WEEKLY ACTIVITIES REPORT - LANGUAGE SCHOOL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-06363A000300010004-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 17, 2000
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: May 28, 1971
• Content Type: MF

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28 May 1971
MEMORANDUM FOR: Director of Training
SUBJECT : Weekly Activities Report - Language School
1. Judging from student response, the language portion of the
Vietnam Orientation Course is going well. one of
our newest instructors, has introduced innovations which have been
well received. The students have asked her to record tapes for review
and self-study; the taping project has begun this week.
25X1A9a 2. who has been assigned the task of reviewing
professional journals and keeping the staff aware of articles that
are of direct interest to the language School, briefed the Linguistic
Steering Committee on the so-called "cognitive code" theory of
language learning. She provided the staff with key articles on the
subject and did an excellent job of contrasting the cognitive code
approach with the audio-lingual theory which underlies the IS method.
It appears that the academic linguists are concluding that a combination
of the two approaches, which is exactly what we have used all along,
is the most effective way of teaching languages, particularly to
adults.
3. Eleven recommendations to the language Incentive Program
have been received, and one cash award authorization has been forwarded
for a former IS student who achieved a "2" level in Thai. In these
first cases we have encountered several deviations from what we hope
will become a routine procedure, mainly because there is an overlap
between the LPCA and the LPSI programs.
4. We have learned through unofficial channels that language
instructors at the Foreign Service Institute have raised a number of
grievances about salary, working hours and the lack of communication
that exists between the faculty and FSI management. Movement is well
underway toward formation of a union. By contrast, instructor morale
at the language School, we are happy to note, has never been higher.
The current Faculty Advisory Committee, which is a primary channel of
communication between faculty and staff, completed its one-year term
this week, and elections of new representatives from the various
departments are now being held.
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5. The first of a series of "Romance Roundtables" was held at
the language School this week on 26 May. It was attended by Romance
Language Department linguists from IS, FSI and DLI. The meeting was
devoted chiefly to getting acquainted and to planning the procedures
and substance of future meetings. We hoped that each school would
give a brief presentation of its approach, methods and materials in
French and Spanish instruction; but because of limited time, only the
IS representatives were able to do this. It is planned, however, that
from now on workshops will be held on a monthly basis, in rotation at
our respective schools. DLI will host the June meeting. I am very
pleased that arranged this meeting, and plan to encourage
it in other languages. We need this type of exchange on the working
level of school staffs in the Washington language community. Most
of our interagency contact is on the managerial level, where sub-
stantive topics are rarely discussed. Some of the topics suggested
for discussion at future meetings are the following:
Instructor training,
Achievement testing,
Student performance evaluation,
Classroom monitoring,
Diversity of students,
Use of tape-recorders in classroom,
Late afternoon slump,
VOA comprehension tapes,
Amount of instructor-student contact hours,
Outside activities,
Monitoring in the language lab,
Instruction in phonology,
Rotation of teachers,
Objectives and "syllabi" for courses of varying length,
Role of the linguist,
Student critiques,
Degree of flexibility allowed in presenting basic text, etc.
25X1A9a 6 reported that the conclusions of last week's
DLI conference on language laboratory software, which will be written
up in the professional literature, will probably have an impact on
the role of the laboratory in language teaching throughout the country.
Having made the decision -- despite recent controversy about the
effectiveness of taped materials -- to reaffirm its commitment to the
lab, the DLI admitted that what it now had on tape was poor, and
expressed its intent to revise it all -- over 10,000 master tapes.
Leading experts were assembled to draw up guidelines and recommendations
to implement the massive revision project. There are obvious implications
for us in this move by DLI, and we will give careful consideration to
the conference recommendations as soon as they are available.
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7. Miss Marcelle Carlier, AID's language officer, visited us on
Thursday for the purpose of seeking out information on a loan-out
cassette self-study language program she is planning. We showed her
our equipment and described our administrative controls. She told
us that she had recently returned from a six-week trip abroad, during
which she assessed the local language training available overseas.
Apparently the quality of instruction varies widely from post to post
but none of it is comparable to the quality of training available
in the United States. She described AID's language program, which is
similar to that of the State Department, but with somewhat lesser
language qualifications required.
8. At a joint meeting of the language and Area Roundtables, it
was recommended that a subcommittee be established to discuss the
further integration of language, area and cross-cultural training.
The Language School supports the objective of the subcommittee and
will provide membership when asked.
9. Language School Statistics:
Students and Classes as of the week of 17 - 21 May 1971:
Students Classes
Full-time - 80 Full-time - 38
Part-time - 134 (43 BAHLT) Part-time - 50 ( 8 BAHLT)
(45 Hqs.) (10 Hqs.)
TOTAL ..... 214 TOTAL.....88
Laboratory hours for the week of 17 - 21 May 1971:
Language School - 305
Headquarters - 53
There were 31 proficiency tests given during the week of
17 - 21 May 1971. 25X1A9a
Acting Chief, Language School
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