National Deficiency In The Languages And Cultures Of Critical Areas Around The World

By Author: Alex Lee
Total Articles: 366
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Since its publication, the DoD's Call to Action has sparked federal activity aimed at implementing this national security language policy; both the White House and the Congress have proposed measures to meet the critical language needs of the United States, needs that President Bush and congressional leaders have also consistently defined in terms of national security concerns. As mentioned in the epigraph to this article, President Bush's NSLI, unveiled on January 5, 2006, put $114 million behind improving language education in order to secure the nation. The NSLI builds on several existing federal programs, but the newly available funds are meant to encourage schools to refocus their educational efforts on military-defined "critical-need" languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, and Hindi and to develop continuous programs, kindergarten through university, for students of these Thomas Sabo Charms languages.

The NSLI also proposes several new programs, including a Civilian Linguist Reserve Corps, which would recruit and train volunteers to serve the nation ...
... as linguists in matters concerning national security and economic and political stability (Office). Meanwhile, H.R. 678, the National Security Language Act, would work "to strengthen the national security" through expanding educational programs that combine science and technology instruction with foreign language study, and S. 451 and H.R. 747 would formally establish the National Foreign Language Coordination Council called for in the DoD's Call to Action white paper.6 The legislators, federal officials, and language educators shaping this national language policy are well aware that their vision for securing the United States through language education is not new. Many presenters at the 2004 National Language Conference, for example, referred to the September 11 terrorist attacks as a "Sputnik moment," thereby invoking the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) of 1958, through which Congress tried to restore the nation's technological and economic superiority over the Soviet Union by directing more than $1 billion in federal aid to improve research and teaching in science, math, and foreign languages at all educational levels.7 Key MLA leaders such as William Riley Parker joined the U.S. Commission on Education to oversee the NDEAk implementation, and the legislation led to a significantly larger number of students learning the languages and cultures of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Significantly, however, the NDEA overlooked the opportunity to develop educational programs for heritage language speakers within the United States. As Bruce Gardner remarked in 1965, the NDEA promoted an "anomalous national language policy," according to which it is "at best to ignore, at worst to stamp out, the native competence [in heritage language speakers] while at the same time undertaking the miracle of creating something like it in our monolinguals".

Contemporary political leaders have similarly directed the citizenry's attention, in Holt's words, to the "national deficiency in the languages and cultures of critical areas around the world". By defining the military's language problems as the pressing language problems facing the entire nation, these governmental and military leaders declare their support for a policy that would make schools important spaces for securing the nation against terrorist threats.

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