Recording yourself speaking the language.Learning between 20 and 80 new words every night.Students may be in school, but they're still military members, which means that their days are strictly regimented.Ġ530 Students are up, dressed, completing their daily chores, and having breakfast.ġ530 Change into your PT uniform and prepare for some hard, physical graft.ġ900 Mandatory study and homework, which includes: But, as they know, if you can make it through the DLI, you can make it through anything. Other instructors are DLI graduates - highly educated military members who remember how hard it is to learn a foreign language. In fact, there are linguists from over 90 countries attached to the school. Some Institute instructors are native speakers of the language they teach. Let's examine how everything fits together. “Even experienced service members who come through here for language training say it's the hardest thing they've done.” It's so tough that DLI Commandant Colonel Michael Simone says,
Remember, these are military students, so they have regular duties and PT to do as well. And that's just the language-learning side.
Air force linguist school monterey plus#
There are intensive language classes seven hours a day, five days a week, plus homework and self-study time. DLI Students describe it more vividly when they say that their language course experience is like “drinking from a firehose.” The Defense Language Institute has built a reputation for excellence through hard work since they began training soldiers back in 1941.Īctually, saying that they work hard is an understatement. That's intense! How US Military Linguists Learn Languages Fast: The DLI Method If you're assigned a Category Four language, you'll be studying on ‘high alert' for one year and three months. It sounds even longer when you do the maths. Languages are ranked in four categories of difficulty, and each course runs over a set number of weeks. Just follow orders and get on with the job.
If you're lucky, you'll get one of your choices, but there's no point in complaining if you don't. “While you're in basic training they give you a dream sheet and say these are the languages - rank your top six.” Jack, a DLI graduate, explains how it happened for him: Simply put, you're assigned a language based on your aptitude and the military's foreseeable needs. Or, it could be a more complex category such as Russian, Chinese or Arabic. It could be one that English speakers tend to grasp more efficiently, such as French or Spanish. If you pass the DLAB, you'll enter a language category based on how well you did. DLAB also tests your ability to decipher grammatical structures and then use them to construct sentences. It examines how quickly you can remember patterns and recognise words when they appear a second or third time. Instead, the DLAB is designed to see if your brain's wired to learn a new language quickly and efficiently. The Proficiency Testīefore students can begin their linguistic careers, they undergo a rigorous course of 35 to 64 weeks of language training.Īnd before they even step into the classroom, they have to pass the dreaded DLAB.Īs the name suggests, the Defense Language Aptitude Battery doesn't test your proficiency in speaking, reading or writing - not even in your native language. One day someone's gonna be relying on you and the intelligence you provide to shape their operations.” In a relatively short time, these students will be admitted, trained, and sent out to work as linguists, translators, investigators, or soldiers deployed to fight or become peacekeepers in many countries worldwide. Some students may come from the Coastguard, where it’s handy to know a second language when communicating with foreign vessels who’ve entered US waters.Īnd, finally, a select few may be elite soldiers Green Berets who’ll be going into some highly-charged situations overseas, where knowing the language really is the difference between living or not. Most of the students at the institute are already members of the US armed forces, probably with an army background.Ī smaller percentage are federal employees, sponsored by their agencies who need interpreters or intelligence gatherers. So, when army, navy or airforce personnel apply for a position that requires them to be fluent in another language, the odds are they’ll wind up in Monterey. There’s a smaller DLI campus in Washington DC that specialises in teaching 65 uncommon languages and there’s an English Training Centre at an airforce base in Texas, too.īut most of the action takes place in California. Now it’s not the only military language school in the US.
In fact, more than 3500 students pass through its classrooms every year. The military’s Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center- DLIFLC or DLI for short – is the biggest and most effective foreign language school in the USA.
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