Posted on Dec 26, 2013
Army Linguists - Do you actually get language maintenance?
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Curious how many Army linguists we have around here, filling linguist billets or DLI-trained...<div><br></div><div>Basically my question revolves around a blog post I wrote on my website recently (http://anarmylinguist.blogspot.com/2013/12/share-your-experiences-on-receiving.html)...</div><div><br></div><div>I am curious to hear about your experiences receiving actual language training in your units, and what you have done to get it implemented.</div><div><br></div><div>When I was a TRADOC instructor, I actually got five weeks per year for three years straight, and zero outside of that in the decade that I have been a trained Army linguist.</div><div><br></div><div>I also bring this up tied in to another post I wrote about (http://anarmylinguist.blogspot.com/2013/12/major-changes-coming-to-foreign.html) where there are major changes coming to the foreign language program. Essentially they are going to start punishing people for failing the DLPT as the new DLPT scores must be annotated on the NCOER starting in February. But what does the Army do to help us?</div><div><br></div><div>For example, I failed my DLPT once. The Army DID NOT, in violation of AR 11-6, provide me with any language instruction. Granted, I am an adult, accepted responsibility for failing (it's more difficult to pass than one might think when you don't use the language and don't get any refresher training), and passed six months later (as soon as I could take it again). But is it fair to be held to one standard while the DA is not?</div><div><br></div><div>I have asked the language branch for what they plan to do to enforce that units must provide language training, but I haven't gotten a response yet (probably because of the holidays).</div><div><br></div><div>Your thoughts?</div><div class="pta-link-card"><div class="pta-link-card-picture"><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FCecX_VkzoE/Tdl2TQ89UdI/AAAAAAAAAEs/4kUJg3vIOC8/s1600/Untitled-1.jpg"></div><div class="pta-link-card-content"><div class="pta-link-card-title"><a target="_blank" href="http://anarmylinguist.blogspot.com/2013/12/major-changes-coming-to-foreign.html">an Army Linguist: Major Changes Coming to Foreign Language Pay/Certification</a></div><div class="pta-link-card-description"></div></div><div style="clear:both"></div><div class="pta-box-hide"><i class="icon-remove"></i></div></div><div class="pta-link-card"><div class="pta-link-card-picture"><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FCecX_VkzoE/Tdl2TQ89UdI/AAAAAAAAAEs/4kUJg3vIOC8/s1600/Untitled-1.jpg"></div><div class="pta-link-card-content"><div class="pta-link-card-title"><a target="_blank" href="http://anarmylinguist.blogspot.com/2013/12/share-your-experiences-on-receiving.html">an Army Linguist: Share your experiences on receiving language training/refresher in your unit</a></div><div class="pta-link-card-description"></div></div><div style="clear:both"></div><div class="pta-box-hide"><i class="icon-remove"></i></div></div>
Posted in these groups: 
Defense Language Institute (DLI)
Maintenance
Defense Language Institute (DLI) Maintenance
Posted 11 y ago
Responses: 7
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Hi SFC Jones….How's Hawaii?
Yes, Soldiers in my company got trained.
That being said, I had one Soldier that I could not find a language instructor for, and under the new MILPER message, a Soldier cannot reclass if they have not been given the opportunity to receive 150 hours of training after they fail their DLPT. So I couldn't get him retested and I couldn't request that he be reclassed. I Then I got him on assignment to an actual billet for his language. The Army deleted his assignment because they said he was not language proficient….Along with that I couldn't send him out to DLI because that would be a PCS move. I have since conducted my CoR and I know the 1SG now is still working that issue.
We returned from our deployment with only 52% of our linguists qualified. Within six months all of my linguists were qualified with the exception of the above Soldier. We implemented a once a week language training day for all of the linguists, much like SGTs Time, and began turning one of our offices into our own little language lab.
It's hard at the tactical level to schedule the training because there is always some other shiny object or tasking that is more important. It's up to the company command team to make it a priority, which we did because it had such a huge impact on those Soldier that MOS's were language dependent. Is that the correct answer, no, we should have made it a priority prior to the rules changing and prior to our deployment. They got the training but it wasn't a company command team priority so sometimes there were outside distractors when they were conducting their training. After the rules changed, I pulled them off of the duty roster and only required that they be there for morning PT and any other 100% command directed events..ie Operation Golden Flow….
Yes, Soldiers in my company got trained.
That being said, I had one Soldier that I could not find a language instructor for, and under the new MILPER message, a Soldier cannot reclass if they have not been given the opportunity to receive 150 hours of training after they fail their DLPT. So I couldn't get him retested and I couldn't request that he be reclassed. I Then I got him on assignment to an actual billet for his language. The Army deleted his assignment because they said he was not language proficient….Along with that I couldn't send him out to DLI because that would be a PCS move. I have since conducted my CoR and I know the 1SG now is still working that issue.
We returned from our deployment with only 52% of our linguists qualified. Within six months all of my linguists were qualified with the exception of the above Soldier. We implemented a once a week language training day for all of the linguists, much like SGTs Time, and began turning one of our offices into our own little language lab.
It's hard at the tactical level to schedule the training because there is always some other shiny object or tasking that is more important. It's up to the company command team to make it a priority, which we did because it had such a huge impact on those Soldier that MOS's were language dependent. Is that the correct answer, no, we should have made it a priority prior to the rules changing and prior to our deployment. They got the training but it wasn't a company command team priority so sometimes there were outside distractors when they were conducting their training. After the rules changed, I pulled them off of the duty roster and only required that they be there for morning PT and any other 100% command directed events..ie Operation Golden Flow….
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