Small Mindedness @ Princeton

This article shows that small minded thinking can exist even at Princeton. For the good of this great country I only hope that Mr. Sheltzer is not a student of International business, Lawyer or, even worse, an International relations student. For one I am glad the PU has such intensive requirements for foreign language studies of all of its students. My personal belief , some of which has been confirmed by studies, is that when you study a foreign language you develop skills, as well as brain cells that you can use throughout your life. Have you ever tried to use your limited German, Arabic, Russian, or whatever to communicate with a native speaker? your listening skills are instantly magnified, your brain is thinking at rates much higher than it does usually. Trying to put those sentences together, using your memory. All of that and more happens also when you are studying a foreign language. Seeking to understand other cultures and being able to read, even gist, newspaper articles and news casts in other languages can provide you with real advantages in the real world. Princeton 'should' continue its language program especially now with the country scrounging for foreign language speakers and spending billions of dollars to produce them.

Helping Future Officers

I totally agree with this article, ROTC is a great place to start preparing if ‎you intend to join the military as an army officer. Not only would it save the military ‎billions of dollars it will also supply them with soldiers who have no need to spend time ‎at DLI or other military language schools.‎

Say No To More Subsidized Academic Language Training

This is the an article you must read. Aside from the politics involved, which I might address later, Mr. Kurtz, expresses very well a very important fact. Our security needs and Arabic language training needs are not going to be addressed through more programs financed by title VI subsidies. Those programs might have had value on university campuses but those same programs have NO or very little value in a military setting. It is time to try new things and more effective methods. It is also time to produce some programs and curriculum that addresses the practical needs of our soldiers. I just hope that the President doesn't give up the fight or yield to political pressures on this one.

Language Program Promises Culture and Linguistic Education

‎The Concordia Language ‎Villages program promises not only to teach you the language in an immersion ‎setting, but also to work on the cultural background of the target language. I believe that ‎there is much need for this kind of approach. I know that this kind of approach would ‎make a huge difference. My main concern though is the time period assigned for such an ‎‎'immersion program'. I don't believe that two weeks would be enough to ideally achieve ‎what is needed. But I have to say here that I have no idea what the curriculum is like, ‎how the material is distributed or how it is weighed. It also depends on the knowledge ‎and level of the students the program accepts. My gut feeling says that two weeks are not ‎enough. From my experience, immersion programs need to be at least 8-10 weeks long to ‎have any impact (moving from one level to the next). Still, the concept is great and I wish ‎CLV the best of luck. If I have time I will try to get more information on the program. ‎You can click here to go to their website and I am adding it to the blogroll as well.‎

University of Oregon Adds Arabic & Korean

New Arabic program announced at the University of Oregon. Looks like they also have a Korean resource.

Language Learning Software

Here is another article about the different tools out there that anybody from a beginner to an advanced student cn use to enhance their language learning process.

Rosetta Stone Review

This is a good review of the Rosetta Stone program. It emphasizes what I wrote about earlier; RS and other programs are great but a curriculum need to be constructed to give balanced instruction that covers all aspects of learning. The reviewer emphasizes that RS doesn't include a very strong grammatical component which I agree with. I use both Pimsleur and Berlitz since I find that they give the learner both the grammatical and the vocabulary components at the same time.

A Great Opportunity

making Arabic a part of a bushiness training program is a great idea. I pray though that the language portion of these programs at least would have some depth to them beyond teaching the basic alphabet soup and a few phrases. This will never accomplish what the military wants. Baylor University has a class that can serve as model for such education. Arabic language training in such a setting should include applications such as business negotiations, legal and business terminology, and extensive readings in business reports, etc. There is lots of opportunity here for an enlightened language trainer and an open-minded faculty.

Tech Gadgets Aid Language Teaching

‎I love this article because it describes exactly the way I believe ‎language should be taught, or at least how to use some of the high tech gadgets out there ‎in language teaching. Eventhough I believe that the computer lab in a school environment ‎is great, I also believe that students should be able to carry their language learning tools ‎with them wherever they go. I have an HP iPaq on which I added a 1 GB SD memory ‎card. On the card I keep my audio lessons (Berlitz, Pimsleur etc.) I also keep my ‎vocabulary lists and some other stuff. I use Wikipedia to access Farsi articles and read blogs ‎to sharpen my knowledge of spoken Farsi and how it is expressed (much better and richer ‎than formal news sources). I also use a Walkman for some audio tapes that haven't been ‎digitized yet.‎
I talked about the Rosetta Stone program the other day and I love it but I don't think they ‎have it in MP3 format. Pimsleur on the other hand have converted their lessons to MP3 ‎format and they sell it along with an MP3 player. As I said before, I love both, but I ‎prefer the mobility of the MP3 format.‎

How To Find An Arabic Program That Meets Your Needs

‎New Arabic Programs seem to be ‎everywhere. Universities hungry for federal funding or those that want to capitalize on ‎the interest. So how do you know what to choose? I would investigate first of all the ‎infrastructure provided by the university and how long this infrastructure has been there. ‎By that I mean: Is there a language lab? Does the program seem innovative enough? or in ‎other words what is unique about the program? does it offer more immersion, unique ‎curriculum, seasoned professors or all the above? I would look at the syllabus and try to ‎find the value proposition. There are many Arabic programs out there but extremely few ‎have any declared value propositions (or in other words the thing that makes them unique ‎and useful for the student). I they have a unique method or idea then by all means sign up ‎otherwise don't waste your time and keep looking. ‎

Chu Interview

Media Roundtable with Dr. David Chu, Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness)
Interesting interview...

Learning Arabic Abroad

Learning Arabic abroad is a good idea if you have lots of money and you know your way around. I happen to be from Jordan and I have known many people who went through the UOJ Arabic program and who told me later that they didn't get much out of it. But being in Jordan they ended up hiring private tutors (less than 7 dollars an hour) and built their own immersion course. Those courses abroad, according to the experience of many, still leave much to be desired despite their benefit of letting the student understand the culture better. It all depends on needs and what results are desired.

I like the Rosetta Stone But...

Army offers foreign language training - Minnesota Daily

Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur, Berlitz and anything you can get your hands on in the initial stages of learning is great. I love all of it. I have been working on my Farsi and Dari for the past year and a half and I have used the Farsi curriculum from all the above and the results were amazing. But I am a linguist and a language teacher. I know how to motivate and guide myself and how to avoid the trappings of frustration when you're stuck. Online learning is a great idea but giving our soldiers and language learners in the armed forces the Rosetta Stone without any further instruction or interaction is not sufficient and will not produce the desired results. RS needs to be supplemented with classroom instruction and the human touch. Maybe the military is doing this already, I don't know because I don't have access. But what I know is that commercial grade language materials should be supplemented by things like online conferencing, Podcasting and voice enabled instant messaging. If you have some good feedback on the subject I would love to hear from you.

National Security language Initiative

I still haven't had time to look at the text of the initiative, but for those of you who have the time to look here is this link and this link to the fact sheet.
I also found a good discussion of the initiative on this link. The writer has a unique idea but I am not sure he is familiar with the needs of the military and other agencies as far as languages are concerned. The military language student is a unique individual with extremely unique needs. Following a strict academic and scholastic approach to language teaching and learning with military and security students DOES NOT work. Following the strict academic and scholastic approach is slowing down the production of capable military intelligence students. I have proven that point several times. Most recently I did a 53 weeks project for the US Navy where we managed to get the students to graduate in 46 weeks (down from 72 currently at other institutions). I hae developed my methods now to where it can be done in 36 weeks. I also managed to raise the scores of a refresher class by one full point into the 2+ and 3 territory in 15 days. I will not go into the technical details of that but it is sufficient for me to say that things like that are doable by NOT following the academic approach.
The language trainer that is needed for projects like that is a unique breed and I doubt that they are bred in the Middle East either. For language instructors to produce results they must be familiar with a wide range of fields and skills including psychology, motivation, communications, computer science, curriculum planning and development, knowledge of the Internet and technologies that can be used in the class room and above all fluent, level 5, knowledge (and cultural awarenes) of the English language and English-speaking people so that they can communicate freely with their students. My advice is to spend some of that money the President is authorizing on developing such teachers and teacher-training networks. The worst thing that can happen is for the money to end up in the hands of teachers' unions who still cannot produce kids who can read English from our public schools.