Send Me 12 State Department Employees And They Will Know Arabic At Level 1+ In 5 Weeks

Just read the following article in the Washington Times and it amazes me that despite the desperate need for Arabic speakers the many institutes and colleges that teach Arabic in this country fail to turn out speakers of the language at the rate we need them. This is due, in my opinion to the failure of the methods used and has nothing to do with the difficulty of the language. I personally believe that Arabic is no different than any other language to study and I have the case studies to prove it. But I don't want to discuss that. In response to the State Department's need I am making the following challenge, send me 12 State Department employees, and regardless of their aptitude, I will have them learn MSA (Modern Standard Arabic), or any dialect of Arabic, at level 1+ in listening and speaking in one month of study. Level 1+ being defined as:

Speaking 1+ (Elementary Proficiency, Plus)

Can initiate and maintain predictable face-to-face conversations and satisfy limited social demands. He/she may, however, have little understanding of the social conventions of conversation. The interlocutor is generally required to strain and employ real-world knowledge to understand even some simple speech. The speaker at this level may hesitate and may have to change subjects due to lack of language resources. Range and control of the language are limited. Speech largely consists of a series of short, discrete utterances.

Examples: The individual is able to satisfy most travel and accommodation needs and a limited range of social demands beyond exchange of skeletal biographic information. Speaking ability may extend beyond immediate survival needs. Accuracy in basic grammatical relations is evident, although not consistent. May exhibit the more common forms of verb tenses, for example, but may make frequent errors in formation and selection. While some structures are established, errors occur in more complex patterns. The individual typically cannot sustain coherent structures in longer utterances or unfamiliar situations. Ability to describe and give precise information is limited. Person, space and time references are often used incorrectly. Pronunciation is understandable to natives used to dealing with foreigners. Can combine most significant sounds with reasonable comprehensibility, but has difficulty in producing certain sounds in certain positions or in certain combinations. Speech will usually be labored. Frequently has to repeat utterances to be understood by the general public. (Has been coded S-1+ in some nonautomated applications.)


I have been using my methods with great success with the US Navy, Army and Special Operations for the past 4 years now and I have done this, with relative ease many times.

So, if you are a State Department employee and want to take advantage of the jobs and opportunities offered by the department, call me and I will get you to speak Arabic in 5 weeks. You will get these promotions sooner than you ever thought was possible.

Article published Jun 8, 2007
State desperate for envoys to learn Arabic
June 8, 2007

By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES - The State Department, in an unprecedented move highlighting its desperate need for Arabic speakers, is allowing U.S. diplomats to curtail their current assignments anywhere in the world and begin Arabic language training in September.

Foreign Service officers who are interested in learning Arabic or improving existing skills have until the end of July to apply for more than 100 positions in Arabic-speaking countries that will open in the next two years.

Asked why the program has been initiated only now — nearly six years after the September 11, 2001, attacks and more than four years into the Iraq war — department officials cited a lack of resources.

In a cable to all State Department employees worldwide on Wednesday, George M. Staples, director-general of the Foreign Service, urged them to seriously consider learning "one of the more difficult foreign languages for English speakers to master."

"We recognize that we must improve our ability to understand and influence an area of continuing importance to our nation's well-being," Mr. Staples wrote in the cable, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times.

The department "will consider breaking any tenured employee out of his/her current assignment for a September 2007 language start: for either the two-year program or one-year to improve or take existing Arabic language skills beyond your current level," he wrote.

Junior officers must get tenure within five years of joining in order to remain in the service. That benchmark is separate from the promotion process.

The State Department has about 270 employees with "general professional proficiency" in Arabic — or speaking and reading ability sufficient to do their jobs — according to department figures. Another 700 have limited knowledge.

The department, on which Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen P. Hughes has put a particular emphasis on improving the U.S. image in the Arab and Muslim world, has been criticized repeatedly since 2001 for its shortage of Arabic speakers.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in February that her agency is "putting a great effort into language development for our diplomats," and that "this country has been underinvested in the study of critical languages like Arabic, Farsi, even Chinese, for a very long time."

She noted, however, that "this is something that takes awhile to remedy," and officials yesterday could not explain why it took them years to make their latest decision, saying they try to do their best with the available resources.

A report by the bipartisan Foreign Affairs Council this week criticized Miss Rice for failing to request more funds for the department despite her influence with President Bush.

Mr. Staples' cable contained a list of the Arabic-language positions for which employees can bid. Those officers who require only a year of training can apply for jobs opening in 2008, and those who need two years for slots opening in 2009.

Out of the 48 positions next year, 27 are at the embassy in Baghdad. In the so-called Provincial Reconstruction Teams, where State Department personnel work together with the military, Arabic is not required but is strongly encouraged.

Plucking dozens of diplomats out of their current assignments is not likely to be welcomed by the management of the "losing posts," officials said. They insist that there are important countries outside the Middle East and expressed concern that missions in other key areas could suffer from the early departure of some employees.

"The department understands that this initiative may well create some new vacancies at posts in addition to existing vacancies resulting from the deficit at the mid-ranks," said Mr. Staples, who is retiring at the end of July.

"While [we] will make every effort to find a qualified replacement for the losing post, at this time we do not foresee that existing resources will allow us to fill in behind every employee who curtails, nor do we anticipate having alternative-employment funding available to reimburse bureaus for costs resulting from these possible curtailments," he said.

Prince Harry To Learn Arabic

Prince Harry is joining his troops in Iraq to fight and is going to learn Arabic. That is very intriguing. He will probably be the first monarch to learn the language.

Britain's Prince Harry, the 22-year-old grandson of Queen Elizabeth II, will be sent to fight in Iraq, the British media reported Sunday. The prince is reported to be due to start special preparations with his regiment for combat in Iraq which is to include Arabic language training, according to the British tabloid newspaper, The News of the World.

The prince, the younger son of Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana, joined the Blues and Royals elite regiment after completing his officer training at Sandhurst military academy last year.

Harry has himself said that he wants "to fight alongside" his men.

A spokesman for the palace confirmed that the prince was to take part in the training, but said that this did not mean he was going to Iraq, the newspaper reported.

The prince has always said he is determined to do battle with his 100-strong unit, A Squadron of the Blues and Royals, part of the Household Cavalry.

They begin a six-month tour of Iraq in the spring. Before that, they are expected to take part in war games and exhaustive preparations for conflict.

Auralog Releases It's Arabic Product

Auralog released their Arabic product and the description looks impressive but they provide no Iraqi or Levant which are crucial to learn for anyone trying to learn Arabic today. The focus seems to be completely on North African dialects. It is too expensive to buy for the regular student (almost 500 USD) which will guarantee that it is available only in labs of large educational institutions. I heard some good reviews though from some military folks who had access to it.

My Training Gets Mentioned In AP

This is one of very few training classes I am allowed to talk about. The students were unscreened for language learning ability and ages ranged from 18 to 43. They took the new Iraqi DLPT 5 and scored 0+ , all in less than 100 hours of class time and in less than 30 days. I believe their skills were above 0+ (a solid 1) because the Iraqi DLPT 5 focused so much on geopolitical material rather than the practical usage of the language (which is what I was asked to train them for). Nevertheless, it was a success as it takes the military usually up to 400 hours to achieve these results. The article contains a little error about my biography. I learned the Iraqi dialect growing up in Kuwait and visiting Iraq frequently but I never lived in Iraq.

Here is a part of the full article:

Cultural, language skills part of Navy's new onshore role

By MELISSA NELSON, The Associated Press
Nov 24,:19 AM

PENSACOLA, Fla. - Boats and weapons are Lt. Joseph Michaels' priorities in getting his 53-man squadron ready to patrol Iraq's rivers. But a close second is something the Navy sailor hadn't given much thought to before now - Iraqi language and culture.

Michaels and the men of Riverine Group 1 will head to Iraq in January from their training base in Little Creek, Va. While preparing to deploy, they are among the first sailors learning about the day-to-day lives of Iraqis - everything from their more-limited sense of personal space to traditional Arabic greetings.

Their Jordanian-American instructor, who spent years in Iraq, taught squadron leaders by speaking to them only in Arabic. He also had them greet one another every morning according to the customs of a traditional Iraqi family.

"There is a lot more holding hands and touching cheeks. It's more touchy-feely over there and it was really uncomfortable the first few days," said Michaels, who will oversee a detachment of four river boats patrolling the country's dangerous inland waterways.

"He taught us about as much language as you could learn in 30 days. I thought my head would explode," he said.

And Michaels said he was surprised to learn that even making extended eye contact with an Iraqi woman could cause the woman to be punished.

"The Iraqi men look down on a woman even if she is just looked at by an American man," he said.

The Navy developed the training as part of its expanding onshore role in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its new Expeditionary Combat Command at Little Creek opened this year. The command oversees about 40,000 sailors who work inland, including the Riverine squadron, Navy construction crews known as Seabees and explosive ordnance technicians. There are about 4,300 sailors currently in Iraq and 1,300 in Afghanistan.

Arabic and Kurdish Divide

Great article on the dichotomy between the Arabic and Kurdish languages in Iraq.

technorati tags:kurdish, arabic, language

Moroccan Arabic on August 12th

Great opportunity for learning Moroccan Arabic. If you live near Rockland, Maine this is an opportunity you shouldn't miss.

technorati tags:Arabic, Moroccan, language