 These people are all involved in an intensive training program, a program unique to the military. These servicemen and women are part of a unique program, an intensive language training program. They and thousands of others from all of America's armed forces are involved in a curriculum of some 50 languages and major dialects. From Arabic to German, from Korean to cerebral Croatian. Intensive language training is the mission of the Defense Language Institute, where the Department of Defense is building language power for peace. Beautiful Monterey, California, where, on high ground above scenic Monterey Harbor is the Presidio, one of the oldest military posts in the United States. And the headquarters of the Defense Language Institute, one of the largest language schools in the world today. The school graduates about 4,500 students each year and teaches 49 foreign languages and dialects. From the headquarters is directed and monitored a teaching activity that extends throughout the free world. Most teachers are native speakers of the language they teach. Some can express themselves in as many as six different languages. Among their numbers are descendants of royalty, prominent artists, musicians, statesmen, educators, judges and former government officials. They are uniquely qualified for their particular mission and they fulfill it in a uniquely effective way. Their students are selected members of all four armed forces. They spend from up to a year at the school, depending upon each individual's rate of progress, completely absorbed in the business of taking in a new language. And taking in is the right phrase. They acquire the feel of the language, the flavors of it. They soak it in in all of its aspects and make it their own. Just how this comes about is quite a story. For the student, it begins like this. You've got to be kidding. No, they're all yours. Just print your name at the top, sign at the bottom. You sure you haven't forgotten anything? Just smooth. You're right. Tape recorder. Head sets. Sorry, it's your all hard. Just print your name at the top, sign at the bottom. This new arrival will be glad to remember that while he's here, his primary duty is to learn his assigned language. It will be a busy time and every hour of it is planned, long before he gets here. A full series of texts have been created from scratch by the school itself to lead the student hour by hour through the hundreds of hours of instruction. It is a long journey ahead. The school literally writes its own teaching texts. It prints them. And this is no small-scale operation. Well, over half a million texts each year and each book lesson has its counterpart on tape. Step one. Listen to the following dialogue without repeating. In order for each student to be able to hear his homework as well as read it, teachers put in many hours of painstaking work in the recording studios. These tapes give the student a clear, correct speech model to imitate as he works on his own outside the classroom. From each master recording, hundreds of copies are made and they become as much a part of the student's equipment as his textbooks. They are, in fact, textbooks for the ear, an essential part of the school's teaching technique. One of the first things one notices about a class is how small it is, rarely as many as 10 people, usually less. This is essential if each and every student is to get the benefit of intensive individualized instruction and have ample time to practice the job-related language skill at his own pace. The primary focus of instruction is on the spoken language for functional communication purposes. Thus the student, from the very beginning, is introduced to the sounds of the spoken language as they occur in real situations. Listen, repeat, mimic, memorize, over and over. These sounds, of course, are not mere abstractions. They are meaningful and they are learned conversationally. Heard and spoken in normal tones at normal speed. At first the student is encouraged not to ask why but to listen and repeat. Not to translate but to think in the new language. To hear, then imitate. Listen, repeat, listen, repeat. Listen, repeat, with the instructor showing the way. As the learning progresses, the students learn more complex sentences. Structure and grammar are gradually introduced through dialogues and pattern drills to show the importance of major grammatical structures. As students gain confidence and fluidity, they face more complex sentence structures. They learn in terms of authentic sentences, not isolated words and rules. And once they have acquired confidence in using the spoken language, they also learn to write their new language. Before the student graduates, he will be able to converse, translate and read a newspaper or military publication. To acquire this level of proficiency at months instead of years takes precisely what the school provides. Intensive training to meet course objectives through self-paced progress. Three hours of class instruction every morning and every afternoon three more hours. And three hours of work at home each night. Nine hours a day. This adds up to the equivalent of one to two weeks of normal college instruction every day. Week after week of instruction at this level of intensity is a lot of learning. In addition to face-to-face instruction, perhaps the most important single teaching tool at the school is the language laboratory. The student spends one or two hours each day working in this modern electronic learning environment. He can listen to the language correctly spoken on tape. Repeat, play back his own voice for comparison to the correct model, all at his own pace. He needn't wait for slower students or be rushed by quicker ones. The instructor can listen to any booth, speak to any booth without disturbing the others or speak to all at once. Say complete German sentences using the present perfect tense form of the verb shown in parentheses. The language lab provides an essential element of language training with minimum demand upon the valuable time of its teachers. It provides endless, tireless practice of correct speech patterns for the student to hear and imitate. In addition to the basic course which teaches conversational language, there is also a special type of course for many personnel called an oral comprehension course. The emphasis in these courses is on understanding the spoken or written language and translating exactly into English. Most of the students in the oral comprehension course enlisted specifically for language training and this is their first assignment following basic training. Army and Air Force students make up the majority of the student body and they are assigned to separate units for housing and administrative purposes. All military students have certain duties to perform such as a weekly inspection and ranks but these are kept to a minimum as their primary duty is to learn their assigned language. In the buildings of the Slavic division, the prime interest is of course Russian. Among the languages taught at the school, Russian is the first in terms of the numbers of students involved. Each year hundreds of men and women in uniform graduate in Russian and their proficiency is polished through hours of working with real life materials. Salute number four, three weeks in space, Space Flight Center, 14 June, TAS. The third week of the Space Flight of the Slavic division is the first in terms of the number of students involved in the military. The first in terms of the number of students involved in the military. The second in terms of the number of students involved in the military. The third week of the Space Flight of Piotr Klimak in Vitaly Sebastianov is coming to a conclusion. The use of realia is an important part of the learning process. Realia is the term used to describe real life situations such as this terrain table exercise where students have practical experience in using vocabulary of the military such as observation, description and analysis of field equipment, movement and terrain features, all in their new language. And there are other methods of utilizing the concept of realia at the school. Josef Stalin 3. Displays such as this take the students a step beyond the prepared dialogue in class and give them a more vivid sense of reality. The settings may change, but the objective of realia is always the same. To give the students that extra touch of realism that will focus their grasp of their new language even more clearly. Or Pablo Mayor. Day by day in class and out of it, the student is given a whole new frame of reference. Students often assemble for classes on a summer day in the three cultural gardens which reinforce learning of the spoken and written language by surrounding the student with the feel of the culture out of which that language comes. The Asian garden. The Mediterranean garden. The patio I built your Americano. Each reflect the tradition and environment of the various parts of the world they represent. The school's teaching philosophy. Expose the student in every way possible to the cultural outlooks and customs of the language area he is studying. Does the student learning to speak Chinese, for example, gain a fuller insight from learning to prepare traditional Chinese foods? Well, the DOD school thinks so and makes this a part of the curriculum. All of the various language departments make use of this culinary language lab and the practical results justify the efforts and time involved. In fact, foods prepared here often provide the menu for picnics. National holidays of the nation involved are celebrated and the full flavor of normal social contact and conversation in the subject language can be experienced by the students. It is fun. A break from classroom routine. But even here, the learning process goes on. Activities like this are a carefully calculated part of the school's purpose. Intensive exposure of the student to the living language he is studying for those students with special interests or talent, they are encouraged to adapt them to their new language. These talented students are an example of that philosophy as they participate in the Russian ensemble made up of singers, dancers, and velalaika players. But the search for still greater teaching effectiveness never stops. I'd like to review a voicing script of Unit 56. In this unit we will review the verbs to land and to take off. Specialists in Linguistics and Test Development, psychologists, artists, and highly qualified speakers of the specific languages team up to work at developing and revising the courses and materials, improving teaching skills of the instructors, and developing tests to aid in evaluation and management as part of the school's research and development program. Are there any comments on the voicing script itself? The school also has a video learning center. Here with the help of over 50 TV playback machines, students come during their off-duty time to view programs ranging from locally and commercially prepared language lessons to pre-recorded TV programs from foreign countries. With over 600 TV programs on hand, and more arriving from all over the world on a regular schedule, students are able to view the most current and interesting programs at their convenience. The academic library provides traditional print materials in all languages taught at the school. Included are not only items directly related to the language, but material relating to the culture of that language. With 29,000 volumes and over 600 periodical subscriptions, the academic library has become the center of activity for those students, teachers and staff who want to know what's happening in the area of the world which they study. Graduates, for the most part, have attained what the institute calls the minimum professional proficiency, and that is no slight phrase. It means that they can communicate on a professional level in their new language, speaking fluently and reading and writing with almost normal speed and ease. They are, in short, ready to take on the military job that requires their linguistic ability. And this is true not only of the American servicemen and women that have been taught a foreign language at the school, but also of the 100,000 military men and women who use the school's materials at their home bases, posts and duty stations. Whatever their duty assignment is to be, these months of intensive language training have equipped them to be as one among many thousands, the wielders of a highly effective instrument. The armed forces, ever-growing. It's a practice in short, freedom. Language power for peace.