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Meeting Customers' Language Requirements

BILC Conference 2006 Budapest, Hungary

Herbert Walinsky,Bundessprachenamt

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Our Customers and their Needs• Variety of customers

– Military– Civilian

• Language levels

– Prerequisites– Goals

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General Goals

• Optimal trainingwhat's needed, when it's needed,for as long as it's needed

• Shortest possible time, minimum expense

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Some Approaches to meeting Customers' Needs

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SLP courses with customer-oriented LSP elements

• mid to high SLP requirement

• low SLP requirement

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Non-SLP LSP courses

• mid to high SLP prerequisite

• 0 or low SLP prerequisite

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The Lockheed P 3 Orion aircraft

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Technicians at work

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Factors Determining Future Requirements -- 2002 vs.

2006•Student availability

•Specific language needs

•Budgetary restrictions

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Meeting future requirements 2002 vs.

2006• Centralization • Courses • Teacher training• Materials development • Testing

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Centralization

• Greater flexibility • Common standards

- Hiring policy & procedures- Teacher training - Language instruction- Testing & examiner training

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Courses – and beyond

• Teletutoring pilot project

• "Mini-courses"

• Other

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Students from the UAR improve their German by introducing their home country to visitors from a local school.

Learning by doing

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Teacher TrainingDidactics

and Methodolog

yInstruction

&Facilitation

TELL Technolog

y-EnhancedLanguageLearning

Language Testing

&Examiner Training

Military Working

Language

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General, Non service-specific job-related Military working language

Service or branch-specific working language

Specialized and job-specific

Weapons-systemspecific

Specialized Language Training

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Service and / or branch-

specific General Language

Specialized and job-specificin authentic

contextGeneral Military

Working Language

e.g. Weapons-system specific

Degrees of specialization

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Materials development for

specialized language

• Military familiarization

• Survival materials

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Mr. Hakim, shown admiring the "Kombi-Campus" CD for level 1.3 in English in the "hand" of the remote-controlled TEODor mine-clearing vehicle, has since completed the interactive survival trainer for Dari.

Interactive learning materials held high!

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The multimedia package for Swahili with CD-ROM and survival phrasebook

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Topic areas in interactive survival programs:

BasicsMaking contact

Daily needs

Finding and

describing places

Emergency

situations

On the road

Checks and

controls

Military matters

This and that

BundessprachenamtBundessprachenamt Dari

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Language Testing• Administration & evaluation: MC tests • Multi-level oral and written exams • Comprehensive examination guidelines • Examiner training seminars

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Some customers don't need specialized

language training.