Commander Andy Cropley Royal Navy

1. Commander Andy Cropley Royal Navy Commanding Officer Defence School of Languages United Kingdom

2. Proficiency v Context Sensitivity Exploiting the Creative Tension BILC 2008

3. 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

5. 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

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

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

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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. Joining it All Up • Focus on Training over Assessment • Gradual but fundamental redesign • Responsibility placed upon staff • Responsibility placed upon Command

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

20. Major Paul Martin Officer Commanding Arabic Language Wing (ALW) Defence School of Languages (UK)

21. ALW and IILW • Arabic Language Wing (ALW) • Indo-Iranian Language Wing (IILW)

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

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

24. 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

25. Recent News Clip about DSL • British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS)

26. Tasked Based Training • Continuous throughout the Courses • Exercise Big Brother - ALW • Exercise Flashman - IILW

27. 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

28. 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

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

30. 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

31. Difficult Languages

32. Tasked Based Training Works Extracts from a letter sent to OC ALW dated 26 April 2008 from Sergeant “Fred Smith”

33. Rescue of British Journalist Richard Butler – 15 April in Basra

34. 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.

35. At least I’ve got the record for longest unbroken run at the forward position in the Shatt Al Arab Hotel. I’ve been able to work with the best kind of people and seen and learned things that I will never forget.

36. 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.

37. 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.

38. 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!

39. 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.

40. 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.

41. 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.

43. Still Not Perfect • Contingency Operating Base (COB) • Al-Basrah

44. Still Not Perfect • Contingency Operating Base (COB) • Al-Basrah

45. Using English/Arabic Keyboard • ﳻ • ﻓ • ﺧ • ﺤ

46. Lieutenant Commander Alex Panić Royal Navy Officer Commanding English Language Wing (ELW) Defence School of Languages

47. Tailored Learning BILC 2008

48. Tailored Learning • ELW overview • Course ownership • Cultural awareness • Operational Support • Ensure Consistency

49. 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

50. ELW Overview • Unique training • Immersion in military environment • Joint Training (Military/civilian staff) • Currency • Interaction with front line • 300+ students pa from >50 countries • Military/Civil Service Training