1 / 18

Outline

BUREAU FOR INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE COORDINATION BUREAU DE COORDINATION LINGUISTIQUE INTERNATIONALE NATO SPEAK : ENGLISH IN MULTINATIONAL SETTINGS Julie J. Dubeau, BILC Chair Opening Briefing Tbilisi, Georgia, 6 May 2013. Outline. What is BILC?

avari
Download Presentation

Outline

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. BUREAU FOR INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE COORDINATIONBUREAU DE COORDINATION LINGUISTIQUE INTERNATIONALENATOSPEAK: ENGLISH IN MULTINATIONAL SETTINGSJulie J. Dubeau,BILC Chair Opening Briefing Tbilisi, Georgia, 6 May 2013

  2. Outline • What is BILC? • Membership, Secretariat, Mission • Programme of work: • Events • Cooperative Language Training Assessments • Assistance to Testing Programmes • NATO Language Context • Conference Theme • Updates

  3. Background BILC was established in 1966 as an advisory body to NATO. The founding members are France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. 1967: Belgium, Canada, Netherlands 1975: SHAPE and IMS/NATO (non-voting members) 1978: Portugal 1983: Turkey 1984: Denmark and Greece 1985: Spain 1993: Norway 1999: Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland 2004: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia 2008: Albania, Croatia Partner countries routinely participate. All nations are welcome to attend and/or observe. The BILC Chair presides over the Steering Committee which meets at the spring conference. Voting members are the heads of NATO delegations.

  4. BILC Steering Committee BILC Secretariat As of May 2013 Chair J. Dubeau • GRB (1966-1981) • DEU (1982-1996) • USA (1997-2008) • CAN (2008-2014) Senior Advisor Dr. R. Clifford Secretary J. Vasilj-Begovic Associate Secretaries Language Testing Programmes P. Garza Language Training Assessments K. Wert

  5. BILC Mission & Vision Mission: To promote and foster interoperability among NATO and PfP nations by furthering standardization of language training and testing. To support the Alliance's operations through the exchange of knowledge and best practices, IAW established procedures and agreements. Vision: To achieve levels of excellence where progress made by one is shared by all.

  6. Two Main Events: BILC Conference in Spring May 2012 was hosted by the Czech Republic – “Lifelong Language Learning, Enhancing Educational Effectiveness” The 2013 Conference will be hosted by Belgium-Theme & dates TBD BILC Professional Seminar in Fall October 2012 was hosted by Slovenia– “Back to Basics: Recipes for Instructional Success ” Hosted by Sweden in Stockholm: 13-18 Oct 2013 “ Diligent Design: Building Blocks to Maximize Learning”

  7. BILC Programmes • Assistance to National Testing Programmes • Moldova May 2012, Ukraine Nov 2012 • Planned: Russia June 2013 • Language Testing Seminar (LTS): 2 weeks, 2X per year • Advanced Language Testing Seminar (ALTS): 3 weeks, 2X per year - Offered to graduates from the LTS NEW! Language Standards and Assessment Seminar (LSAS) 3-11 July 2013

  8. BILC Programmes Cooperative Language Training Assessments Goal: To assess language training programmes and offer recommendations 2012: Russia in September Georgia in November 2013: Russia September STANAG 6001 Conferences - 2012 Copenhagen, 2013 SHAPE

  9. Military / NATO Language Context:Complicated and Complex! • Each nation is responsible for own training / testing programme • No common tests - only a common standard - STANAG 6001 Nations certify their military and give members SLPs based on own STANAG - based tests. • SLPs of job descriptions may or may not reflect actual language requirements • Compatibility of NATO & national requirements • Language “Targets”

  10. NATO Global Partnerships

  11. What is NATOSpeak? • What is common to military language use? • Acronyms and expressions? • Is it purely lexical? • Is it standardized? • How do you measure it? • How do you best learn it? • Can we train for it? Should we?

  12. Language Shortfall English skills lacking Inadequate harmonization of req & procedures Need for proficiency is increasing Documents & correspondence - too lengthy, too complex Content/intensity of lang. trng falls short Native speaker not always proficient in communicating in multinational environment

  13. ENGLISH IN MULTINATIONAL SETTINGS Various cultural / linguistic backgrounds impact the variant spoken – Native speaker ownership of language? English as Lingua Franca (LFE) construct? Is LFE separate from culture to which it predominantly belongs?

  14. Updates • NEW! BILC Website www.NATOBILC.org • NEW! STANAG for Non-Specialists • LNA – NATO SACT • Statement from BILC re IS equivalency table • WG on Level 4 - Final report • WG on Translation & Terminology - ongoing

  15. QUESTIONS? Enjoy the conference!

  16. Contact us: Julie.Dubeau@forces.gc.ca Jana.Vasilj-Begovic@forces.gc.ca BILC@forces.gc.ca www.NATOBILC.org

More Related