Soldiers slow to fill out online foreign language survey

[unhappycamper]

Soldiers slow to fill out online foreign language survey
By Nancy Montgomery, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Tuesday, November 13, 2007

HEIDELBERG, Germany — Since May, more than 70,000 soldiers have complied with an Army request to disclose whether they can speak a language other than English.

More than half — 39,000 — said that they could, most often reporting some proficiency in Spanish, German or French, the old high-school standbys.

But if that seems like a high percentage of any group of Americans able to speak a foreign language, that’s because it probably is.

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The survey is part of a broader, Defense Department initiative called the “Defense Language Transformation Roadmap.”

The reason is, according to the “roadmap” introduction, which is written in military bureaucratese: “Post 9/11 military operations reinforce the reality that the Department of Defense needs a significantly improved organic capability in emerging languages and dialects, a greater competence and regional area skills in those languages and dialects, and a surge capability to rapidly expand its language capabilities on short notice.”

~snip~

What will be done with the survey results has not yet been decided, Khair said. “We’re trying to assess,” she said. “Maybe down the road a year from now, they might use the data for other things.”


Rest of article at: http://stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=50231