Accent on Foreign Languages
.jpg)
NEW POLICIES, INCREASED FUNDS, AND TECHNOLOGIES STRENGTHEN THIS DOD LEARNING PROGRAM.
American Translators Association spokesman Kevin Hendzel, noting the investment of time and other resources required to proficiently read, listen to and speak a new language, said: “It’s easier to learn to fly an F-14 than it is to learn to speak Arabic.”
Similar perspectives are being considered as the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) bolsters its foreign language capabilities. A blend of proven delivery methods and promising technologies will expand DoD’s foreign language and foreign area competencies.
Current projects are being developed with a focus on embracing standards and providing strategies for overcoming technical challenges.
POLICY AND FUNDS
Approximately 90 different language courses are taught annually in DoD. Foreign language courses are conducted at the basic, intermediate and advanced level to over 5,400 military and civilian department personnel.
DoD has recently strengthened the policy underpinnings for foreign language and foreign area expertise requirements. The Department published the 2005 Defense Language Roadmap and included sections on these two areas in the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review.
Requested funding will help close current capability gaps. The Pentagon will invest $181 million in military language programs in Fiscal Year (FY) 2007 and $579 million between FYs 2008-2011.
PLACE FOR TEACHER AND TECHNOLOGY
“A key component of and methodology to foreign language education is to use technology to enhance the educational experience,” said Nancy Weaver, director, Defense Language Office. As a result, all of DoD’s foreign language education is facilitated by technology to some degree.
But even with the addition of technology, “it is not possible to, nor do we desire to replace the human teacher,” she added.
“The role of the teacher, in almost all cases a native speaker of the language being taught, is an invaluable part of the language-learning process. Technology can be useful to connect teachers to students over vast distances, for reinforcement activities, and portable music and video devices can provide valuable insight into the culture of a country through its movies, television (shows and newscasts) and music,” Weaver concluded.
Technologies include proven delivery media and emerging applications.
ONE DELIVERY MODE
While U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) is eyeing pilot projects which use emerging applications similar to those described later, it continues to use one time-tested delivery medium.
Some SOCOM language requirements are completed through PC-based teleconferencing enabled by the Special Operations Force Teletraining System, which was pioneered by the U.S. Army Intelligence Center, Fort Huachuca, and demonstrated by the SOF Language Office (SOFLO).
In 2004, the office sponsored two five- and one-half month Arabic courses using this strategy with an average of four soldiers per class.
Currently the SOFLO is running a seven-man Tagalog initial acquisition course, and a French and a Russian sustainment course with about four students per class.
The command provided several of its lessons learned for using video teletraining which “has been around for a long time,” observed Lieutenant Commander Steve Mavica, media relations officer, SOCOM.
“This is the logical evolution whereby we eliminate the military construction costs, eliminate travel and temporary duty expenses, and can open the training up to a broader audience,” he said.
SOCOM has found PC-based teleconferencing particularly useful for Reserve Component SOF “because it allows them to train at home and not miss even more time from their families between deployments,” Mavica noted. And geography is not an obstacle, with the Tagalog class being facilitated by an instructor in Korea for students in Utah, Texas, Idaho, Arizona and a fifth state.
Still, this delivery medium is comparable, not superior, to classroom training effectiveness, Mavica said. “Cost and family considerations make it a feasible choice for some situations. Also, we appear to be finding that it requires closer student and instructor selection. There is no physical non-commissioned officer present to enforce behavior, and the instructor must be dynamic and technology-trainable,” he added.
ROSETTA STONE
The U.S. Army enlisted Rosetta Stone Online to bolster that Service’s foreign language capability base.
Rosetta Stone develops everyday proficiency in each of the key language skills: listening, comprehension, speaking, reading and writing. Individual skills are developed and tested in each lesson, as the learner chooses, with proprietary technologies allowing Rosetta Stone to evaluate speaking and writing skills in any language, said Duane Sider, director of learning for Rosetta Stone.
The Army has estimated that it will take approximately 75 hours for learners to complete a Rosetta Stone Online course, when dynamic factors are considered, including the learner’s goals, schedule and learning style.
From Rosetta Stone’s date of availability on November 7, 2005 through the end of March 2006, over 34,000 users accessed the courses more than 95,697 times and completed 33,044 units. The top five courses accessed are Spanish (Latin American), Arabic, German, French and Italian, said Meggan King, marketing analyst with the Army Distributed Learning System.
The Rosetta Stone software supports 30 languages, from Arabic to Welsh.
Rosetta Stone may be accessed through the Army portal www.army.mil, and once registered with an AKO (Army Knowledge Online) account, by clicking on AKO and then on My Education.
The program vendors are Skillsoft and Fairfield Language Technologies.
IRAQI CHECKPOINT
One of two evolving DoD projects reviewed in this issue is lead by Vcom3D. The company, in collaboration with the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLI-FLC) and Naval Postgraduate School, has developed the Iraqi Checkpoint course. The project uses interactive 3-D simulations to deliver authentic, taskbased instruction in language and culture.
The initiative was funded by the Joint Advanced Distributed Learning Co-Lab (JADL), Orlando, Prototype Program.
“The student learns by performing progressively more difficult tasks while communicating with virtual human characters that speak Iraqi Arabic and exhibit culturally appropriate behaviors,” said Carol Wideman, CEO of Vcom3D. The virtual humans combine gestures, actions, facial expression, visual cues and lip-synchronized speech, she added.
The course is interactive and high-resolution, and it is designed to operate either over a very low bandwidth connection or as a stand-alone product.
The 3D Components for Virtual Environments suite of tools were developed under contracts to the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and were used to create the training vignettes and scenarios. The company is enhancing the suite of tools under contract to the Combating Terrorism Technology Support Office and Technical Support Working Group, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and U.S. Army Research Development and Engineering Command.
This suite of tools provides an integrated framework for:
• Creating the 3-D Environment,
• Creating course structure and text screens,
• Adding speech and animations and
• Publishing Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM)-conformant Learning Object(s).
A unique component of the suite that greatly expedites the creation of simulations for various languages and cultures is Vcommunicator Studio.
Vcommunicator Studio automatically provides lip-synchronization to any language, using only a voice recording and transcript. The transcript is then presented along a time-line, allowing the author to rapidly add gestures, facial expressions, and eye-gaze appropriate to the character’s culture and to the situation at hand. After the author refines the animations in a preview window, all behaviors are exported as a plain text or Extensible Markup Language (XML) file, Wideman concluded.
TACTICAL IRAQI
A second project, Tactical Iraqi, had its genesis with DARPA and its DARWARS program. The product teaches students totally unfamiliar with Iraqi Arabic language and culture how to communicate effectively with Iraqis and accomplish tasks and missions on a daily basis.
The product is a computer-based, self-based system that uses interactive, animated, real-life simulations based on computer games, artificial intelligence and speech recognition.
The product was further developed by Tactical Language Training LLC in collaboration with the University of Southern California’s (USC) Center for Advanced Research and Technology for Education at the Information Sciences Institute. “The initial prototype was developed at USC, and productization and ongoing content development is being performed by our company,” said Dr. Lewis Johnson, chief executive officer of Tactical Language Training LLC.
The Tactical Iraqi consortium includes independent contractors and consultants, which includes language experts, culture experts, artists, voice actors and other specialists.
Tactical Iraqi is being used or evaluated by the U.S. Marine Corps, the other Services and several DoD agencies.
Tactical Language Training is preparing a Tactical Pashto trainer for release later this year, which should benefit servicemembers serving in Afghanistan.
STANDARDS
SCORM and other standards are foundations for evolving projects.
The Iraqi Checkpoint course was developed as SCORM 1.2-conformant, Level 3 Interactive Multimedia Instruction, to promote reusability of the instructional content, Vcom3D’s Wideman recalled. She emphasized that the adherence to standards goes much farther than just SCORM conformance.
“Each simulation asset is modeled using the Extensible 3D (X3D) specification (International Organization for Standardization/ International Electrotechnical Commission [ISO/IEC] 19775). The virtual human characters furthermore are modeled according to the Humanoid Animation standard (ISO/IEC 19774). This allows the human characters and behaviors to be reused in other instructional content.”
Vcom3D is currently enhancing the Authoring Tools to create SCORM 2004- conformant content, and is participating in the Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization Working Group addressing the integration of simulations with ADL concepts.
MEETING TECHNICAL CHALLENGES
Some of the technical obstacles on the road to fielding an effective language trainer can be gleaned from the successes of the Tactical Iraqi team.
The team was able to develop a speechrecognition technology that can robustly and quickly recognize learner speech, detect learner errors and give feedback on them.
“We use a speaker-independent recognition approach that is trained on a combination of native speakers and learners using Tactical Iraqi,” said Tactical Language Training’s Johnson.
The Tactical Language and Culture Training System engine serves as a training tool and a data-collection and assessment tool. “We can use the engine to record trainees speaking Iraqi Arabic and then use those recordings to retrain and incrementally improve the speech recognizer. A key to our approach is dynamically loading different language models depending upon the particular activity that the learner is engaged in,” he added. When the learner is engaged in simulated dialogue with the system, the speech recognizer focuses on recognizing what the learner is intending to say. In the interactive lessons the focus is more on detecting common errors and providing feedback.
The challenge of developing appropriate authoring tools for content continues to bedevil many project teams. This has required “the development of collaborative Web-based authoring tools that enabled multidisciplinary teams to work together,” Johnson recalled. “Content is represented internally in an XML format that we developed, and we created a suite of analysis and validation tools that can create glossaries from the authored material and check for errors and inconsistencies,” he added.
COLLABORATION
DoD’s repository of technology-enabled language courses should expand as a result of recent internal outreach and coordination efforts.
The OSD staff is completing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which will establish a virtual ADL Foreign Language Technology Center within the ADL Co-Lab Network. The MOU’s three signatories will be the Defense Language Office, the DLIFLC and the JADL.
While the MOU’s final details are pending, the document requires the JADL, in collaboration with the DLO, to provide leadership on R&D projects. ♦