The Defense Language Institute (DLI) is a United States Department of Defense (DoD) educational and research institution consisting of two separate entities which provide linguistic and cultural instruction to the Department of Defense, other Federal Agencies and numerous customers around the world. The Defense Language Institute is responsible for the Defense Language Program, and the bulk of the Defense Language Institute's activities involve educating DoD members in assigned languages, and international personnel in English. Other functions include planning, curriculum development, and research in second-language acquisition.
Overview
The two primary entities of the Defense Language Institute are the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC) and the Defense Language Institute English Language Center (DLIELC). DLIFLC is located at the Presidio of Monterey in Monterey, California, and DLIELC is located at Joint Base San Antonio - Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.
Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center
The Commandant of DLIFLC is an Army colonel and the Assistant Commandant is an Air Force colonel. The leadership team includes an Army Command Command Sergeant Major and a civilian Chief of Staff.
The Institute offers foreign language instruction in more than two dozen languages to approximately 3,500 students on a schedule that extends throughout the year. Courses are taught six hours per day, five days a week, with the exception of federal holidays and training holidays. The duration of courses range between 26 and 64 weeks, depending on the difficulty of the language. DLIFLC has established itself as a national pacesetter in foreign-language, resident and non-resident education, using cutting-edge technology such as interactive whiteboards, the use of electronic-based lessons, the Internet, interactive video, and podcasts, which interact with audio digital devices and laptops issued to students.
Defense Language Institute English Language Center
The Defense Language Institute English Language Center manages the Department of Defense English Language Program (DELP). Designated the 637th Training Group in 2015, DLIELC is under the command of a dual-hatted US Air Force colonel Commandant; the Deputy Commandant is an Army lieutenant colonel; and the operations squadron commander/commandant of troops is an Air Force lieutenant colonel. Other military members consist of Army, Air Force and Navy personnel. The over 300 civilian members of the staff include the instructors who are qualified in the area of English as a second language.
DLIELC is accredited by the Commission on English Language Program Accreditation, which is certified by the US Department of Education.
DLIELC is divided into three resident academic training sections: General English, Specialized English, and Instructor Development. Depending on the needs of the students, training can range from nine weeks (in Specialized English, for example) to 52 weeks in General English. Some students arrive with only minimal English capabilities, then train to a predetermined English comprehension level (ECL) in General English.
Some who have been programmed for follow-on training (FOT) within the continental United States attend Specialized English Training after achieving their required ECL either in country or in the DLIELC resident General English program. In the Specialized English program, students are given a course to familiarize them with the technical terminology and specific language skills they will need at their FOT. In the Instructor Development program, students are trained to become English language instructors or program managers in their respective countries.
Annually, students from over 100 countries enroll in the DLIELC resident training programs. Training is paid by the host country (Foreign Military Sales) or through US grant assistance programs such as International Military Education and Training Programs. In addition to DLIELC’s mission to train international students, DLIELC is responsible for providing English language training to US military service members whose primary language is not English.
The DLIELC campus, located on the southwest quadrant of Lackland AFB, provides facilities and equipment that are conducive to effective learning. Students reside in comfortable, modern lodging, which is within walking distance of their state-of-the-art classrooms. A typical class day consists of six hours of instruction; some of which may be spent in a computer-based language laboratory. All students have access to a learning center, which has a variety of multimedia software and includes a library.
Students can bridge cultural barriers by participating in sports events with each other and with US students. They can also take advantage of tours offered by DLIELC’s Field Studies Program. In addition, the DLIELC international student sponsor program, called AMIGO, which stands for American Members of International Goodwill to Others, provides interaction with volunteer sponsors from both the US military and the local community. Since attendance at DLIELC is frequently the international students’ first contact with Americans, the AMIGO program often provides the international students with a much-needed opportunity to better understand the American way of life and enables the students to learn about the diversity of American culture and customs.
History
The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC) traces its roots to the eve of America’s entry into World War II, when the U.S. Army established a secret school at the Presidio of San Francisco to teach the Japanese language. Classes began 1 November 1941, with four instructors and 60 students in an abandoned airplane hangar at Crissy Field. The students were primarily second generation Japanese Americans (Nisei) from the West Coast, who had learned Japanese from their first-generation parents but were educated in the US and whose Japanese was somewhat limited, the "Kibei," Japanese-Americans who had been educated in Japan and spoke Japanese like the Japanese themselves, along with two Caucasian students. Nisei Hall, along with several other buildings, is named in honor of these earliest students, who are honored in the Institute’s Yankee Samurai exhibit.
During the war, the Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS), as it came to be called, grew dramatically. When Japanese-Americans on the West Coast were moved into internment camps in 1942, the school moved to temporary quarters at Camp Savage, Minnesota. By 1944 the school had outgrown these facilities and moved to nearby Fort Snelling. More than 6,000 graduates served throughout the Pacific Theater during the war and the subsequent occupation of Japan.
In 1946 the school moved to the Presidio of Monterey, the renamed Army Language School expanded rapidly in 1947â€"48 during the Cold War. Instructors, including native speakers of more than thirty languages and dialects, were recruited from all over the world. Russian became the largest language program, followed by Chinese, Korean, and German.
The Defense Language Institute English Language Center (DLIELC) traces its formal beginning to May 1954, when the 3746th Pre-Flight Training Squadron (language) was activated and assumed responsibility for all English language training. In 1960, the Language School, USAF, activated and assumed the mission. In 1966, the DoD established the Defense Language Institute English Language School (DLIELS) and placed it under US Army control although the school remained at Lackland AFB. In 1976, the DoD appointed the US Air Force as the executive agent for the school and redesignated it the Defense Language Institute English Language Center.
- Cold War language instruction
The U.S. Air Force met most of its foreign language training requirements in the 1950s through contract programs at universities such as Yale, Cornell, Indiana, and Syracuse and the U.S. Navy taught foreign languages at the Naval Intelligence School in Washington, D.C., but in 1963 these programs were consolidated into the Defense Foreign Language Program. A new headquarters, the Defense Language Institute (DLI), was established in Washington, D.C., and the former Army Language School commandant, Colonel James L. Collins, Jr., became the Institute’s first director. The Army Language School became the DLI West Coast Branch, and the foreign language department at the Naval Intelligence School became the DLI East Coast Branch. The contract programs were gradually phased out. The DLI also took over the English Language School at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, which became the DLI English Language Center (DLIELC).
During the peak of American involvement in Vietnam (1965â€"73), the DLI stepped up the pace of language training. While regular language training continued unabated, more than 20,000 service personnel studied Vietnamese through the DLI’s programs, many taking a special eight-week military adviser “survival†course. From 1966 to 1973, the institute also operated a Vietnamese branch using contract instructors at Biggs Air Force Base near Fort Bliss, Texas (DLI Support Command, later renamed the DLI Southwest Branch). Vietnamese instruction continued at DLI until 2004.
- Consolidation
In the 1970s the institute’s headquarters and all resident language training were consolidated at the West Coast Branch and renamed the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC). In 1973, the newly formed U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) assumed administrative control, and in 1976, all English language training operations were returned to the U.S. Air Force, which operates DLIELC to this day.
The DLIFLC won academic accreditation in 1979 from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, and in 1981 the position of academic dean (later called provost) was reestablished. In the early 1980s, crowding and living conditions at the Monterey location forced the Institute to open two temporary branches: a branch for air force enlisted students of Russian at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas (1981â€"1987), and another for army enlisted students of German, Korean, Russian and Spanish at the Presidio of San Francisco (1982â€"1988). As a result of these conditions, the institute began an extensive facilities expansion program on the Presidio. In 2002 the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges accredited the institute as an associate degree-granting institution.
- Base Realignment and annexation
In the spring of 1993, the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission rejected suggestions that the institute be moved or closed, and recommended that its mission be continued at the present location. In summer of 2005, the commission reopened the issue, to include the closure of the Naval Postgraduate School. Supporters of the closure believed that due to the rising property values and cost of living in the Monterey Bay area, taxpayers would save money by moving both schools to a less expensive location in Ohio. Opponents argued that it would be difficult (if not impossible) to replace the experienced native-speaking faculty at DLI, as the cultural centers of San Francisco and California's Central Coast offer a more diverse pool from which to recruit local instructors, and that the military intelligence community would suffer as a result. The BRAC commission met in Monterey on 8 August 2005, to hear arguments from both sides. On 25 August 2005, the commission's final vote was unanimous to keep DLI at its current location in Monterey.
Schools and Locations
English Language Center (DLIELC)
The DLIELC is a Department of Defense agency operated by the U.S. Air Force's 37th Training Wing, and is responsible for training international military and civilian personnel to speak and teach English. The agency also manages the English as a Second Language Program for the US military, and manages overseas English training programs. International students must be sponsored by an agency of the Department of Defense, and commonly include personnel from NATO member countries. Over 100 countries are represented among the student body at DLIELC at any given time. The main campus is currently located on the grounds of Joint Base San Antonio - Lackland Air Force Base, in San Antonio, Texas. DLIELC acculturates and trains international personnel to communicate in English and to instruct English language programs in their country, trains United States military personnel in English as a second language, and deploys English Language Training programs around the world in support of the Defense Department.
Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC)
The DLIFLC at the Presidio of Monterey, California (DLIFLC & POM) is the DoD's primary foreign language school. Military service members study foreign languages at highly accelerated paces in courses ranging from 24 to 64 weeks in length. In October 2001, the Institute received Federal degree-granting authority to issue Associate of Arts in Foreign Language degrees to qualified graduates of all basic programs.
Although the property is under the jurisdiction of the United States Army, there are U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and U.S. Air Force presences on post, and all four branches provide students and instructors. Members of other Federal agencies and military services of other countries may also receive training, and members of other law enforcement agencies may receive Spanish language training.
As of 2015, a number of languages are taught at the DLIFLC including Afrikaans in Washington, DC and the following in Monterey: Modern Standard Arabic, Arabic â€" Egyptian, Arabic â€" Levantine, Arabic â€" Iraqi, Chinese (Mandarin), French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Pashto, Persian (Farsi), Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Serbian / Croatian, Spanish, Filipino (Tagalog), Turkish, and Urdu.
DLI-Washington
The DLIFLC also maintains the DLI-Washington office in the Washington, D.C. area. The Washington office provides training in languages not taught at the Presidio of Monterey, such as "low-density languages" which do not require the same large volume of trained personnel. There is some overlap, however, as students from the Defense Attaché System (DAS) are given local training in languages also available at the Monterey location.
Language training through DLI-Washington is conducted at the National Foreign Affairs Training Center (NFATC) of the United States Department of State, and at various contracted foreign language schools in the metropolitan Washington, DC area.
Hall of Fame
During DLIFLC's 65th anniversary celebration in November 2006, DLIFLC named the first ten individuals inducted into the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center Hall of Fame. DLIFLC receives nominations for new Hall of Fame members each May.
Inductees to the DLIFLC Hall of Fame:
- Air Force Colonel William Fife: Russian basic, 1948
- Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona: Vietnamese basic, 1971; Arabic basic, 1974; Arabic intermediate, 1978
- Shigeya Kihara: Instructor of Japanese, 1941â€"1974
- Army Major General Roland Lajoie: Russian basic, 1968
- Army Specialist Park Young Chae, Korean Counsel General, 10 June 2003
- Air Force Major General Doyle Larson: helped develop the career linguist force within the USAF
- Hugh McFarlane: Russian basic, 1966; Hebrew basic, 1970
- Army Colonel David McNerney: commandant of DLI 1981â€"1985
- Glenn Nordin: Russian basic, 1950s; Vietnamese Adviser Course, 1966
- Former Department of Defense Secretary and former White House Chief of Staff and Congressman Leon Panetta, became Director of the Central Intelligence Agency on 19 February 2009: championed language education in the military.
- Whitney E. Reed: commandant of the National Cryptologic School 1986â€"1993; and NSA/CSS deputy director for education and training
- Army Major General James A. Adkins: Russian basic, 1976
See also
- Defense Language Aptitude Battery
- Defense Language Office
- Defense Language Proficiency Tests
- Monterey Institute of International Studies
- Joint Services School for Linguists
- Center for Advanced Study of Language
- Language education
- List of Language Self-Study Programs
References
- Sources
- Cameron Binkley, A Pictorial History of the Defense Language Institute (US Army, 2011).
External links
- Defense Language Institute English Language Center
- Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center
- Global Language Online Support System (GLOSS) Online language lessons developed by DLI
- Headstart Language Program Online/Downloadable language software developed by DLI
- Fieldsupport Products Specialized phrasebooks developed by DLI in various languages for specific tasks
- The short film Big Picture: Army Language School is available for free download at the Internet Archive