Middle East Language Learning after 9/11: “Needs” and Challenges

1. Middle East Language Learning after 9/11: “Needs” and Challenges Elizabeth A. Anderson, American University Jeremy Browne, State University of New York, Brockport

2. “Need” for Language Specialists • Prior to 9/11: “readiness level was only 30 percent when it came to the ability to translate languages used by terrorists.”[1] • Recent Iraq Study Group report that found out of 1,000 personnel at the US Embassy in Baghdad, 31 spoke Arabic and only six of these spoke it fluently.[2] • “Student who speak a second language have a leg-up on everyone else.” (Albright, 2009)

3. Purpose • Examine the disconnection between • the federal government’s “need” for Middle East specialists and… • the ability of Title VI Middle East Study Centers to produce competent language specialists

4. Data and Methods • Qualitative and quantitative data • 6 Middle East Study Centers • 74 interviews and focus groups • EELIAS database • FOIA-requested early 2006 • SSRC Survey of NRC graduate students • N=238

5. Four Challenges: #1 • University structures hinder the development of competent language • Length of MA programs • Unrealistic expectations

6. 2 years = ? • An Associate Director: students do not have enough time “to think deeply and thoughtfully about issues.” • Graduate requirements: One center requires a “reading and speaking competency.”

7. Four Challenges: #2 • Some disciplines discourage advanced language learning • “Trends” within disciplines • Field work is a disadvantage

8. “Trends” • “Now the disciplines in the social sciences have, as I say, have drifted into a very scientific definition of their purposes and their standards. Which means two things: One is that there is no reward to doing work that is out in the field when basically our definition of science tends to be numbers. And there is a disincentive to working with what those scientists would call dirty data sets - that is to say that if you go off into the field and realize that the numbers are bad, what are you going to do? So, why should you bother doing that kind of work at all.”

9. Disadvantage • Foreign language not required: “the study of statistics [is] a foreign language” • Extends length of PhD • Graduate student advisor: “Nobody cares about area studies”

10. Four Challenges: #3 • Attrition is negating most of the increased interest in Arabic • Difficult to learn • Necessity of study abroad/immersion

11. An Assistant Director: “ I don't think the folks in the academy have been very forthcoming in really making sure that the government understands that you do not produce someone who is fluent in Arabic in 2 years. It just doesn’t happen…I mean at the end of couple of years of language training at Middlebury, they have the polished speaking skills of an Egyptian 3rd grader but they can't read. It is a real problem and something that we grapple with here everyday...”

12. Four Challenges: #4 • Inadequate recognition of language instructors • Inability to keep up with demand • Insufficient response

13. Director of Language Study: “After 9/11….only noticeable change is the quintupling of Arabic language classes. Thirty years [ago] in 1975, we only had one section of first year and one section of second year. Now we have five sections of first year and four sections of second year, and two sections of third year.”

14. Conclusions • More realistic expectations • Re-think language learning • With “internationalization” efforts, make language learning a priority • Sustained support

15. EELIAS • I heard a nasty rumor… • Someone said I had created EELIAS. • I support purposeful and effective data gathering. • “Ask not what would be interesting to know, but what you would do if you knew it.” • (Browne, IEPS Workshop, 2007)

16. EELIAS • Massive database • Purpose: Report Title VI activities to program officers • It does this well. • Many issues • Cumbersome data-retention requirements • Limited utility for research • Still an authoritative source of data (if you can dig it out).

17. Four Challenges #1 & #2 University structures hinder the development of competent linguists at the M.A. level Disciplines that discourage language EELIAS can neither confirm nor deny these findings.

18. Four Challenges: #3 • Attrition is negating much of the increased interest in Arabic.

19. Average cohort enrollments by level and year

20. Average cohort enrollments by level and year

21. Four Challenges: #4 • Inadequate Recognition of Arabic teachers • “The only thing that’s changed is demand.” • Demand changes everything.

22. EELIAS Data Arabic instructor rank How is this related to past demand? How is this related to future demand?

23. NMELRC Data (used with permission) Demand continues to increase

24. NMELRC Data (used with permission) Only 47% of Arabic instructors would recommend language teaching as a profession to their students. 57% of Assistant Professors 64% of Associate Professors 50% of Full Professors 39% of Lecturers  Currently filling the need 44% of Senior Lecturers

25. Four Challenges: #4 • Inadequate Recognition of Arabic teachers • Most Arabic language courses are taught by lecturers. • Lecturers do not beget other lecturers. • We could be in for a rude “second-wave” shortage.

26. References • National Research Council. International Education and Foreign Languages: Keys to Securing America’s Future, Committee to Review the Title VI and Fulbright-Hays International Education Programs, M.E. O’Connell and J. L. Norwood (eds.). Center for Education, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington D.C.: The National Academy Press, 2007, pg. 47. • Ibid., pg. 52.