,000 enrolled students
by the end of the decade. In fact, the results we are seeing
today are quite remarkable. We are receiving the results of
formal proficiency testing right now of a group of recent
Flagship fellows. Remarkably, these fellows are testing at
levels we ordinarily don't see; not only at the superior level
three, but at level four. We expect in the coming years an
expanded array of Flagship institutions across the Nation will
be producing undergraduate students who routinely graduate at
this level and beyond.
Flagship is an important part of a broader effort to
transform U.S. education. We are building our higher education
models on the shoulders of simply what must become a more
robust K-12 language education system through the U.S. To that
end, DOD, through Flagship and as a partner in the National
Security Language Initiative, agreed to sponsor three national
models of articulated K-16 instruction. Our hope is that a
vital expanded K-12 effort proposed for the Department of
Education will receive funding from Congress in the future.
The second program to mention briefly is the concept of
state roadmaps for language. DOD tasked NSEP to sponsor a
series of state strategic planning efforts that would
systematically explore the demand for language skills within
each state and develop a roadmap to address these needs. We
identified the three states: Ohio, Oregon and Texas. You will
hear more about them later from my colleagues.
With this funding, an initiative began in June 2007,
followed by a series of state-level working groups. The
projects moved to their next level with the publication last
October of three language roadmaps. Each state is now engaged
in efforts to implement key components of that strategy.
The third program mentioned briefly is the pilot National
Language Service Corps. When we consider the critical issue of
surge capacity in the federal sector, DOD included, we see the
language corps as an integral part of that solution. Simply
stated, the Department of Defense, as well as the entire
Federal Government, cannot reasonably expect it to ever possess
the wide range of language capabilities that may be necessary
to address immediate or emergency surge requirements. The NLSC
is designed to address this need by providing and maintaining a
readily available civilian corps of certified expertise in
languages. The corps will maintain a roster of individuals,
American citizens, with certified language skills who are
readily available in time of war or national emergency or other
national needs.
We are poised at this point to move ahead with active
recruitment of members and planned operational exercises with
our partners in the Centers For Disease Control, the U.S.
Pacific Command and the Defense Intelligence Agency.
I look forward to answering any other questions you may
have on those three programs or anything else that we are
undertaking as part of the National Security Education Program.
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, Dr. Slater.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Slater can be found in the
Appendix on page 39.]
Dr. Snyder. Dr. Givens.
STATEMENT OF DR. TERRI E. GIVENS, FRANK C. ERWIN, JR.,
CENTENNIAL HONORS PROFESSOR, VICE PROVOST, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS,
AUSTIN
Dr. Givens. Mr. Chairman and members of this distinguished
committee, greetings from the great state of Texas. And on
behalf of the administration at the University of Texas (UT) at
Austin, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.
The University of Texas at Austin is one of the leaders in
education abroad and language education in the United States.
We are currently ranked third among doctoral research
institutions, with 2,244 students studying abroad, And we teach
a broad range of languages and area studies at our university,
many of them top-ranked programs. I will focus my remarks today
on our Flagship programs and the Texas Language Roadmap.
The University of Texas at Austin has received funding for
two language Flagship programs from the National Security
Education Program. The Hindi/Urdu Flagship (HUF) currently has
15 students, and the Arabic Flagship has had 39 students. This
program is an important source of funding for our brightest
students who have an interest in intensive language study. The
Hindi/Urdu Flagship at UT is the sole language Flagship program
dedicated to this pair of languages.
Building on a long history of teaching South Asian
languages and cultures at UT, HUF is responding to a newly
perceived national need to change the paradigm of language
learning in the U.S. by developing new pedagogical approaches,
a new type of curriculum and a new focus on the Flagship goal
of producing global professionals, graduates whose linguistic
skills will make them highly effective in a range of
professional capacities.
The Arabic Flagship program at UT provides training in
Arabic language and culture at the undergraduate level. The
program is unique in several ways. The first is that our
program is embedded within the department of Middle Eastern
studies, enabling us to offer a very wide range of Arabic
language and content courses. UT Austin has the largest Arabic
faculty in the country.
A second factor that makes our program unique is that the
majority of our students are nonheritage students. This means
that we are able to target and recruit students based on
academic talent, language aptitude and commitment.
Another key difference is that students have the
opportunity to take content courses in a wide range of
subjects, and these are all taught in Arabic.
The Flagship mission is not just to create a small pool of
well-trained students, but instead to change the face of
language teaching across the country. We are taking the lead in
a wide range of projects to provide leadership to the Arabic
teaching community. This year we will be focusing on K-12
outreach, testing and assessment, and upgrading our website to
become a valuable resource for learners of Arabic.
A final goal of our program that we have had great success
with is the creation of the next generation of Arabic language
teachers. We have recruited many of the top graduate students
in the country, who provide classroom assistance, work on
research projects and take our program forward.
In February 2007, the University of Texas at Austin was
selected as one of three institutions around the country to
participate in the federally funded U.S. Language Summits
project. The first phase of this project culminated in a
language summit at UT in October of 2007 in the development of
a language roadmap.
In the spring of 2008, I was asked to continue the project
in order to develop an advisory board that would work with the
state of Texas to develop the ideas outlined in the language
summit. We currently have five high-profile members of the
advisory board, and we are currently working with the Austin
Chamber of Commerce to develop ties to the business community.
The main focus of the initiative will be to develop and fund
pilot language projects in elementary schools working toward
legislation that would increase requirements for language
training for K-12 and provide broader funding for K-12 language
initiatives.
Another highly recognized program at UT, the UTeach
Program, which is an innovative program to develop high school
teachers as teacher certification for the following languages
in the state of Texas: Arabic, Chinese, French, German,
Japanese, Latin, Russian, Spanish. And the most popular of
these are Spanish, followed by French and Japanese.
Looking toward the future, the University of Texas at
Austin is pleased with the progress we have made thus far to
support our students and faculty in language study and
providing opportunities for study abroad; however, we cannot be
complacent, and we must continually strive to find ways to keep
pace with the needs of our country into the future. This means
that universities must pay attention and be involved in what is
happening in K-12 education not only in Texas, but in efforts
that are developing nationwide. If critical languages aren't
being taught in high schools, there will be a shortage of
students capable of entering the Flagship programs; therefore,
programs like the Language Roadmap are crucial to providing
opportunities for teachers who will then provide the students
who will enter the Flagship programs.
In a sense, universities working with business, government
and education leaders can be a linchpin in ensuring that our
country's needs for critical languages are met, but we must
have the foresight to create the partnerships that will provide
the funding for these programs into the future. As a
university, we have been willing to put resources into these
efforts, and we are pleased to work with the state and Congress
on programs like the Language Flagships and Language Roadmap
that will provide the business people, intelligence analysts,
and teachers who are critical to our country's future. I
strongly support Dr. Slater's hope that Congress will agree to
fund an expanded effort led by the Department of Education to
build a national network of K-12 programs in critical
languages.
Again, thank you for this opportunity, and I look forward
to answering your question.
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, Dr. Givens.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Givens can be found in the
Appendix on page 62.]
Dr. Snyder. Dr. Bourgerie.
STATEMENT OF DR. DANA S. BOURGERIE, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF
CHINESE, DIRECTOR, THE NATIONAL CHINESE FLAGSHIP CENTER,
BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY
Dr. Bourgerie. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, members of this
distinguished committee, Chairman Miller, Congressman Holt, I
am very happy to be here today and speak with you a little bit
about the Brigham Young University (BYU) Flagship program, some
of the things we are doing in the state of Utah. Our Flagship
program was initiated in fall 2002 as one of the original four
programs. We are now beginning our eighth year of operation and
just accepted our seventh cohort this fall. BYU has a long
history of strong English programs. Our undergraduate annual
enrollments in Chinese are now over 1,600. Building on other
strong existing Chinese programs, we have been able to infuse a
level of innovation that did not exist before we had the
Flagship program. The mission statement encompasses the goals
and the aims of the program; that is, the Chinese Flagship
program seeks to prepare students for careers related to China.
The program's aim is to provide participants with the
linguistic cultural skills necessary and cultural skills
necessary to realize the professional goal within a Chinese
environment.
All this we do with mission in mind and each phase of the
program is designed to take the student to the next level--to
that professional level of proficiency, but it has several
supporting objectives. Raising the general proficiency to
advanced or superior or level 3/3+, increasing capabilities in
specialized professional communication tasks, providing general
and domain related cultural training. We also are the--we are
the managing Flagship for managing an overseas program that I
refer to more in my written testimony.
After seven years and six cohorts, the program has begun to
produce just the kind of students it was designed to train, as
Dr. Slater has noted as well. Last year, standardized testing
for Cohort five yielded seven superior ratings, that is the 3/
3+ range, five advanced ratings and most importantly, graduates
are working a wide range of fields related to China, including
12 in the U.S. Government positions, including State, various
other agencies, Commerce and so on. I would like next to just
talk a little bit about our K-12 partnership, because that was
raised as well. As is the case throughout much of the country,
Chinese enrollments have burgeoned in Utah in the last five
years.
Although still a small percentage of total foreign language
enrollments, the number of students studying Chinese in Utah
has grown substantially from 183 in 2003 to 1,215 in 2007, with
a projected enrollment of 3,000 to 3,500 in 2008. In 2003,
fewer than six high schools had Chinese programs in Utah. In
2008, there will be 74 secondary school programs and there will
be starting with the 2009/2010 year 10 dual language emerging
schools for the K-12 level. These state-based incentives have
allowed the BYU Flagship program to focus on curriculum
development, assessment, support and teacher training on how
to--and we have used recently allocated K-12 linkage funds from
NSEP to respond to specific requests from the world languages
unit in individual districts.
The first of these is the K-12 is a distance program for
teaching Chinese called enhanced Educational Network (EDNET).
Now in the second year, the EDNET broadcasts on the Utah
education network and serves 34 sections and 28 high schools.
It is a blended distance model. That is where they have an
interactive experience with a master teacher and then there are
local facilitators who speak Chinese. Another important effort
in the K-12 domain has been our Start Talking (STARTALK)
program. For the last two years, our center has sponsored this
DOD-funded program on a residential intensive language program
for high school students. STARTALK plays two distinct roles in
our K-12 strategy.
First, it exposes more students to Chinese earlier and
helps bolster high school enrollments. In addition, the program
is a recruitment ground for flagship programs later on. In
2008, our second year of the program, we expanded from our 2007
numbers significantly to serve 60 high school students.
Moreover, the teacher training component enrolled 18 secondary
teachers and prospective teachers. This ongoing professional
development workshop series helps address the critical need for
qualified K-12 teachers in the state of Utah.
Lastly, I just would like to mention just a little bit
about our summit. We had the summit among our Flagship states
just last week. In addition to this, recent specific
collaborations with the state of Utah, the Department of
Education as I just noted, we have the Flagship center with a
core organizer of the Utah governor's language summit just last
week on the 16th. The state took full charge of the summit
collaborating with NSEP and drawing on their expertise from
previous language summits. Governor Jon Huntsman gave his
direct support to the effort as in previous language summits in
Ohio, Texas and Oregon.
The gathering brought together representatives from
business, education, industry and government to begin a
dialogue toward a language roadmap for the state of Utah.
Speakers and participants, including the governor himself, Jon
Huntsman, Dr. David Chu, some of the Senate leaders, also key
participants, the head of the governor's economic development
office and the head of the Utah world trade organization. The
summit was the first step toward developing a language policy
for the state of Utah. Smaller working groups currently being
formed to draft a formal statement on language policy based on
the outcome of the language summit is follow-up research. These
results we brought forward as recommendations to the Utah
international education summit to be held in January.
The Flagship program at BYU and its partners across the
country have clearly begun to effect deep change in the
language field. Flagship programs are increasingly looked to
for as role models or language pedagogy and its directors as
national leaders. In my 20 years of language-teaching
experience, this is probably the most far-reaching of anything
that I have yet witnessed. I thank you for the opportunity to
address this committee and I look forward to answering any
questions you may have.
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, Dr. Bourgerie.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Bourgerie can be found in
the Appendix on page 96.]
Dr. Snyder. Dr. Walker.
STATEMENT OF DR. GALAL WALKER, PROFESSOR OF CHINESE, DIRECTOR,
NATIONAL EAST ASIAN LANGUAGES RESOURCE CENTER AND CHINESE
FLAGSHIP CENTER, OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
Dr. Walker. Chairman Snyder, Congressman Bartlett,
Congressman Miller and Congressman Holt, as unaccustomed as I
am to being brief, I am very pleased to speak with you on
behalf of the Ohio State Chinese Flagship program. I hope my
written statement and comments here reflect some of the
excitement and resolve around the changes in the ways those of
us in Ohio are thinking and acting about foreign language and
culture training. I would also like to convey the important
roles of the national security education program, the language
Flagship, in driving these changes. The biggest impact of the
Chinese Flagship program on Chinese language study in Ohio is
the raised expectation. We have been able to demonstrate time
and again that expecting excellence and then working to achieve
it leads to demonstrable improvements in foreign language
education.
Five years ago, we did not have the capacity to provide our
students with the sequences of study and training that
consistently led to the advanced proficiencies in Chinese. We
had a good number of students who would reach advanced levels,
but those levels were largely reached after formal programs of
study were completed and were hit and miss depending on the
ability of the students to pursue a language study on their
own. Now we have a consistent stream of young people who
demonstrate advanced knowledge and skills not only by testing
at Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) Level three and above,
but also by engaging in genuinely difficult tasks requiring
sophisticated language abilities. This past week, Rue Burns, an
undergraduate political science major, came to us from George
Washington University, completed his master thesis on a new
social class in China by defending it in a public forum
attended by his teachers in Columbus and a panel of Chinese
sociologists in Qingdao.
In a video conference session that run over two hours,
Burns presented his thesis, responded to criticism and
discussed revision, earning a pass from his teachers and praise
from the Chinese scholars who are clearly interested in what
this young American had to say about their society. This kind
of session is a regular event in the OSU Chinese Flagship
program. When a predominantly nonheritage undergraduate and
graduate students observe the high level of performance of
students who are only a year or two ahead of them, they see
what is expected of them and they are eager to rise to the
challenge. The Chinese Flagship program is also raising the
expectations of our university. If Chinese students can
consistently reach advanced levels of proficiency, why not
other languages? We are now discussing an institute of advanced
language study where students of other languages will be
challenged by the same expectation.
By building the Chinese Flagship program into the degree
structure of the university, we are confident that the changes
we have implemented through the support of the NSEP will remain
with the Chinese program and create a strong potential to
spread to other languages. The support of national security
education program has permitted us to create innovative
approaches to training our students to the advance level. Among
these are the integration of language study and content. During
the OSU Chinese Flagship program, our students progressed from
studying the language and culture to studying in the language
and culture by means of course content that prepares them to
intellectually engage Chinese counterparts through a program of
mentors with domain knowledge that is focused on developing a
research addenda, our students quickly become used to the idea
that they are going to learn concept ideas and perspectives
that they would not encounter if they did not have the language
ability. From the beginning, we frame language instruction in
Chinese culture in making sure that the students actually
perceive the way Chinese present their intentions. Later, we
expose them to Chinese commonsense so that they know it when
they see it later on.
From the culture, we engage them in community, a large part
that we deal with in our center in Qingdao, which I mention in
the written statement and which you might talk about later on.
We are now in the process of expanding the number of
undergraduates in our Chinese Flagship program. And the state
of Ohio has recently made anyone eligible for G.I. Benefits
eligible for in-state tuition rates. We hope that we are going
to attract graduates who have left the service, graduates of
the Defense Language Institute and other such backgrounds.
I am going to talk in the last 40 seconds about the
roadmap. We had a meeting on June 28, 2007 of about 85 citizens
of Ohio who got together and discussed in kind of a fast-paced
daylong meeting the issues of--the needs and resources for
languages in Ohio. This resulted eventually in the production
of the roadmap team, which was produced by citizens from that
group, mostly dominated by business and government--people from
business and government. We are continuing with that, these
roadmaps--these design teams are meeting and just recently we
had meetings of 12 of 13 public universities in Ohio to meet
about implementing these findings of the roadmap. We have
learned a lot from our friends in business and government and
public service. Language and culture skills are equally
important. Language must be combined with work related
knowledge.
And access to language instruction must be broadened and
the delivery of the instructions made relevant to the
workplace. We also learned that there is a valuable reserve of
people in our community who have substantial experience and
knowledge of foreign languages and cultures and they are
willing to share that with their fellow citizens. This is my
favorite takeaway from the language summit and roadmap
activities in Ohio. Thank you for the opportunity and I will be
happy to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Walker is retained in the
committee files and can be viewed upon request.]
Dr. Snyder. Thank you all for your testimony. What we will
do is we try to follow our five minute clock here pretty
strictly for us. So I will take five minutes and then go to Mr.
Bartlett and then without objection we will let Chairman Miller
and Dr. Holt participate. Dr. Slater, I want to spend my first
five minutes here and have you do a thumbnail tutorial for all
of us who are hearing about some of this for the first time and
are watching on the television. I want to talk about the
Flagship centers and the language roadmap. And then on the
language roadmap, when we have two of the three states here
that were funded with DOD money--Utah was not, but Texas,
Ohio--and Oregon is the third language roadmap state. Now, give
me the one-minute summary of that. Was that predominantly DOD
money that went to fund that program? Describe that for us,
please.
Dr. Slater. Yes. It was all one-year money that was made
available from Congress to the Department of Defense, which, in
turn, asked National Security Education Program to develop an
effort to look at the issue of working with the states.
Primarily we believe that if we are going to change the
language education system in the United States, we really need
to build it at the local and state level. That is where change
occurs in education.
Dr. Snyder. So essentially they all came together--was it
Dr. Walker that--in describing the summit, that you essentially
funded a summit in which they discussed what they need in their
state for language needs?
Dr. Slater. We funded each of the Flagship centers at UT
Austin, at Ohio State, University of Oregon to take the
leadership role in building first the process, which convened a
summit. Now, the interesting part about the summit as an
educator I can say this, is we challenged them to bring in the
demand side. Educators don't always listen so well. So we asked
them to sit in the back and listen to the demand side, talk
about what the needs are in the state for language across the
state for socioeconomic reasons, for boosting the economy. From
that summit, they each formed a set of working groups that took
the lessons learned from the summit and built an actual
strategic plan that we called a roadmap over the next six
months, released that roadmap and now each state is working at
their own pace and at their own meaningful level for that state
on various pieces of that strategic plan to try to adopt it.
Dr. Snyder. Has the original DOD money played out in those
three states?
Dr. Slater. The original funding has. Through the Flagship
centers, we provided them with a little additional funding to
maintain some momentum. But at this point, most of the federal
funding has been completed.
Dr. Snyder. One final question on that and then I want to
go to the Flagship centers. It is my understanding that there
are other states--Utah apparently is an example--that think it
is such a hot idea, they are doing it without federal dollars,
they are trying to do it on their own. Do you think it would
help the cause if the Congress were to find a way to fund
additional language roadmaps with that one-time money?
Dr. Slater. We would like actually to see 51 of them,
including the District of Columbia. That would be a major
advance, yes.
Dr. Snyder. Yeah. And then I want to ask about the Flagship
centers. And I think in your written statement you talk about
the growing number and you project have a lot more. That is not
entirely DOD money there, correct? And would you describe the
funding for that? And then how does one become a Flagship
center?
Dr. Slater. What we talk about actually--what I talk about
actually in my statement is the number we would project through
DOD funding. Because what we see in the long run----
Dr. Snyder. All the federal dollars are DOD for those
Flagship centers, is that what you are saying?
Dr. Slater. Excuse me?
Dr. Snyder. All the federal dollars of that projection for
Flagship centers is DOD dollars, no Department of Education?
Dr. Slater. That is correct. We hope that other
universities and expect other universities to begin to build
Flagship-type programs that are independent of our funding. And
we are seeing some interest in that happening now. But what we
talk about in my testimony and report is the response that we
are working on directly with DOD funding.
Dr. Snyder. And if I am a college in central Arkansas, how
do I become a Flagship center?
Dr. Slater. We actually have an annual request for
proposals that we call diffusion of innovation, which invites
universities to partner with one of our Flagship centers. And
we will help them and fund them to develop the curriculum that
would implement that. We added four universities this year.
That is the main vehicle we intend to use to add new
universities to that. So a university in that case, we would
ask them--we would connect them to a Flagship center. They
would work together and develop a curriculum at that level.
Dr. Snyder. And that is ongoing funding, DOD funding; is
that correct?
Dr. Slater. Correct.
Dr. Snyder. That is good. Mr. Bartlett for five minutes.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you very much and thank you for holding
this series of hearings. I am enormously supportive of our
military focusing more on languages and culture. And I think
that we have great difficulty in communicating with these other
peoples because we do not understand their culture, we cannot
speak their language. Seventy percent of all communication is
said to be nonverbal. If all you know about the language is
what you have learned in a textbook, you have already lost 70
percent of all the communication when you talk to these people.
And I think that our military ought to be spending more effort
on this. And if we did, I think we might have less needs for
guns and ammunition because this understanding each other, I
think we might have less wars in the future.
I am very envious of those who speak another language. I
see little three-year-olds that are fluent in two languages and
I worked really hard to try and learn a second language quite
unsuccessfully through high school and college. I am told that
when a child is three years old, they know half of all the
things they will ever know. If you think about what a three-
year-old knows, that is not too hard to understand, is it? You
know, we work really hard to try to get our people proficient
in a foreign language when we wait to start till college. If
you wait to start until high school, it--and I am glad that the
chairman of our education committee is here. If we are really
going to be successful in this, we have got to immerse them in
this foreign language from birth up. It is just so easy when
you do that. We teach English when you are in school. We are
not learning the English language when we teach English. We are
learning about the language and its structure and so forth.
How do we start this cycle? Our magnificent arrogance has
in the past kept us from focusing on foreign languages. When I
went to college, one of my fellow students there was from Iran.
That wasn't a bad name then. And she spoke 14 languages. She
said after the first half dozen, it was pretty easy because of
all the similarities in the languages. How do we immerse our
kids in these foreign languages from the very beginning? I see
these little three-year-olds, they don't know a noun from an
object or anything else, but they speak the languages. How do
we start this cycle? Once it is started and the parents speak a
second language, they will if they are patriotic Americans
immerse their kids in a second language because the world has
really shrunk and we need to know these other languages. But
how do we start it? If we wait until kindergarten, it is too
late. They are already about twice the age when they know half
the things they will ever know. How do we start early?
Dr. Walker. We do some of that. To answer your question
directly, what we are trying to do--we are developing a
curriculum for K-12 or pre-K. We haven't gotten down to age
three yet. But the idea is to build a curriculum where
basically essentially where the children learn to play in
another language. You teach them how to exist and how to
manipulate their way through an environment, maybe just a
classroom. And they learn to play, they learn to relate to
other kids and their teachers in the language and just maintain
that over a period of time. The important thing about language
training at the early age is sustaining it all the way through.
Very often we have language programs that start out very well
and children will develop a capacity in the language and then
they will find out that they can't continue that in the middle
school or in the high school. And that to me is a huge waste of
a resource. But, Congressman Bartlett, I think you hit on a
very important thing. When we have these little children and
they are in a situation where they can learn a language, a
second language, it really is, it truly is a national resource
and it is a resource that has a timeline on it. We won't be
able--we won't be able to teach them the same way and to the
same degree of competence later on in their life.
Mr. Bartlett. Why can't we start in the crib with
interactive television?
Dr. Slater. Well, interesting comment. And this is an area
that we really do need to explore more and pique the
entrepreneurial spirit of the American pre-K system, which is
generally private and not public. At our Oregon language
summit, we had a lengthy conversation with a proprietor of a
large national chain of pre-K programs. Language sells at that
level.
So we need to figure out a way to develop more programs
that attract kids at the pre-K level. Now, the key, as Galal
mentioned that I want to add, is that what we do very poorly is
take what we build on and make sure that the children continue
their progression. And I often say it is like--the way we treat
languages in K-12 is like offering a child a math curriculum in
elementary school and when they get to middle school, say we
are sorry, we have nothing to offer you, all we can do is
duplicate what you did in first through sixth, wait until you
get to high school and then maybe we will build on it. That is
what we do.
So if you are going to invest in the pre-K, you have to
have a system in place that then takes advantage of that
ability and builds on it throughout the remaining 12 or 13
years of school life or it is a wasted investment.
Dr. Snyder. Mr. Miller for five minutes.
Mr. Miller of California. Thank you. I am going to pick up
there, Dr. Slater, if I might. Two things that always worried
me in my years of education is sustainability and replication.
And usually along the way between those two issues you lose
quality rather rapidly. And my question is--and this is just
out of ignorance of the program--you just described what we do
in mathematics, which is a horror show, because we either
repeat over and over things that are very disjointed when we
see how they are presented here. You have a lot of discussion
here in each of your presentations about the professional
development of teachers. And it seems to me that success in
teaching language sort of like success in teaching math, the
depth of knowledge and comfort of the teacher has a lot to do
with the ability to find acceptance among the students because
you are able to differentiate your instructions, your
guidances, your suggestions and the rest of that. If you are
just barely ahead of your students, there is not much you can
do to help them when you are in trouble.
So I would just like to know what you--and you have a
number of programs here both directed at teachers and in the
classroom. And I would like to know just how you maintain this
quality, sustainability and replication.
Dr. Slater. And I might let my colleagues share some
thoughts on the teacher education issue. Flagship generally is
not engaged directly in teacher development, although I would
add that we spend a lot of time in the Flagship program making
sure that everybody who is teaching in it is an expert in how
to teach languages. This is a real--but you put your finger on
exactly the primary issue for the American education system,
which as you know much better than I do, extends way beyond
just teaching language. It is teaching all the fields. How we
effectively develop a core of teachers across the United States
who are effective in actually teaching language is a critical
challenge.
We don't have that problem in Flagship because each
university is investing. When we enter an arrangement with a
university, we insist that they designate old time tenure track
lines in the languages to the program we are funding.
So they are committed to that. But I think you might want
to hear from the other universities in how they are looking at
the teacher training issue, which is really the one that
worries us. If you are asking me what keeps me up at night, it
is where we are going to find all these teachers to----
Mr. Miller of California. You mentioned in Utah you went
from 5 to 74 schools. That is an applause line, except I don't
know the quality of the teachers in the other 69 schools.
Dr. Bourgerie. Right, right. I mean, that is a good point
and I think it deserves a little bit of explanation. Now, that
is an array of a variety of programs that includes our distance
program, which reaches out to, I think, 24 schools. And that is
one of the ways we can do it. We brought in a small number of
visiting teachers from the national--the Hanban teacher. We
don't see that as a long-term solution but as a short-term with
other trained teachers. And we actually were involved in
training them to work in a U.S. context because they weren't
used to that.
And then we have our EDNET teachers. And we draw from
those--we have been developing these apprentice teachers for
the last several years through this program. So it is really a
multifaceted approach. But I want to say too, that it is a
serious problem. Because it is not just finding enough, it is
finding ones that really get it and are committed to the sort
of instruction we have been talking about here. That true in
all languages, but especially true in some of these critical
languages that we deal with.
Dr. Givens. You may have heard of our UTeach program. There
has been a large emphasis on the math and sciences of course.
But we are spreading that out.
Mr. Miller of California. You had them at a hearing
actually.
Dr. Givens. And we have actually spread that to the
languages because we recognize that there is such a strong need
for language teachers, particularly in the critical languages.
So we are trying to expand that model. It is also going into
engineering. In general at the university, we see teacher
training as one of the critical components of our mission. And
so the UTeach program--unfortunately the language aspect
doesn't have nearly as much funding as the math and science and
we are hoping to be able to increase that. But the other side
of the equation is that, for example, they have chosen not to
train any teachers in Russian because there aren't any
placements for them. And so that is why I think the roadmap is
important, because we need to find the ways to actually create
the placements for the teachers in the critical languages. So
it is really very much connected and we need to focus on all
the different aspects.
Mr. Miller of California. Just one quick question. Are the
graduate students, are they given a stipend? Are they given a
scholarship? Are they identified as we do in math and science--
through the National Science Foundation, people are given
stipends to get through the program?
Dr. Givens. Some are, yeah.
Dr. Bourgerie. All of ours get at least some funding.
Mr. Miller of California. Thank you.
Dr. Snyder. Thank you. Dr. Holt for five minutes.
Dr. Holt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for
allowing me to join you today. Let me first ask about the
ground rules. Are we likely to have another round of
questioning?
Dr. Snyder. Yes.
Dr. Holt. Good. Anyway, thank you for doing this. And, Dr.
Slater, Givens, Bourgerie and Walker, thanks for very good
testimony. The Chair began with some anecdotes about why it is
needed. I got heavily involved in this, well, earlier this
decade when I was sitting in the Intelligence Committee
listening to some special forces types who were saying that
they were combing the hills looking for Osama bin Laden. And I
said when you talk with the local people, you know, what do you
learn. And they said actually we are limited there. We picked
up some since we have been out there. And it really drove home
the national security need here.
Certainly it is easy to imagine interrogation nuances
missed and insurgencies not quelled and lives lost. Looking at
it more positively, we are making progress and we by investing
in this, it seems we are not only enhancing national security,
but we are really enriching our society. Something that has
become apparent is veterans are facing higher levels of
unemployment than the cohort that hasn't served their country
in uniform, which is not only a disgrace, but sort of hard to
believe.
And there was a news item on the radio this morning. Well,
okay, so what good does machine gunner training do you in the
job market and all of the various people trained in high tech
warfare? Well, certainly the more people who come out of the
service with fluency and competency in languages, the more
useful they will be and more successful they will be in the
marketplace. I am pleased to see the good progress. I mean, I
followed the David Boren undergraduate and graduate fellowships
and the Flagship programs and the heritage speaking programs. I
have visited STARTALK programs. And the statistics about the
growth of these programs are impressive and the raised
expectations are so encouraging.
We see it in school boards and among school principals and
elsewhere. So I think we are on the right track, but there is
just so much more to do.
Let me turn to a few questions, if I may. Dr. Slater, say a
little more about the statistics of what happens to the NSEP
graduates and over the long-term, where do you think they will
end up?
Dr. Slater. As you know, every individual who is funded by
our program incurs a unique requirement that they seek--must
make a good faith effort to seek work in a national security-
related position in the Federal Government. That is a
requirement. We don't promise them a job. But they have certain
advantages in terms of special hiring authorities and we have
staff that actually assists them in finding jobs. We keep--
because it is a requirement, we obviously keep careful
statistics on them. The key, I think, that I always point out
to people is the selection process is first based on motivation
to want to work for the Federal Government. So we already have
a cohort that comes in, perhaps with too high an expectation
that they are going to go right from the end of the program or
graduation to ambassador positions.
Dr. Slater. So we have to temper their expectations somehow
to understand that there is a progression and a career from
beginning to that level.
Once we get beyond that, we have an enormous level of
success in getting students in. The three primary organizations
they work in are the Department of Defense, Department of
State, and the intelligence--the various agencies of the
intelligence community. Almost two-thirds of them wind up in
one of those agencies. But we have had 52 students, for
example, complete their service or working their service
requirement in International Trade Administration, Department
of Commerce, as another example. We have had about 1,250
students to date. The pipeline at any one time has about 700
and 800 students seeking jobs.
We are always looking for better ways to do it. As much as
I would like to think the Federal Government is a simple
process in finding jobs, it is not. The security clearance
process can often delay an individual's actually coming into
the government by a year or two. So we deal with lots of
impediments in this process. But that is generally the numbers
and track we have.
Next year, the Department of Defense is initiating a new
professional development program where we are hiring
approximately 20 a year into the Department and in 2-year
internship positions. So we are making a lot of advances in
that area.
Dr. Snyder. Mrs. Davis for five minutes.
Mrs. Davis of California. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am sorry I missed your earlier testimony, but maybe I can
pick up on some of what you have said.
One of the things you just mentioned is that even though
you have these alumni, they are not able to get a fast track
into a civilian job, into a government job. And it seems to me
that that might be a good place to look for a process that we
ought to be doing. We know, my goodness, I mean, anybody who
wants to even work at the VA or anywhere has to go through a
very long process, even if they have a specialty that is sorely
needed. So it may be that in this area as well, there needs to
be some way of taking a look at that. So I would be happy to
see if you need anything from us, please, we might want to
really make certain that you send a very direct message that
anybody who goes through that program ought not to wait around
for a year because by the time they get picked up by that
agency who really needs them, they are off doing something
else. So that is really critical.
I am wondering whether you have had some thoughts as well,
we have talked here in the Armed Services Committee about
capturing those individuals who have gone over to Iraq,
Afghanistan, ended up playing roles very different from what
they had trained for, but they developed and found that they
had some skills. Are you taking a look at that pool of
individuals who have come back and are looking for, whether it
is even in teaching or in language acquisition where they have
a start and they could continue to build on that? How
extensively are we tracking those individuals?
Dr. Slater. That is an excellent question, and I think we
certainly need to do more in that area. I would give two
answers to that. One is--I think is, we started to work with
all the Flagship centers. As I think Galal mentioned the new GI
bill is certainly going to--this is a new generation of
military that have been exposed to many languages and cultures
that they were not exposed to in their earlier education; they
are going to be returning over the next several years with a
new interest in pursuing language study and culture study, and
we would like to make sure that the universities are positioned
to capitalize on that in the education process. So we were
thrilled when Ohio decided that they would waive out-of-state
tuition for individuals with that, and we would like other
universities and states to follow suit with that so that we can
capitalize on that.
The other issue is the National Language Service Corps. We
have an enormous diversity of talent in this country which we
do not use, and that population you are talking about is one
very important piece of that group. We see the Language Corps
as an organization that can capture these people, put them to
use, give them an opportunity to maintain and advance their
language, and then serve the country and, eventually, state and
local needs with that.
So there are things. But you are absolutely right, we need
to think more about other avenues for them as well.
Mrs. Davis of California. I think what we would hope and
look for is some kind of a real plan that would begin to do
this, and that would build on our native language speakers that
are in the country. I know even in the San Diego community,
there are many people who have the ability to help and really
weren't encouraged at all to do that. So we need to map all
that help in some better way, and I think we really want to be
helpful in that regard. The people who are returning are
basically, a lot of them are here, and so we can't wait too
much longer, I think, to have that kind of plan that works.
The other thing I would just ask you in any time really
left. In your experience looking over globally, I guess, to the
language programs in foreign countries that actually have done
an exceptional job of reaching very young children and beyond;
clearly, I mean, if you are living in Europe and you have
exposure, that is going to be very different for young
children, but there are other possibilities. I know, as someone
living in Japan many, many years ago, children loved to come by
our house just to hear us speak English, and they were learning
a little bit in school.
What is it that we should be looking at beyond some of the
programs? I have seen great immersion programs here in our
country, and certainly San Diego has had some that are very
successful. But is there anything that we can tap into that you
have seen that really is quite different than our approach?
Dr. Slater. Well, our approach is unique. We are, frankly,
out to lunch on our approach. We talk to our European
colleagues about learning from them what they do in languages.
They say: We can't teach you anything, because by the time our
students get to university they are done studying languages
because they have done it.
It is doing a better job in early education. It is dual
immersion programs. We have enormous opportunities to build on
populations that speak other languages as a first language and
capitalize on that by communities building on that and building
dual immersion programs, which not only enrich language
learning but enrich learning in general in the schools. And the
performance data we have suggests that performance in general
across the curriculum is better. That is what we need to be
doing. We can't defer this to the university.
Our sense in Flagship is we want to challenge universities
to take an advanced placement student in language and build on
that to the higher level. But they should be already coming to
the university with a facility in a second language. And that
is what--so we can't learn a lot from other systems because
they look at us and say: You are doing it backwards. And so
that is what fundamentally needs to change.
Dr. Walker. It sounds pretty good to me. But I do think
that the one thing that we really need to pay attention to when
we establish these programs is just the extended of sequence of
instruction. And I don't want--again, just to repeat, don't
waste the resource of having children up to a certain level in
the language, and then for some reason or other, have them lose
that. That I think is what we want to avoid.
Dr. Snyder. We will go another round here. I want to hear
from the three of you about the federal funding. If each one of
you could talk first about the--I guess I want you to critique
Dr. Slater's program, and ignore him. Pretend he is not here.
How easy has it been to work with regard to federal
funding? How important has it been to you? I don't want to go
away from here if, in fact, the tail wags the dog. Is it a
small part of your activity? Would each of you talk about that
in terms of the accountability, how important federal dollars
are? Can you use more, et cetera? I know the answer to that
question. Go ahead.
Dr. Givens. Yes. Well, we have had a very good working
relationship with Bob, and that is not just because he is
sitting here.
The funding has been very important because it is actually,
even though we have one of the largest Arabic teaching
faculties, it still allowed us----
Dr. Snyder. If I may interrupt. If you would distinguish,
is funding important for the roadmap before your flagships?
Dr. Givens. Both. Let me talk about as focusing on the
Flagship first.
So it has been very important. Well, for one thing it
allowed us to develop new curriculum in pedagogies that have
been very effective in getting students to a much higher level
of proficiency than the traditional ways of doing it in the
past. And so really, working with the Flagship program has had
a major impact on our curriculum on getting students actually
into the countries where they can really immerse themselves in
the language and so on. I think it has really helped us to move
our pedagogy and curriculum forward in a way that we might not
otherwise have done. So I think the federal funding has really
been a key to moving our programs forward both in Hindi, Urdu,
and Arabic.
And then in terms of the language roadmap, the federal
funding basically kicked us in the rear and got us doing
something that we might not otherwise have done, which is to
really get a dialogue going across the state on this particular
issue in a more focused way. It is not that these issues aren't
already being discussed in the state of Texas, but it really
has helped us to focus in and to support legislation that is
already out there at the state level and to work with a group
of people from government and business and education to try and
come up with ways to get at these K-12 issues in particular.
Dr. Bourgerie. I think it obviously has been very important
to us. Again, we have a very strong language program
traditionally. But even with that, as I said in my other
remarks, that it has helped us to really change fundamentally
what we do. It has also brought so many more students into the
higher levels and, more recently, into the K-12 collaboration.
Utah is a little different in several ways. We don't have a
K-12 center, per se, but we have been given linkage funding and
we have a lot of energy at the state level coming to us and
saying, how can we partner? And obviously, I think if this is
going to go well all around the country, there has to be lots
of partnerships. There has to be partnerships between the
states, the Federal Government, local governments. And that is,
I think, we are seeing in a lot of the Flagship context right
now.
It has been extraordinarily important to get the
infrastructure up that serves us well now, including the local
infrastructure, but also the centers abroad which have served
all the Flagship programs. And those have been fundamental to
getting done what we want to get done at the advanced level.
On the summit level, I should say that even though ours was
funded by the state of Utah, very enthusiastically, I might
add, we still benefit from the other three. We were able to
look at their roadmaps. And had those not been done, I think it
would have been hard for us to get the kind of enthusiasm that
we did get in our summit and onward toward a language roadmap.
I should also say that we did have some in-kind in-step
support as well. Bob came up and donated a facilitator and some
of the organizers to our group in Utah as well. So it has been
important, and I really don't think we could have made this
breakthrough without substantial help in that way.
Dr. Snyder. Dr. Walker.
Dr. Walker. One of the things that the NSEP funding
particularly has done has allowed us to really focus on our
results, to take a target and say that is what we are working
toward, that is what we are going to get. In a way, in the past
we already had those goals in mind, but we didn't have the
resources to put in place and to constantly reach those goals.
We have been allowed to engage in a lot of innovations. We
have had funding, say, to develop an online assessment program
that we can use to build electronic portfolios for our
students, where our students can be evaluated from--by people
anywhere, in China, here, and other universities. This is
something that we wouldn't have been able to do. We have a
center, the centers abroad in Nanjing and Qingdao. These are
constant resources that we can send our students to, to get
them working in the actual communities in China. When students
return to us from those places, they come with experiences that
students before them never had before. They have interacted
with Chinese on all levels, from the neighborhood, even to
interacting with officials in conducting community service
projects that involved a wide range of people.
And finally, the roadmap. I would say, for us, it allowed
us--it brought us in to take our discussion of what we are
doing in foreign language and culture and put it in the context
of the people around us, the businesses and the people in
government who have--sometimes, especially the people in
government public service desperate needs for a language,
sometimes its life and death.
But in business, they have their own way of looking at the
issue. A lot of times they do not perceive a need for language
because it is so far from their minds that this is going to be
available that they don't build it into their expectations. But
once we start talking about it, we get a really good idea that
they want the culture--language and culture, very important.
And the language has to be involved with content that is
professionally related. They have to be able to work in the
languages.
Dr. Snyder. Mr. Bartlett for five minutes.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you.
I lived as a child during the Depression near a coal mining
town in Western Pennsylvania. Most of the people worked in the
coal mine were immigrants from European countries. I remember
Little Italy as one of the streets in the little town I grew up
near, and there were similar enclaves for those who came from
Hungary and Czechoslovakia and so forth.
My mother taught in the Americanization program for the WPA
when the children of these immigrants were seeking to become
American citizens because they came with their parents as
children from overseas, I remember how proud the parents were
that their children now spoke English and they really didn't
want their grandchildren to speak the native language because
they were Americans now. Now we have a multilingual country for
which we are proud, and many see this as threatened by
``English first.''
I think we do an enormous disservice to our immigrants if
we make it convenient for them not to learn English, because at
least for the moment, English is the language of commerce in
our country. If you don't speak English, you are destined to
work forever in entry-level jobs. But the world has really
changed. And contrary to this culture that I grew up in where,
if you spoke something else you weren't an American, today I
think it is very desirous that more and more of us speak more
and more languages.
Unless this is embedded in our culture, you are waging an
uphill battle in the schools, because we have to see that as
something coveted that we ought to be working for. How do we
get the American people on board so that they value learning
another language and really tell their kids, gee, we are
looking forward to you speaking another language? How do we get
our culture on board? It would make it a whole lot easier for
you if we have them supporting you.
Dr. Bourgerie. I think, first of all, they are getting on
board much more than they have been in the recent years. Just
the bonus demand that parents put out there toward getting
programs, we get a lot of that. Almost daily we get people
saying, why don't you do this? Why don't you have a good
program in kindergarten for my daughter or son? And this
happens in a lot of places.
So I think the good news is the demand is there. I think
that we are not doing a perfect job of fulfilling it, but I
think the demand is much more out there than we thought.
I appreciate your comments. I grew up in a sort of
bilingual situation, too. Not Chinese, by the way, but with
French and English. And my parents were French speakers and I
always felt that it was a good thing, that I was very proud of
the fact that I knew another language. Not a lot of my friends
thought that. I lived in an Eastern European neighborhood where
most of them tried to bury that.
I think the key thing here is, too, that we do mine that
heritage community as well as the others that we have and give
them added value for who they are and what they are. And I
think there are some good things going on in that respect as
well.
Mr. Bartlett. I am glad you are hearing that. I have been
in Congress now for 16 years, and I have never had a
constituent tell me, gee, we need to do more in learning
foreign languages. So still I think, although you are hearing
good things, I think we have a way to go before we really have
our people on board and valuing this and pushing for it.
Dr. Bourgerie. Especially in key languages. We get daily
calls in our center, many calls, saying when are you going to
have--so maybe it varies from language and region, but I think
there is some good news out there, too.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Snyder. Mr. Bartlett, I am not sure all our
constituents appreciate the national security aspects of this
need, though, either. I think how significant it could be in
the past and how significant it can be in the future.
Mr. Miller for five minutes.
Mr. Miller of California. Thank you. I am going to have to
leave after this question; I have a leadership meeting. But
thank you very much for this hearing again, Mr. Chairman, and
to the witnesses I hope to get back to the witnesses.
If I might just ask one question. When we reauthorized No
Child Left Behind and in the preliminary drafts and
suggestions, we have been having this struggle over curriculum.
There has been a popular belief that No Child Left Behind
requires you to narrow your curriculum, teach to the test,
dummy it down. Okay. Some people did and some people didn't,
and that is the case.
My worry is that if we come on, we are going to have--
people want us to introduce science into the testing languages
into the testing. But, again, for most schools we will have
something that looks like language, we will have a quick,
inexpensive to grade multiple choice test that will look more
like vocabulary than anything else, and we will be done with
it. And I think that before we put this demand on school
districts all over the country, we have got to have some sense
of what the best practices are, what the best curriculum is,
and what is the curriculum that drives the deepest learning and
hopefully retention.
You talked about creating this environment in the schools
and engagement of these students and this learning at a very
early age. I doubt there are many teachers who would be
comfortable doing that unless it is sort of a rote prescription
that we give teachers; when they don't have the capacity, we
then give them a prescription for each moment of their life in
that classroom. And you now have some of these programs.
What are you doing about back and forth on best practices
and curriculum development so that the assessment doesn't drive
the curriculum, the curriculum drives the assessments? I know
it is expensive, but it may very well be we get a better return
on our dollar than what we are doing today.
Dr. Walker. Well, one thing I can say is that what we are
looking for, especially in our K-5 curriculum or K-12
curriculum in total, is performance, performance features. For
example, if a young person, let's say a five-year-old or a six-
year-old can do something in Chinese, we can make it a very
limited amount of things that they are able to do. I would say
there are about 10 questions that an adult will ask a child in
Chinese, so we can train the children to respond to those 10
questions pretty readily. But we can also focus what we want
them to do and what we want them to respond to, to the
environment around them. They are not too good at learning
lists of things, but they are very good at learning how to do
things. So I think what we need to do is sort of identify, what
would we expect children at a particular level to be able to
do?
When we are designing our curriculum, we kind of try to
avoid the grade-by-grade development. We have what we call the
phase, phase one, phase two, phase three. And these are sort of
designed on a parallel to sort of orchestra; beginning
orchestra, intermediate orchestra, and advanced orchestra. So
we feel that if a student wants to begin Chinese, just as if a
student wants to start the French horn, they have to begin in
phase one or beginning orchestra and work their way up. And we
think that kind of thing, we can describe what is expected out
of those different phases almost precisely. And a lot of this
is just based on research about how children use languages. And
if we teach--for example, we teach Chinese to kind of conform
to how children use language, the fact that they will learn to
do it, it seems to be much more assured. I don't know if that
answers your question.
Mr. Miller of California. That is helpful. I like the
process. My concern is that we will end up with a federal
mandate and very little capacity to carry out the mandate or an
understanding of what we might do, the process you described as
phase one, a lot of students could learn from their peers.
There could be a lot of interaction, there could be a lot of
basics that are learned. But my concern is that we go sort of--
we go broad and we go thin and then we are happy. That doesn't
work in math, and it doesn't appear that it works in language.
Dr. Slater. I think the fascinating part of the learning
experience of these state language roadmaps tells us a lot
about the process. We are not even close to a point where I
would say we want a federal mandate for schools across the
United States to teach Chinese or to teach Arabic or to teach
French. What we found from the state----
Mr. Miller of California. Let me tell you, there is a lot
of people in the Congress who think we should have a federal
mandate to teach language, and they would be real happy and
check the box and move on. I think that has turned out to be a
disaster.
Dr. Slater. What we are finding is every state is
different. And it is not like teaching math. You may have a
population, for example, in Texas where Spanish is the dominant
language. That is a language where there is a need. You might
find a Hmong population in Minnesota that can capitalize on
that, an Arabic population in parts of Ohio that might.
So we need a special kind of federal-state partnership in
the language area that recognizes that reality, I would argue,
as opposed to the mandate that we all teach languages, all say
we have done our job and it is in everybody's curriculum, and
wind up with one or two successes and mostly mediocrity. I
think that is--I think that is what I would argue is almost a
given from our perspective.
Dr. Bourgerie. Real quickly. I think one of the bigger
challenges in mind is not only the best practices but getting
by from afield. You can put all that out there, but if there is
a deep-seated paradigm against this quality teaching, you are
nowhere. And I think we run into a lot of that, and that to me
is even a bigger challenge of finding best practices.
Mr. Miller of California. Thank you. Thank you again, Mr.
Snyder.
Dr. Snyder. We have been joined by ranking member Mr. Akin.
STATEMENT OF HON. W. TODD AKIN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSOURI,
RANKING MEMBER, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. Akin. Mr. Chairman, I have a statement that I will
submit for the record, and then just go ahead and pass to the
other members who have been here and have questions.
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, Mr. Akin.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Akin can be found in the
Appendix on page 37.]
Dr. Snyder. Mr. Holt for five minutes.
Dr. Holt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And a very good hearing.
I appreciate being included.
Let me get several questions on the record, and if we can't
get answers orally, maybe you could submit later information.
There is this term called critical languages, and needs of
our Nation pop up. I mean, we should do a better job of, or
maybe we should have known we needed more Arabic or we would
have needed more Arabic, maybe we should have known we would
need more Pashtu. But or maybe now we recognize or will
recognize we need more Dari or Farsi. But how do we plan ahead?
I mean, really, what is the--do we do a good job of defining
critical in choosing the languages that we are going to support
to anticipate future needs?
And then a fundamental question really in any government
program is how good are our metrics, our measurements? We talk
about 3/4/4 or 3/3/3. Does that have any consistent meaning
from school to school, from agency to agency? Is that the right
way of measuring whether we are successful in any of these
programs with the individual students?
And then in the new pathways, Dr. Slater, you talk about
meeting the needs of the language learners who wish to achieve
professional proficiency and creating content-based curriculum
for students in a variety of disciplines. I have been pushing
for language programs that are combined with the science and
technology, the science education, for example. Does that make
sense? Is it working? Or should there just be language
programs, and science students will take them if they want?
Should they truly be integrated? Are there reasons to continue
down that line based on our experiences so far?
And the other question I was going to ask, although I think
you have addressed it in response to Chairman Miller's
questions. The roadmap and the various articulated programs
that are under development to take students from kindergarten
through university languages, recognizing that students and
families move around a lot and won't always be in the Hmong
Minnesota area or the Arabic Ohio area. Does it call for the
dreaded national curriculum, national standards? I think you
were all saying no, but I have to ask that question.
So in the few minutes remaining here, let me throw it open
to those questions.
Dr. Slater. Well, let me start and answer two of them and
let my colleagues answer any of the others or duplicate.
Critical languages, we are doing a better job. Five, 10
years ago there, we didn't know what that meant. I think
certainly within the Department of Defense, we now have a list
of current need languages and trying to project out what the
additional languages might be. So I think we have a sense.
But I would always ask, critical for what? Critical for
national security? Critical for intelligence? I think that
there, we are getting a better handle on that. But there are
many others. As we have learned in the state roadmap process,
there are many other drivers in the country for critical
languages. What does business need? What do we need to service
local populations? So we need to do a better job.
That being said, there are always going to be languages
that catch us unprepared. So like the language corps and some
other mechanisms, we need to figure out ways to mobilize
populations. In our exercise in the language corps with the
Centers for Disease Control they ask for Marshallese. We have
no Marshallese programs in the United States, but we do have
significant populations of Marshallese. We need ways to be able
to identify and bring that expertise to bear if there were a
particular issue. Vietnamese was an issue post-Katrina. We need
ways to develop approaches to that. So that, I would answer we
still have a ways to go.
The content-based issue that you raised, we are finding a
lot of success. One of the main reasons students drop languages
in particularly university level is because the language
becomes irrelevant to them by the second year, by the time they
are done with the requirement, because they are studying
business, economics, political science, physics, and the
language class is 17th century literature. And all of a sudden,
the whole reason for studying languages escapes them.
We are finding in Flagship, because the students have an
opportunity to continue their language study as an integral
part of their curriculum that they are staying with it, because
of all a sudden they see that opportunity. So we are seeing a
lot of successes. The diversity of our student enrollment is
really quite extraordinary because of that. I think certainly
at university level that is the way to go the to capture those
students and keep them involved.
Dr. Holt. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, if you do get written answers to any of those
questions, I would appreciate seeing them.
Dr. Snyder. Absolutely.
Mrs. Davis for five minutes.
Mrs. Davis of California. Thank you.
You mentioned the Flagship program right now. Do you know,
in that program students are directed toward government
positions and other high-level positions? Is that correct?
Right?
Dr. Slater. There are two pieces of Flagship. There is a
post-baccalaureate program which we give fellowships. There are
probably about 30, 35 fellowships awarded a year. They all are
directed toward the Federal Government. They have a
requirement. The undergraduate program is a much broader based
program. They do not receive direct scholarship funding from
us; therefore, they have no requirement, but we are working
with all of them to provide them with information on federal
careers. Many of them want to pursue that, so we are giving
them information and getting federal career people out there to
talk to them, to attract them to the federal. So we are working
on that in two avenues.
Mrs. Davis of California. Do you have, and perhaps in the
other programs. I think what I am trying to wonder about is of
those individuals who study language and they study at a high
enough level that they can go on and do something with it, I
had just some thoughts about trying to get people security
clearances while they are in that first program, the beginning
of it. But how many of those actually go into teaching? Do we
know?
Dr. Bourgerie. I had a list that I didn't share with you
earlier. But our students, about 45 graduates, undergraduates
recently, 12 of them are in Federal Government institutions in
some way. We have people in China-based businesses. Some stay
in China and work. We have two in medical school, for example,
technology firms, several accounting firms, Commerce
Department. Many other fields. And they are finding a place to
use it. And as we mentioned before, often it is the second job
that they get. Sometimes we have to encourage them to say as
this comes along. We had a student just recently who had been
working at KPMG not using his Chinese in Southern California.
Now he was hired just recently with a firm that does almost
their business in China.
So I think you are seeing all sorts of different fields,
depending on their interests. And that is really built into
Congressman Holt's question, too, that his domain or what we
call domain is built into all the flagships. They have to do
something besides their field. So they have to have Chinese and
something.
Mrs. Davis of California. Is it a concern that perhaps not
a large enough number of those individuals actually do go into
teaching, though, so that they can teach?
Dr. Bourgerie. I think this program has never had that as a
target, though. There are lots of programs that target teachers
and this doesn't have that as a main target, although we have
had a few who ended up in teaching.
Dr. Givens. Our UTeach program does target those to go into
teaching. It is a relatively new enough program that I don't
have the exact numbers how many have gotten placement. But that
is a language specific program that is designed to have
teachers who have the skills to teach even some of these
critical languages. But it is not directly related to the
Flagship.
Dr. Walker. That is the same. At Ohio State University, we
have MA and Ph.D. level in Chinese language pedagogy or other
language pedagogies, and those are people who are trained
specifically to become teachers. People who are attracted to
the NSEP, to the Flagship program are largely people who are
interested actually in government service. Their dream is to
come to Washington and have a career. This is one of the--so
that is a clear distinction between those two groups of
students.
Mrs. Davis of California. Part of my concern is, of the
universe of students who would even begin in the early grades,
maybe get enough in middle school to go on to high school and
then maybe into college and keep those skills, how many of them
actually do go into teaching? What I am looking for is perhaps
we need to know a little bit more about that pathway, and are
there places along the pathway where we are not really doing
enough work to encourage people to go into teaching, those who
have the skills who could be great teachers in the field,
because there are other enticements, like in anything today
where it is difficult to get people to go into teaching if they
are going to go into business or biological sciences, whatever
that might be.
And I don't know whether we are doing enough to really make
certain that we have a kind of pathway that is so enticing for
teachers in language that we need to perhaps do more. And I
think that is partly where the government funding comes into
that and the assurances that there is going to be something at
the end of the line. I think that school districts have a
difficult time retaining some of those programs, as we all
know, and that is part of the rub here.
Dr. Walker. We could always do a better job of actually
keeping track of our students. That is one of the main
challenges, I think, facing all of us in this area of activity.
In terms of, a lot of the times, getting people into teaching
is not as big a problem as keeping them in teaching. And that
is, I think, an issue that kind of goes, you know, is broader
than us.
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, Mrs. Davis.
Thank you all for being here this morning. I think it has
been very helpful. I want to formally thank Chairman George
Miller and Rush Holt for joining us. They are not members of
the House Armed Services Committee, but I asked if they would
attend and they did, and they appreciate the work that you are
doing.
We have this formality of questions for the record. Members
may have written questions they want to submit to you, and we
appreciate you getting back your answers in a timely fashion.
Let me also suggest, though, accepted as a question for the
record: If there is anything you think that you forgot about or
you would like to add on, or you get back and think that was
the dumbest thing you said and you need to correct it, feel
free to submit. Anything you sent us written in response to
this question will be made a part of the record and will be
shared with the other members. We appreciate you all for being
here. And we are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:43 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
September 23, 2008
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
September 23, 2008
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY DR. SNYDER
Dr. Snyder. The sponsors for the state summits included the
Departments of Defense, Labor, and Commerce. Why weren't the
Departments of State and Education included?
Dr. Slater. The State summits were designed to focus primarily on
the economic and workforce needs for languages as distinct from needs
based on national security and foreign affairs. Consequently, the
Department of Defense reached out to the Departments of Commerce and
Labor to cosponsor the summits. The Departments of Education and State
were invited to send representatives to the summits and the Department
of Education sent a senior representative to one of the summits.
Because the State summits emphasized the articulation of needs at the
local and State level, we were also careful to limit the involvement of
Federal representatives in these efforts.
Dr. Snyder. Is the Office of Personnel Management involved at all
with the NSLI, Flagships, or the NLSC? Does the National Security
Professionals Initiative include requirements or encouragements for
language and culture?
Dr. Slater. OPM has not had any direct involvement with the
Flagships. However, efforts to establish procedures for hiring and
activating members of the NLSC have been closely coordinated among OPM,
the Defense Human Resource Activity, within the Office of the Under
Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, and the Department's
Civilian Personnel Management Service.
Dr. Snyder. What can DOD and Congress do to facilitate the
clearance process for NSEP graduates?
Dr. Slater. The Department has made significant progress in
developing approaches to facilitating the clearance process for NSEP
graduates. During 2008, DoD approved an approach that would allow NSEP
award recipients to be processed for security clearances on a case-by-
case basis, as soon as they have accepted their award instead of upon
offer of a position. NSEP is working closely with key DoD organizations
to develop a process that will implement this approach. It should
provide opportunities for as many as 100 NSEP award recipients to gain
security clearances each year well ahead of their job searches.
The security clearance process does, however, remain daunting,
particularly for NSEP award recipients who study in certain areas of
the world. We need to continually strive for ways to ensure that
appropriate security clearance processes are carried out while, at the
same time, avoiding the loss of highly-talented individuals like those
who are funded by NSEP.
Dr. Snyder. Recognizing that the DOD schools are generally ahead of
their civilian counterparts in foreign language and cultural awareness
instruction, what new programs are being considered for CONUS and
OCONUS DOD schools on language and culture (K-12 articulation)? Is this
a legitimate area for NSEP involvement?
Dr. Slater. NSEP has held discussions with representatives of the
Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) on how United States
based DoDEA schools can benefit from the Flagship K-12 pilot
initiatives. For 2009, the Language Flagship is undertaking a review of
all K-12 immersion programs. We intend to examine domestic and overseas
DoDEA schools in this effort as well.
DoDEA is actively pursuing efforts to support foreign language and
cultural education. DoDEA's foreign language program offers instruction
in Arabic, Chinese, French, Korean, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish,
and Turkish in its secondary schools. Some less commonly taught
language courses are demographically localized to regions of the world
where the language is spoken. Elementary programs include ``Foreign
Language in Elementary School'' in Spanish for K-3 in 62 schools and 11
partial immersion programs in varying languages to include German,
Italian, Korean, Japanese, and Spanish. DoDEA's students study the
history, culture, customs, traditions, and language of the host nation
in which they live.
Dr. Snyder. What is the percentage of NSEP graduates who have
entered federal service (1200 of how many?)? Does NSEP recruit or
accept ROTC students? The Flagships?
Dr. Slater. NSEP's data on completion of the service requirement is
based on submission of an annual ``Service Agreement Report'' submitted
by each award recipient. To date, approximately 2,550 NSEP award
recipients have incurred a service requirement since 1996 (recipients
in 1994 and 1995 did not incur a service requirement). Of these 2,550,
approximately 300 are furthering their education and have been granted
extensions. An additional 91 have either been granted a waiver, opted
to repay the scholarship/fellowship, or have been forwarded to the
United States Treasurer for collection. Of the remaining 2,150, many
are still enrolled in degree programs and are not actually candidates
to fulfill the requirement.
Our current records indicate that approximately 1,350 award
recipients have completed or are currently fulfilling their service
requirements. Seventy-four percent (998) of these 1,350 are fulfilling
the requirement in the Federal Government with the remainder in higher
education (note that from 1996-2004, award recipients had the option of
fulfilling the requirement in higher education). A number of our award
recipients have served in more than one Federal position, with the
result that 1,200 Federal positions have been filled with NSEP alums.
A total of 114 Flagship Fellows have been funded since 2004. Of
these 114, 17 are continuing their education and have received
deferrals of their service requirement. Of the remaining 97, 40 have
secured positions in the Federal sector. Many of the remaining 57 are
just reaching the point of seeking Federal positions and we expect a
very high percentage of them to be successful.
The numbers and percentage of award recipients gaining Federal
positions has increased steadily since 2001. New programs have been
developed in Federal agencies to identify positions for NSEP award
recipients. The State Department waives the written exam requirement in
the Foreign Service for NSEP Graduate Fellows.
NSEP does accept applications from ROTC students as well as
students in the military Reserves. However, the National Security
Education Act of 1991 includes a stipulation that there may not be,
during the period of study under the award, any relationship between
the award recipient and any Federal agency or organization involved in
United States intelligence activities. Consequently, NSEP requires any
award recipient who has such a relationship, to officially terminate
the association for the period of the award.
Dr. Snyder. The service witnesses at the previous hearing and in
our briefings related that the NSEP program doesn't feed them graduates
for civilian personnel. Does the NSEP staff try to work with the
services' manpower and human resources staffs to find placements?
Dr. Slater. Our NSEP service placement staff has met with
representatives from the Services to identify possible placements.
There have been a significant number of placements with the Services
and at the Combatant Commands. This is clearly an area for expansion
and improvement.
Dr. Snyder. Have any NSEP graduates or Flagship participants ever
taught at DLI or any of other Defense school or program? Understanding
that there was a contraction in the Russian Department there in the
90s, is there a demand now for newly-minted masters degrees or
doctorates? (Dr. Givens mentioned they needed placements for Russian
teachers among others.)
Dr. Slater. Upon occasion, an NSEP or Flagship graduate will work
with DLI. However, DLI tends to hire only native speakers of the
language as its instructors making most NSEP award recipients
ineligible for instructor positions. It is likely that more NSEP and
Flagship graduates would consider DLI if there were positions open to
them.
Dr. Snyder. If you got more money, how would you spend it for NSEP?
For NSLI? What existing programs would you enhance? What new
initiatives would you start?
Dr. Slater. The Language Flagship is beginning to make a
significant impact on language teaching in United States higher
education. NSEP could diffuse innovation throughout a broader spectrum
of universities across the U.S. In addition, while not proposing to
address K-12 education in the United States--a more appropriate effort
for the Department of Education--Flagship could expand its articulation
efforts between higher education and high schools in the U.S.
Certainly, an expansion of quality, proficiency-based high school
language programs would not only enhance the Flagship effort to
graduate professionally proficient university students, but it would
also address the needs of the Services for recruits with language
skills.
NSEP could also expand its partnership with the States to expand
the language roadmap effort. While it is imperative that the initiative
for language roadmaps must come from each State, an expanded Federal-
State partnership in this arena would provide additional incentives to
organize and coordinate the process.
NSEP's English for Heritage Language Speakers (EHLS) program can
also be expanded. At present, the program, designed and implemented at
Georgetown University, can only accommodate up to 30 students a year.
Only in its third year, 30 graduates have been placed in positions
throughout the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security,
Department of State, and the intelligence community. EHLS graduates
have played a pivotal role in helping the Central Intelligence Agency
start up its Open Source Works organization, an operation designed to
provide open source analysis.
Dr. Snyder. Do NLSC volunteers get any deployment preparation,
training or equipment? What civilian and military reserve models were
pursued for the NLSC program planning? Who will run the 24/7 ops
center? Who will approve requests for support and how will requests be
prioritized (p. 20 of written testimony)? Please explain the NLSC logo
and tagline (p. 21 of written testimony).
Dr. Slater. NLSC members will receive extensive readiness training
throughout their membership. Member readiness includes training
necessary for NLSC members to be prepared for activation, deployment,
and redeployment and to successfully perform as a member of a
Government team. Examples of this training include personal
preparations for activation, deployment, and redeployment, the culture
of the organization being supported, the roles and functions of the
NLSC and its members, and what it means to work as a member of a
Government team. Specialized deployment training and equipment will be
supplied by the gaining organization, if required, for specific
deployments.
The NLSC has examined and adapted concepts from several Reserve and
volunteer service models, including the United States Military Reserve
and National Guard, the Department of State's Civilian Response Corps,
AmeriCorps, Disaster Medical Assessment Teams, Disaster Mortuary
Operational Response Teams, and the Office of the Civilian Volunteer
Medical Reserve Corps in developing and improving the concept of
operations for the NLSC.
The NLSC staff will run the 24/7 operations center. The staff will
have both Government and, where acceptable, contractor support
employees.
Requests for services will be processed in the order they are
received unless national needs dictate a higher priority. Final
priority assignment and approval rests with the Director of NLSC.
The NLSC logo represents unity and diversity of people and
language. It reflects that the NLSC members are a diverse group who
cross cultural boundaries by speaking more than one language to work
together towards a greater good for all. Each thread in the logo is
part of a woven fabric without a finished edge, representing the fact
that languages are not limited by manmade borders. The weave itself
signifies that any individual or individual language can perform alone,
but when working together, individuals become something far more
versatile that protects and adds beauty to our world. Similarly,
individual threads are stronger when woven together than each is
separately. The NLSC logo symbolizes the best of human nature that we
see exhibited when we pull together in times of crisis and emergency
around the globe.
Language for the good of all is the accompanying tagline that
expresses how the NLSC, as a public program, adds meaning and purpose
to one's language skills and strengthens global unity. It builds upon
the theme of service that was identified as a main motivator for
individuals to join the NLSC during the branding study conducted as
part of the feasibility assessments of the program.
Dr. Snyder. There have been proposals for stronger centralization
and direction of the Federal government's language program. Some would
establish a council as well as a national language director in the
Executive Office of the President. Would this be helpful? What
drawbacks do you see? Why establish a ``council'' instead of something
like the Office of Science and Technology Policy or a ``czar''?
Dr. Slater. The Department of Defense (DoD) has long favored an
ongoing dialogue on the best approach to ensure coordination and
direction of language programs across the Federal Government. The
National Security Language Initiative represents an important step in
this direction as it brings together senior representatives from the
four participating organizations: DoD, State, Education, and Office of
the Director of National Intelligence. The Department continues to look
for opportunities to develop stronger coordination across agencies.
Dr. Snyder. How could the Dept of Education take over the Diffusion
of Innovation role that DOD has taken to encourage, guide and support
the state programs and flagships? Are there challenges beyond just the
funding?
Dr. Slater. The Department of Education could adopt approaches
within its own programs under Title VI of the Higher Education Act that
would support and enhance the reach of Flagship. Additionally, it could
adopt approaches within its own programs under Title VI of the Higher
Education Act that would support high-quality undergraduate language
instruction that follows the Flagship model.
Dr. Snyder. What federal funding has been authorized and obligated
for the 5 programs that fall under the Defense Department for NSEP? Is
there any additional information you would like to add for the record?
Dr. Slater. During Fiscal Year 2008, Congress authorized $44.7
million in support of the five major programs that currently fall under
NSEP. These funds have been obligated as follows:
1. NSEP Boren Undergraduate Scholarships: $ 2 million
2. NSEP Boren Graduate Fellowships: $ 2 million
3. English for Heritage Language Speakers $ 2 million
4. National Language Service Corps $ 7.5 million
5. Language Flagship $ 26 million
The remaining funds have been obligated to support NSEP
administrative and contract efforts, including staff salaries, office
rent, and information technology support.
Dr. Snyder. Are Flagship graduates made aware of, and encouraged to
volunteer for, the National Language Service Corps?
Dr. Slater. Yes. As we launch the NLSC recruiting effort, we are
identifying as candidates all recipients of National Security Education
Program (NSEP) awards, including Flagship graduates. NSEP is currently
developing an algorithm that will provide these individuals with credit
against their Federal service requirement both for joining the NLSC
and, of course, for service that results from activation.
Dr. Snyder. The Department and others liken the shock of 9/11 to
the shock over the launching of Sputnik and suggest that the nation
needs to react with a similar commitment of resources and
determination. Are the current efforts toward improving language
instruction and cultural understanding on a similar scale? What kind of
leadership at the national level would you like to see on this?
Dr. Slater. Significant progress has been made in advancing the
effort to improve language instruction and cultural understanding
across a broader cross-section of Americans. We still have a very long
way to go particularly in building more effective programs during early
childhood education. Some of this can be addressed through programs
such as the Flagship program that supports advanced language learning
for students of all undergraduate majors. This must be coupled with
stronger and more effective national leadership that stresses the
importance of well-developed and carefully articulated second language
learning as integral to the entire educational process, along with the
study of science and math.
Dr. Snyder. Have you taken or evaluated DLPT5 or DLI's
instructional methodology or curriculum?
Dr. Slater. The National Security Education Program (NSEP) is not
directly involved in issues related to the DLPT5. A number of Flagship
graduates have taken the DLPT5 and NSEP continues to work with DLI
leadership to identify approaches that will facilitate our award
recipients having the opportunity to be tested.
NSEP has worked to build stronger collaboration with DLI in the
instructional methodology and curricular development arena. In
September 2008, NSEP, at the request of the Deputy Under Secretary of
Defense for Plans, sponsored a major meeting among representatives from
DLI, the military academies, and key institutional project directors of
Flagship centers. At this meeting, participants developed an initial
agenda for areas of collaboration among these constituencies.
Dr. Snyder. It was not entirely clear in the hearing how languages
are designated as ``critical.'' How does this process work?
Dr. Slater. The Department of Defense develops and maintains an
annual list of ``stronghold'' and ``investment'' languages. The
National Security Education Program relies on these lists to develop
its focus for emphasis of languages in all of its programs.
Dr. Snyder. Is the American Council of Teaching Foreign Language's
test a ``gold standard'' for assessment? What important skills doesn't
it evaluate?
Dr. Slater. When people refer to the ACTFL assessment, they are
almost exclusively referring to the Oral Proficiency Interview. It is
the most widely used test in the public sector for the assessment of
speaking proficiency. This test has been reviewed and revised to
demonstrate assessment validity and reliability for 25+ years. ACTFL
proficiency levels are referenced off of the Interagency Language
Roundtable proficiency guidelines. ACTFL proficiency tests are
currently being used worldwide by academic institutions, Government
agencies, and private corporations for purposes such as: academic
placement, student assessment, program evaluation, professional
certification, hiring, and qualification for promotion. More than
12,000 ACTFL tests are conducted yearly through the ACTFL Testing
Program. Currently, ACTFL offers oral proficiency testing in more than
65 languages. The ACTFL Writing Proficiency Test is much less commonly
used and only represents 12 languages. ACTFL does not offer assessments
for reading and listening.
Dr. Snyder. What is your Roadmap's vision for teaching foreign
language in other subject areas? Is there utility on combining content
like language and science?
Dr. Slater. We strongly believe that the teaching of languages must
be more fully integrated into the core curriculum for all students.
Many students do not pursue language beyond elementary study because
they do not see a link between their content studies and language
learning. Through a number of initiatives in Flagship, we have promoted
the concept that language curriculum is stronger if it is offered in
content related courses throughout K-12 and higher education. All
Flagship programs teach content courses in the target language. The
Roadmap efforts have strongly supported the concept of ``dual
immersion,'' which operationalizes the concept of teaching languages
across the curriculum. Dual immersion programs very effectively draw on
the richness of languages spoken by students in the system.
Dr. Snyder. How do the Roadmaps account for the transient nature
much of the U.S. population--that students move from state to state?
Should there be some national requirement or curriculum?
Dr. Slater. The Roadmap effort, as well as all programs supported
under Flagship, emphasizes the importance of multiple entry points into
language study. This is critical because expecting students to enter
programs only at the beginning and to stay throughout limits access to
high-quality language programs. We are working to help establish
language learning models that are transferable from one school system
to another throughout the entire educational process.
For this reason, we emphasize a strong assessment based effort that
will allow programs to assess the level of a student so that they can
be appropriately placed in programs. We do not, however, believe that a
single national curriculum would be effective. In addition we believe
there should be a ``selective'' but not necessarily universal approach
to language education--schools should be encouraged and incentivized
but not required to offer languages as an integral component of the
curriculum.
Dr. Snyder. Is there any additional information you would like to
add for the record?
Dr. Slater. No, there is nothing further I would like to add.
Dr. Snyder. Are Flagships graduates made aware of, and encouraged
to volunteer for, the National Language Service Corps?
Dr. Givens. [HUF refers to the Hindi Urdu Flagship at The
University of Texas at Austin; AF refers to the Arabic Flagship at The
University of Texas at Austin.]
The HUF is only in the second year of operation and there
are no graduates yet.
The NLSC would certainly be an option that the HUF
presents to graduates.
The AF have 4 students doing their study year abroad year
in Alexandria and were introduced to the NLSC during the orientation
session they had in DC before departing for Egypt.
The AF plan to incorporate information about the NLSC on
their web site and will inform current Arabic Flagship students of this
opportunity.
Dr. Snyder. The Department and others liken the shock of 9/11 to
the shock over the launching of Sputnik and suggest that the nation
needs to react with similar commitment of resources and determination.
Are the current efforts towards improving language instruction and
cultural understanding on a similar scale? What kind of leadership at
the national level would you like to see on this?
Dr. Givens.
There is a need to establish a position at the highest
level of government which will coordinate a federal campaign to improve
language and international education.
This office will serve and represent all levels of
education (from K-12 and higher education) and the Departments of
Commerce, Defense and Education, Intelligence and Labor.
This office will also be responsible for creating
national guidelines for assessments and curriculum implementation of
language education and making sure that each state complies with the
given guidelines.
Each state should be represented at this office as well
to ensure that priority is given to language and international
education based on the state's requirements and needs.
There must be a federal initiative to fund and sustain
these guidelines once they are created.
Dr. Snyder. Have you taken or evaluated DLPT5 or DLI's
instructional methodology or curriculum?
Dr. Givens.
The DLPT's are not readily available outside the DLI but
the HUF have discussed these examinations with DLI officials and
teachers.
There was workshop in Austin in November 2007, where the
HUF discussed and compared instructional methodology and curriculum
with DLI and another workshop is being planned in Monterrey for the
current academic year.
Dr. Snyder. It was not entirely clear in the hearing how languages
are designated as ``critical.'' How does this process work?
Dr. Givens.
The term ``critical language'' is usually defined by
government institutions (Department of Defense) and is based on
national needs and perhaps also the lack of availability of instruction
in the language.
The term has acquired dimensions related to political and
military conflict.
Dr. Snyder. Is the American Council of Teaching Foreign Language's
test a ``gold standard'' for assessment? What important skills doesn't
it evaluate?
Dr. Givens.
There are no good reading and listening tests for Hindi
and Urdu provided by ACTFL.
The HUF is obliged to devise their own assessment
systems, building on the models of those available for other languages.
For the AF, the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) is
the ``gold standard'' for assessing the speaking skill.
Beyond the OPI, however, the AF does not have adequate
instruments to assess the other skills.
This will change soon as the Language Flagship is working
with the National Middle East Language Resource Center (NMELRC) and
ACTFL to develop a comprehensive proficiency test for reading and
listening in Arabic which should be ready within a year.
Dr. Snyder. What is your Roadmap's vision for teaching foreign
language in other subject areas? Is there utility on combining content
like language and science?
Dr. Givens.
We firmly believe in the need to introduce learners to
content courses in the various disciplines in which the medium of
communication is the foreign language. For example: Spanish for the
field of Social Work.
The Texas Roadmap advocates the dual immersion methods
which have so far proven to be successful in teaching languages.
Dr. Snyder. How do the Roadmaps account for the transient nature
much of the U.S. population--that students move from state to state?
Should there be some national requirement or curriculum for foreign
language?
Dr. Givens.
There are certainly advantages to national requirements
and curricula for foreign language, but it is probably not practical in
the U.S. because of the decentralized nature of our educational system.
Given that educational requirements are determined by the
various states, we may think of some national guidelines that would
provide a general framework for curriculum development and assessment.
An example of such framework is the National Standards
for Foreign Language developed by ACTFL.
The Standards provide curricular guidelines that can be
implemented by schools nationwide.
Dr. Snyder. Is there any additional information that you would like
to add to the record?
Dr. Givens.
The HUF have been collaborating with the few existing
programs, including the Hindi program at the Bellaire foreign language
magnet program in the Houston Independent School District and the Hindi
Program of the International Business Initiative of the Hurst-Euless-
Bedford ISD in Tarrant County, Texas.
The HUF is also looking at ways of addressing the dearth
of K-12 teaching in these languages, and in particular are developing
teacher-training processes to deal with the demand which is likely to
emerge when the momentum of the Language Flagship initiative begins to
make itself felt more fully throughout the educational system.
The AF have just begun their K-12 outreach program and
plan to work closely with schools in the Austin, Houston and Dallas
areas to provide support for any school interested in offering Arabic.
The AF will be working with the UTeach Program at The
University of Texas at Austin to discuss certification for teachers
planning careers in teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language.
The Texas Language Roadmap would like additional funding
to help expand the language roadmap effort as the initiative must come
from the state level.
This can continue our efforts to coordinate a high-level
functioning board from all the various stakeholders from the business,
education and government community that have a strong influence within
their own communities.
Limited English Proficiency (LEP) students have increased
by 42.2% between 1996-97 and the 2006-2007 academic school years while
the number of students in Bilingual or ESL programs grew by 51.6%,
according to the Texas Education Agency (TEA). The NCLB mandate have
motivated schools to be more aggressive in providing services to LEP
students and thus the cost of education in the State of Texas have rose
and is expected to rise dramatically. Texas provides monetary support
for these students and is given priority over foreign languages.
Dr. Snyder. What is your opinion of the current state of machine
translators? In what situations are they most useful?
Dr. Bourgerie. The use of electronic corpora has improved the
accuracy of machine translation over the last few years. Research on
the evaluation of machine translation conducted by MIT Lincoln Labs
indicates that machine translation performs best when used for key-word
spotting or translation of concrete factual communications. It does not
work well when the context for the communication is not known, when the
message is too short to establish a context, when the author of the
communication is talking around the subject, when dealing with abstract
subjects, or when it is necessary to identify inferences, sarcasm, or
emotion within the communication. Given these limitations, academia,
commerce, and government all use machine translation as part of the
``triage'' process of identifying which communications should have
highest priority for human translation--but not for definitive
translations of those communications.
Dr. Snyder. Are Flagship graduates made aware of and encouraged to
volunteer for, the National Language Service Corps?
Dr. Bourgerie. At this point our Flagship graduates arc not
generally aware of the National Language Service Corps program. As we
get more information on the program in the coming year, we will feature
it on our website and in promotional materials. I believe Flagship
students will be ideal candidates for the program. I also think that
many of our advanced students at BYU will be excellent candidates. We
very much look forward to promoting this program.
Dr. Snyder. The Department and others liken the shock of 9/11 to
the shock over the launching of Sputnik and suggest that the nations
need to react with a similar commitment of resources and determination.
Are the current efforts toward improving language instruction and
cultural understanding on a similar scale? What kind of leadership at
the national level would you like to see on this?
Dr. Bourgerie. I believe that 9/11 did reveal to the general public
and to the government the extent to which we were unprepared to
interact in other languages and cultures. Though we are fortunate to
have in this country a significant number of heritage speakers, we have
learned that relying on heritage speakers alone is nowhere near
sufficient to meet national capacity needs, whether in government,
industry, or business. Many of the recent federal and state efforts
have begun to address the need, but much more needs to be done at the
basic level--particularly in the K-12 arena. It will take time no
matter what we do but there are things that we can do now. Though I do
not think a mandatory national language curriculum is warranted, I
believe that national leadership needs to help set standards and
provide guidance for state and local leaders. What we have seen in Utah
is an strong desire to partner with Universities, national
organizations, and federal efforts like the Flagship program. They know
their context well, but are looking to the kind of guidance that high
education can give with respect to best practices, materials, and
methods.
Dr. Snyder. Have you taken or evaluated DLPT5 or DLI's
instructional methodology or curriculum? Is there any additional
information you would like to add for the record?
Dr. Bourgerie. I have visited DLI on several occasions. Recently, I
also attended a meeting in Austin, Texas intended to increase greater
cooperation between Flagship programs and the DoD, including DLI and
military academies. DLI's resources are incomparable and its role in
the language teaching world is unique. The number of students taught
there is also well beyond any other institutions in the US and as such
it is potentially a superb laboratory for language teaching.
I am somewhat familiar with the DLPT5 but have neither taken it nor
evaluated it formally. The current tests are apparently well designed,
but they are still wrestling with the challenge of setting accurate
``cut scores'' when assigning proficiency levels. This is especially
true for tests of the ``receptive'' skills of reading and listening.
We have had a number of graduates take the DLPT5 in Chinese and
have had doubts about its validity. That is, the assignment to levels
has not correlated well with other proficiency assessments and other
achievement evidence--trending high in some cases and low in other
times. Moreover, access to the test outside of DLI and the military is
severely limited, and we have not had enough experience at our center
to be definitive about the DLPT5's appropriateness.
In observing DLI use of the DLPT5, what is clear is that the test
takes far too prominent a role in the pedagogy of the Institute. A
fundamental assumption of any proficiency test is that it should be
independent of curriculum, so that one can see how graduates or
participants of a given program compare objectively to others. The
emphasis of a proficiency exam should be on what the person can do
rather than how well a student has mastered a particular lesson.
However, the DLPT5 seems to pervade every aspect of the Institute. This
overemphasis on testing in a short-term program distorts the teaching
and is at odds with the fundamentals of as proficiency measures.
Incentives lead students and teachers to focus too heavily on the test
as opposed to general achievement. DLI may want reconsider using other
established measures along with the DLPT5, which could in turn assess a
wider range of abilities based on needs analysis of potential job
assignments.
Dr. Snyder. It was not entirely clear in the hearing how languages
are designated as ``critical.'' How does this process work?
Dr. Bourgerie. The label ``critical language'' is currently at best
ambiguous and at worst confusing. The label should be disambiguated by
specifying ``for whom'' this is a ``critical'' need and ``why.'' Some
languages may be in the ``critical'' need category for both national
security and commercial reasons. Others may only be important for one
or the other reason. Still others may only be important for
anthropological research or for linguists documenting the evolution of
human languages.
Whether or not there is an official list of critical languages is
also unclear. The Department of Defense apparently has a process within
the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Preparedness, but the
process is not a public one nor is the list published as far as I know.
Indirectly, we take the languages emphasized by the National Security
Education Program to be critical need languages (Arabic, Chinese,
Hindi/Urdu, Korean, Persian, Russian, and West African). DoD has two
related classifications: Immediate Investment Languages and Stronghold
Languages. Immediate Investment Languages refers to languages toward
which DoD has committed resources over the next ten years for in-house
capability. Stronghold Languages are those in which DoD wants to
maintain on-call capability.
Exactly what constitutes a ``Critical Language'' or ``Critical-need
Language'' is not clear to most people in the academic world either.
The term itself is used loosely in language teaching circles, often
interchangeable with the term Less-Commonly Taught Languages (LCTL). In
the higher education world there are funded programs such as the
University of Arizona's Critical Language Program (funded in part by a
US Department of Education IRS grant), which focuses on Cantonese,
Chinese, Kazakh, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, Turkish, and Ukrainian.
A list recently circulated by the State Department lists some 78
languages, based on political importance and intent to preserve
heritage languages or endangered languages.
Dr. Snyder. Is the American Council of Teaching Foreign Language's
test a gold standard for assessment? What important skills doesn't it
evaluate?
Dr. Bourgerie. The ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) is the
most widely recognized test in US, especially in the higher education
world. The ACTFL battery includes a writing test as well, but it is not
nearly as widely used as the OPI. In addition, many other assessments
are referenced to the ACTFL-OPI as well.
One of the important benefits of the OPI is its wide use and
availability. It can be done in person or by phone. However, because of
its relatively high cost (per student $134 for OPI, and $65 for the
writing tests of September 2008), it is not viable for broad based
testing in most academic programs and therefore is somewhat under-
utilized. The BYU Flagship Center is currently doing research on
correlations between the ACTFL-OPI, DLPT, and HSK (the China-wide
national test for foreigners) to provide a better sense of how these
various measures relate to one another.
The ACTFL tests do not assess reading, or listening comprehension
specifically. There are two ACTFL rated (but not ACTFL certified)
computer-adaptive tests that address listing and reading in Chinese and
that the have potential to help to fill the gap in skills assessment:
The CCALT (Chinese Computerized Adaptive Listening Comprehension Test)
and CATRC (Computer-Adaptive Test for Reading Chinese). The former is a
University of Hawaii test (by Ted Yao) now being recalibrated by
Brigham Young University; the latter test (by Ke Chuanren) is
distributed by the Ohio State University.
Dr. Snyder. What is your Roadmap's vision for teaching foreign
language in other subject areas? Is there utility in combining content
like language and science?
Dr. Bourgerie. The development process around a Utah Language Road
Map is markedly different than the previous three (Ohio, Oregon, and
Texas) as was the Summit process that launched it. The summit was
largely initiated by the Governor's office, though the BYU Flagship
Center and NSEP were partners. The state had already proactively begun
to form a policy on language training and to allocate recourses for
languages (specifically though two state bills 80 and 41).
The roadmap is now being drafted following the September 16th
Governor's Language Summit. Following the Summit, Governor Huntsman
initiated a standing language advisory council, which will meet for the
first time on December 11th. This advisory council is also responsible
for drafting the roadmap, which is scheduled to be delivered at the
Utah International Education Summit on January 14th, 2009.
The extent to which content-based instruction is feasible in
foreign language curriculum is under discussion as well. The state has
already made commitment to K-6 immersion programs in a number of
languages, including Chinese (10), French (4), Spanish (9) and Navajo
(1). These dual language immersion programs are inherently content
based, in which certain subjects will be in target language and others
in the base language.
Dr. Snyder. How do the Roadmaps account for the transient nature of
much of the U.S. population--that students move from state to state?
Should there be some national requirement or curriculum?
Dr. Bourgerie. The strategy on articulation with other state
programs is part of the ongoing discussion in drafting the Utah Roadmap
document. The discussion has centered on making sure that state schools
are knowledgeable of national language standards, though not
necessarily bound by them. Within the state Chinese language programs,
for example, various types of programs are articulated to each other
and students are tested to make sure they are meeting similar target
proficiency standards. While we do not believe that a national
curriculum, per se, is a desirable goal at this time, we feel strongly
that there needs to be much better communication and greater
interchange between language educators and administrators regionally
and nationally. To the extent that best practices can be implemented
according to local conditions, articulation will become easier.
Dr. Snyder. Is there any additional information you would like to
add for the record?
Dr. Bourgerie. I believe there is a clear need for a multi-faceted,
national language strategy that addresses needs in the short, medium,
and long-term. Like any skill language learning requires a minimum
amount of time on task. Better methods and conditions can shorten the
time to mastery, but cannot short cut fundamental training. No amount
of money can get a beginning pianist to play a challenging concerto in
weeks or even months, but an excellent teacher and quality practice
time will make the process move much more quickly than if those
conditions are not present. Likewise, in language learning we need the
best possible methods, teachers, and materials to devote to training.
But we also need time.
The existing skills of heritage speakers and other natural
populations of language learners can be built upon now. We have shown
in Flagship that we can train talented and motivated students to the
highest levels of language proficency (DLPT 3+ and 4) in a university
context through domestic and overseas training, even in non-cognate
languages. However, we will never completely meet our needs if students
generally do not begin serious language study until college.
Significant efforts need to be taken to ensure larger numbers of
American students have access to quality language training beginning in
grade school. This challenge is formidable, but achievable and can be
met through Federal, State, and local cooperation. I believe that the
American people and the educational system are now ready to meet that
challenge.
Dr. Snyder. Are Flagship graduates made aware of, and encouraged to
volunteer for, the National Language Service Corps?
Dr. Walker. I have not received any reports from graduates that
they have been informed of the National Language Service Corps. My
program has not received any information about this organization. I
assume that NSEP will enroll all those who successfully complete the
Flagship programs.
Dr. Snyder. The Department and others liken the shock of 9/11 to
the shock over the launching of Sputnik and suggest that the nation
needs to react with a similar commitment of resources and
determination. Are the current efforts toward improving language
instruction and cultural understanding on a similar scale? What kind of
leadership at the national level would you like to see on this?
Dr. Walker. The national goal should be to provide large numbers of
Americans opportunities to learn to function in foreign languages and
cultures. Given this goal, our efforts fall far short of accomplishing
anything significant.
Our country should establish a national language policy that would
address the major issues confronting the effort to globalize American
education by making foreign language proficiency a commonly achieved
result. Such a policy should be developed by a well-budgeted office
that is capable of prioritizing languages (i.e., rationalizing the
critical languages list), setting performance standards for those
languages, creating national teacher certification standards, and
establishing commonly recognized assessment procedures. I think
language educators across the country are ready to respond to clear,
strategic leadership in this area.
I would suggest that the person leading such an office be chosen
for strategic and political reasons. He/she should not be from the
fields of language education, although knowledge of those fields would
be desirable.
Dr. Snyder. Have you taken or evaluated DLPT5 or DLI's
instructional methodology or curriculum?
Dr. Walker. As a member of DLI's Board of Visitors, I have had a
good look at the DLPT5 and engaged the developers of these tests in
intense discussions. The DLPT5 tests are well made and verified by
extensive research. There are some basic questions about the design of
the tests. For example, I am still puzzled about the bilingual formats
at all levels; however, the implementation of the chosen design is
quite good.
My concern is that the DLPT5 is essentially the organizing
principle of DLI, with students, teachers, and administrators nearly
obsessed with the students' performances on these tests. Instruction is
continually referenced to these tests and students are essentially
trained to take these tests. In a fundamental way, this situation
negates the ``proficiency'' aspect of the tests, since proficiency has
usually referred to testing independent of any curriculum.
The next step for the DLPT5 is to correlate scores with job
performance and other standardized tests. If the DLPT5 can be shown to
be an indicator of job performance, then its role in the overall DLI
instructional practice would be more rational. Without a demonstrable
connection between the DLPT5 and the ultimate purpose of the training,
the grip the DLPT5 has on the work of the institution should be
loosened.
Without the tyranny of the DLPT5, the DLI might use a broader array
of assessments that could be related more closely to the desired job
performances and the instruction could become more responsive to the
requirements of end users.
Dr. Snyder. It was not entirely clear in the hearing how languages
are designated as ``critical.'' How does this process work?
Dr. Walker. I have been perplexed by this question throughout my
career. The latest Proposed Critical language List from the US/ED
contains 78 critical languages that seem to reflect numbers of speakers
and political importance. This list is circulated among language
scholars for comment, so I suppose the ultimate result is a consensus
among concerned language professionals.
Dr. Snyder. Is the American Council of Teaching Foreign Language's
test a ``gold standard'' for assessment? What important skills doesn't
it evaluate?
Dr. Walker. The ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) is the most
widely recognized assessment in foreign language study. The ACTFL
writing test is much less utilized.
Our Chinese Flagship Program is focused on placing our students in
Chinese workplaces and preparing them linguistically and culturally to
thrive in those environments. This requires cultural knowledge and a
command of the formalities of interactions in the work environment. The
ACTFL OPI is not a good indicator of success in these situations. One
reason is that the OPI for Chinese was largely based on the OPI for
European languages. Another reason is that the interview format of the
OPI is not something that commonly occurs in the cultural contexts of a
Chinese workplace. For example, a foreign speaker of Chinese will be
interviewed about an area of that person's special knowledge. There
would rarely be an interview in which the intention is to find out how
much Chinese the person really knows, but it would be relatively common
to be interviewed about an academic discipline or an occupational area.
Conversations, presentations, note taking . . . these are the skills
that are more likely to determine success in a cooperative work
environment and they are not revealed in the typical OPI.
The internship, or work experience in a Chinese environment, is a
key step toward advanced skills. Success in this environment is one of
the strongest indicators that our students will test at the higher
proficiency levels.
We conclude the ACTFL OPI is not a good indicator of success in the
Chinese workplace, but success in the Chinese workplace is a good
indicator of success on the ACTFL OPI.
Dr. Snyder. What is your Roadmap's vision for teaching foreign
language in other subject areas? Is there utility in combining content
like language and science?
Dr. Walker. The Ohio Roadmap reflects the ideas of persons from the
business and government sectors. One of their strongest recommendations
was that language and culture knowledge be combined with technical and
academic discipline knowledge. In other words, as you learn a language,
learn to do something useful in that language.
As we have worked on designing a K-12 Chinese language curriculum,
we have come to the conclusion that after the basic language skills are
developed (say, after 4-5 years of one-hour-per-day elementary school
coursework), we should focus our language lessons on topics in
mathematics and the natural sciences. There are basic reasons for this
strategy: 1) The Chinese number system is more transparent than the
English number system and can be learned relatively early while
strengthening the students numeracy, 2) Nearly all Chinese scientific
terminology is transparent, meaning that a term is a description of the
phenomenon it represents. Thus, learning Chinese terminology solidifies
the students' grasp of scientific concepts as they expand their
vocabulary. 3) Early teens are less inclined to be accepting and
concerned about different cultures and relative perceptions of the
world. They are primarily focused on peers, even to the exclusion of
parents and family. Scientific topics avoid the need to adapt to other
cultural norms and present a relatively stable area of classroom
activity. 4) If US students learn to deal with natural science
subjects, they will be able to interact with Chinese students on
projects. As we connect classrooms by videoconference across Pacific,
the ability to meaningfully communicate with young people in China
could become a significant motivator for continuing Chinese language
study.
For the above reasons, as Ohio increases the number STEM (Science,
Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) schools, we are working with
these schools to include Chinese language study as a mainstay of their
curriculums.
Dr. Snyder. How do the Roadmaps account for the transient nature of
the U.S. population--that students move from state to state? Should
there be some national requirement or curriculum?
Dr. Walker. Some form of a national curriculum should be developed,
presumably by a national office that sets national performance
standards. With a commonly pursued curriculum, students can continue
their progress in a language when they depart from a program in one
school to that of another school. A national curriculum would also make
teacher training more effective and encourage the continual enrichment
of the common curriculum by materials developers.
The Ohio Roadmap teams emphasized extended sequences of language
instruction that have multiple points of access. This is necessary to
avoid the constant attrition of language programs caused by the
transiency of student populations. Our solution for the K-12 programs
is to posit a three-phase curriculum design that functions analogous to
other skill-based curricula such as music or martial arts. There are
levels of performance that have to be progressed through to reach
sequential higher levels of skills and knowledge. For example, if a
student wants to become proficient in the violin, he/she must start at
beginning orchestra and then progress to intermediate and on to
advanced orchestra. This is the case no matter how old the student is
or what grade she/he is enrolled in. While this presents scheduling
challenges for schools, it does permit students to progress through
language curricula at a variable pace that reflects their talents and
efforts. It also emphasizes the goals of student performance for a
language-learning career.
In addition to a performance-based curriculum, the Ohio Roadmap
recommends the employment of distance-education technology to provide
access to language programs to students in areas of Ohio where the
languages are not offered. If a student leaves a Chinese language
program at one school, he/she should be able to enroll in a statewide
program to continue in the language if the language is not available at
the new school.
Dr. Snyder. Is there any additional information you would like to
add for the record?
Dr. Walker. The DLI is a national treasure. As it refines the
implementation of its mission statement, especially as it develops
language instruction that emphasizes culturally appropriate contexts;
it can have a major positive impact on language instruction across our
Nation. It is the closest thing we have to a national language college
and we need to make sure it rises to fulfill that role in both pedagogy
and research.