Commander Andy Cropley Royal Navy

1
Commander Andy Cropley Royal Navy

• Commanding Officer
• Defence School of Languages
• United Kingdom

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Proficiency v Context Sensitivity

• Exploiting the Creative Tension

BILC 2008
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Defence School of Languages (DSL)

• Commanding Officer
• Cdr Andy Cropley RN
• Officer Commanding Arabic Language Wing
• Maj Paul Martin AGC(ETS)
• Officer Commanding English Language Wing
• Lt Cdr Alex Panic RN

4
In the Rain of San Antonio

• Challenges of Very Difficult Languages
• Competing Output Standards
• STANAG v Operational Requirement
• Culture Shock
• Sterility of Proficiency based Courses
• Task Based Language Teaching
• Simulation Exercises
• Implications for Assessment
• Teaching Teams

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Difficult Languages

• Still just as difficult
• Teacher Skills
• Understanding the requirement
• Proficiency Context
• Training
• Shared Experience
• Peer review and challenge
• Enhanced Resources
• Realia
• Realistic Scenarios
• Electronic Media

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Competing Output Standards
STANAG Non-essential breadth
Duress Hostility Context Operational Requirement
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Competing Output Standards
STANAG Non-essential breadth
Duress Hostility Context Operational Requirement
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Competing Output Standards
STANAG Non-essential breadth
Duress Hostility Context Operational Requirement
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Competing Output Standards

• Detailed analysis of both standards
• by linguists and non-linguists
• Much mutual enhancement
• Some tension or contradiction
• Exercise in itself very useful
• Revisit standards
• Emphasises need for common interpretation
• Development of single set of objectives
• Meeting both standards

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Culture Shock Task Based Training

• Evidence of some success
• Enhanced confidence
• Students want more
• Start earlier in the course
• Expand beyond Theatre Linguists
• Limitations
• Expensive to run
• Suspension of reality
• Reliance on role players
• Little and often

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Assessment

• Still Proficiency Based
• But......
• First combined output derived course currently
  underway
• In house assessment
• Proficiency at core
• Shaped by Operational Requirement
• Scope to design individual assessment to test
  individual needs
• Nationally Recognised Qualifications

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Joining it All Up

• Focus on Training over Assessment
• Gradual but fundamental redesign
• Responsibility placed upon staff
• Responsibility placed upon Command

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Focus on Training over Assessment

• Training serials become assessment evidence
• Core Framework provided by STANAG
• Operational Requirement provides the context
• Demands tight quality assurance
• Enhanced role for senior teaching staff
• Customer feedback essential
• External review
• MOD owned but outside DSL
• National Bodies

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Gradual but Fundamental Redesign

• Focus on needs of learner and future employer
• Remove obsession with vocabulary lists
• Remove exam practice
• Realism wherever possible
• Underpinned by STANAG
• Some compromise essential
• Huge variety of students
• Backgrounds and futures
• Exploit opportunities for integration

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Responsibility placed upon staff

• Understand output standards
• STANAG
• Attendance at Language Testing Seminar
• Operational Requirement
• Interaction of the two
• Internal training
• Ongoing Comparative Review
• Assess students objectively against standards
• Challenge accepted norms
• Exams no longer an excuse

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Responsibility on Command

• Foster an atmosphere of challenge
• Remove fear and personalisation
• Enhance through academic study
• Ensure consistency
• Shared understanding
• Rigorous cross-language comparisons
• Enhanced Customer engagement
• Overcoming culture of praise
• Enable staff development
• Academic
• Practical
• Internal

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Examples

• New debate on teaching of Listening
• Active consideration of enhanced learner autonomy
• Consideration of enhancing practical skills of
  linguists
• Listening skills
• Summarising
• Full and coherent integration of cultural
  awareness

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Anticipated Benefits

• Saving Time
• 8 weeks of 37 week French L4 course spent in exam
  preparation and execution
• Ability to respond to changing demands
• Ability to adapt to individual demands
• Real staff ownership of courses
• Ability to exploit customer feedback
• Positive cycle of continuous improvement

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(No Transcript)
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Major Paul Martin Officer Commanding Arabic
Language Wing (ALW) Defence School of Languages
(UK)
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ALW and IILW

• Arabic Language Wing (ALW)
• Indo-Iranian Language Wing (IILW)

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Aim

• Example of current Tasked Based Training for
  Operational Languages in ALW and IILW
• Example of the Operational Language context for
  DSL Linguists

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Competing Output Standards
STANAG Non-essential breadth
Duress Hostility Context Operational Requirement
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Tasked Based Training

• Operational Linguists to Level 3
• 15 months course followed by Military Training
• Arabic MSA followed by Iraqi Dialect Phase
• Pashto, Dari, 15 month course to Level 3

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Recent News Clip about DSL

• British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS)

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Tasked Based Training

• Continuous throughout the Courses
• Exercise Big Brother - ALW
• Exercise Flashman - IILW

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Tasked Based Training

• Dealing with a wide range of information at the
  camp gates and by mobile phone
• Tactical questioning with trained staff
• Meeting with local tribal leaders Water,
  Electricity, Schools and Security
• Dealing with Informants through Agent Handlers

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Tasked Based Training

• Dealing with information about a Kidnapping
• Car Search
• House Search Distressed Females in House
• Reports of Suspicious Activity
• Follow up of information received from an
  informant the day before

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Tasked Based Training

• Medical Examination
• Arrest Situation
• Angry Demonstration at Main Gate
• Meeting with Locally Employed Civilians (LECs)
  about Pay and Conditions of Work

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Pool of Linguists - Other Tasks during the
Exercises

• Translations of official letters, e-mails etc
• Translating Press Releases to L2
• Dealing with Mobile Calls
• Media Monitoring
• DVD Messages translations

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Difficult Languages
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Tasked Based Training Works
Extracts from a letter sent to OC ALW dated 26
April 2008 from Sergeant Fred Smith
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Rescue of British Journalist
Richard Butler 15 April in Basra
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After more than 40 days living and fighting
alongside the Iraqi Army from a forward post
during the height of the Battle for Basra, I have
been evacuated to Bradley Lines Hospital with a
bad gut infection.
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At least Ive got the record for longest unbroken
run at the forward position in the Shatt Al Arab
Hotel. Ive been able to work with the best kind
of people and seen and learned things that I will
never forget.
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In my first morning here I used up three
tourniquets and I think March 25th this year is
one day that I will never forget. During a
mammoth 5 hour planning conference with Iraqi
Staff Officers, each hour I had a 15 minute break
in which I was attached to the medics.
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We went zig-zagging across a palm grove in the
middle of a mortar barrage and down a tunnel
strewn with moaning wounded and dead in order to
treat severely wounded Iraqis.
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In the RAP we came across a young Iraqi soldier
with both legs torn and shredded beyond
recognition by an IED blast. I can still hear him
screaming in Iraqi for us to kill him!
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Running back in, we were almost crushed by two
ancient T55 Tanks which had been flung out to
repel a Jaish Al- Mardi Counter-attack.
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The next hour we were back out to see an
unconscious child with a severe head injury. She
later died- I will never forget it, or the faces
of her family who came around to see me night
after night.
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Important Feedback to update DSL Task
Based Training
If I can make a suggestion Sir? We really need to
know some Range Conduct Vocabulary including
rifle drills on the range, loading/unloading and
the internal components of a rifle.
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(No Transcript)
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Still Not Perfect

• Contingency Operating Base (COB)
• Al-Basrah

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Still Not Perfect

• Contingency Operating Base (COB)
• Al-Basrah

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Using English/Arabic Keyboard

• ?
• ?
• ?
• ?

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Lieutenant Commander Alex Panic Royal Navy
Officer Commanding English Language Wing
(ELW) Defence School of Languages
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Tailored Learning BILC 2008
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Tailored Learning

• ELW overview
• Course ownership
• Cultural awareness
• Operational Support
• Ensure Consistency

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ELW Overview

• General
• Start with General ELT
• Specialist Training
• English for the Advanced Command and Staff Course
  (SLP 2-3)
• Pre-Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (SLP 1-2)
• SLP preparation with Exam
• Train the Trainer (normally SLP 3)
• Interpreters
• Medical
• Aviation
• Ops planning and implementation

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ELW Overview

• Unique training
• Immersion in military environment
• Joint Training (Military/civilian staff)
• Currency
• Interaction with front line
• 300 students pa from gt50 countries
• Military/Civil Service Training

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Course Ownership

• Flexibility
• Specially designed training
• Train any topic (via MoD contacts)
• Full customer engagement
• OC ELW visits countries
• Differing outputs/Accreditation
• Award of SLP qualifications

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Cultural Awareness

• Full and coherent integration in all courses
  (cultural difference briefs)
• British cultural visits (museums, theatre,
  historic places)
• Military visits

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Cultural Awareness

• Military cultural training (reception, Mess
  Dinner)
• British Military Personnel Plain English briefs
• British Military Personnel English Structure
  briefs

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Operational Support

• ELW deploys (Iraq, Afghanistan, Congo)
• Provide in-theatre training
• Provide support to operations
• Train deploying staff

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Ensure Consistency

• Validate all courses
• Students/instructors/Special to Arms Schools
• Discuss with clients
• External auditing
• Promote Staff Development
• Positive cycle of continuous improvement
• Enhanced Resources

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Contact

• Tel [phone]
• Email oc-elw-dsl_at_agctg.mod.uk
• Website www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/AboutDefence/W
  hatWeDo/TrainingandExercises/DSL/
• (Accessible July 08)