DOD Training

Many linguists are graduating from the Defense Department's (DOD) language training school without having obtained the limited language proficiency desired. This proficiency level--level 2--is defined as having enough language capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements. The linguists should be able to handle concrete topics in past, present, and future tense. Although the language training school has significantly increased the number of students graduating at level 2 or higher in recent years, about one-third of all students continue to graduate below this level of proficiency. Moreover, the military services routinely allow students who do not attain a level 2 proficiency to proceed to the next phase of training--technical school. GAO recommends that DOD review individual service practices for awarding foreign language proficiency pay to receive equal pay for equal achievement, determine whether the current Army and Marine Corps practice of paying for less than level 2 proficiency should continue, and establish procedures for coordinating commercial language training class schedules.

GAO found that: (1) a significant number of linguists graduate from the DOD Defense Language Institute (DLI) without having met its established language proficiency standards; (2) although the number of DLI graduates has increased, a third of its students graduate below the required level-2 proficiency; (3) the military services often allow students who do not meet the proficiency standard at graduation to proceed to technical school; (4) many linguists' language proficiency declines up to 25 percent while attending technical school because their technical training focuses on developing non-language skills; (5) although many students regain their language proficiency, some do not regain the same level of proficiency they had at graduation from DLI; (6) the Army is the only military service that requires operating unit commanders to establish unit-level language maintenance programs; (7) the military services do not consistently award appropriate levels of language proficiency pay; and (8) two DOD primary language training schools may have classes that are duplicative and underenrolled because the two schools do not effectively coordinate their language class schedules.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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