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| Established | 1954 (DLIELC) 1963 (DLIFLC) |
|---|---|
| Commandant | Lieutenant Colonel Marvin Mark (DLIELC)[1] Colonel Christy Whitfield (DLIFLC)[2] |
| Location | , U.S. |
| Campus | DLIELC, DLIFLC |
| Website | English Language Center,Foreign Language Center |
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TheDefense Language Institute (DLI) is aUnited States Department of Defense (DoD) educational and research institution consisting of two separate entities which provide linguistic and cultural instruction to the Department of Defense, other federal agencies and numerous customers around the world. The Defense Language Institute is responsible for the Defense Language Program, and the bulk of the Defense Language Institute's activities involve educating DoD members in assigned languages, and international personnel in English. Other functions include planning, curriculum development, and research insecond-language acquisition.
The two primary entities of the Defense Language Institute are the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC) and the Defense Language Institute English Language Center (DLIELC). DLIFLC is located at the Presidio of Monterey in Monterey, California, and DLIELC is located at Joint Base San Antonio - Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.
The institute offers foreign language instruction in more than two dozen languages to approximately 3,500 students on a schedule that extends throughout the year. Courses are taught seven hours per day, five days a week, with the exception of federal holidays and training holidays. The duration of courses range between 36 and 64 weeks, depending on the difficulty of the language.[3]
The military also uses private language programs such asCL-150.
The Defense Language Institute English Language Center manages the Department of Defense English Language Program (DELP), and is designated the 637th Training Group in 2015. The over 300 civilian members of the staff include the instructors who are qualified in the area ofEnglish as a second language.[4]
DLIELC is accredited by theCommission on English Language Program Accreditation, which is recognized by theUS Department of Education.[citation needed]
DLIELC is divided into three resident academic training sections: General English, Specialized English, and Instructor Development. Depending on the needs of the students, training can range from nine weeks (in Specialized English, for example) to 52 weeks in General English. Some students arrive with only minimal English capabilities, then train to a predetermined English comprehension level (ECL) in General English. Annually, students from over 100 countries enroll in the DLIELC resident training programs. Training is paid by the host country (Foreign Military Sales) or through US grant assistance programs such as International Military Education and Training Programs. In addition to DLIELC's mission to train international students, DLIELC is responsible for providing English language training to US military service members whose primary language is not English. The DLIELC campus is located on the southwest quadrant ofLackland AFB.[citation needed]
The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC) traces its roots to the eve of United States entry intoWorld War II, when the U.S. Army established a secret school at the Presidio of San Francisco with a budget of $2,000 toteach the Japanese language. Classes began 1 November 1941, with four instructors and 60 students in an abandoned airplane hangar atCrissy Field known as Building 640.[5] The site is now preserved as the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) Historic Learning Center by theNational Japanese American Historical Society.
Gen.Joseph Stilwell and Gen.George Marshall studied Chinese as officers stationed in China and understood the need to provide language training for enlisted troops, establishing a language program in 1924 to teach U.S. soldiers and officers in Asia the rudiments of spoken Chinese. Recognizing the strained relations between Japan and the U.S. in the build up to the war, a small group of officers with previous tours of duty in Japan saw the need for an intelligence unit, which would be able to understand the Japanese language. This group of officers was headed by Lt. Col. John Weckerling and Capt Kai E. Rasmussen. Japanese American MajJohn F. Aiso and Pfc Arthur Kaneko, were found to be qualified linguists along with two civilian instructors, Akira Oshida and Shigeya Kihara, and became MISLS's first instructors.[6]
The students were primarily second generationJapanese Americans (Nisei) from the West Coast, who had learned Japanese from their first-generation parents but were educated in the US and whose Japanese was somewhat limited, the "Kibei", Japanese-Americans who had been educated in Japan and spoke Japanese like the Japanese themselves, along with two Caucasian students who were born in Japan as the sons of missionaries. Even for the native Japanese speakers, the course curriculum featuredheigo (兵語) or military specific terminology that was as foreign to the Japanese speakers asUS military slang is to the average American civilian.[7][8]
During the war, theMilitary Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS), as it came to be called, grew dramatically. After the attack onPearl Harbor Japanese-Americans on the West Coast and theHawaii Territory were moved intointernment camps in 1942. Because of anti-Japanese sentiments the Army did a nationwide survey for the least hostile environment and moved the school to a formerMinnesotaWPA camp namedCamp Savage. By 1944 the school had outgrown those facilities and moved toFort Snelling close by. There the school grew to 125 classrooms with over 160 instructors. Over 6,000 of its graduates served in thePacific during the war and occupation of Japan.[9]
Nisei Hall, along with several other buildings, is named to recognize those WWII students honored in the institute's Yankee Samurai exhibit. TheJohn Aiso Library is named for the former MISLS director of academic training, Munakata Hall is named for the former MISLS instructor Yutaka Munakata, and the Hachiya, Mizutari, and Nakamura Halls are named for Frank Tadakazu Hachiya, Yukitaka "Terry" Mizutari, and George Ichiro Nakamura, who were killed in action in Leyte, New Guinea, and Luzon.[10]
In addition to the Japanese Language-training center, a Chinese American Language division was created to help with the China Burma India (CBI) war effort. The unit was trained in Mandarin and was activated on December 6th, 1944 and led by their Division Director, First Lieutenant Ernest K. H. Eng. in February 1945.https://www.dliflc.edu/75th-anniversary-special-the-savage-and-snelling-years/https://njahs.org/misnorcal/campaigns/campaigns_us.htm
In 1946 Fort Snelling was deactivated and the school moved back to thePresidio of Monterey. There it was renamed as the Army Language School. TheCold War accelerated the school's growth in 1947–48. Instructors were recruited worldwide, included native speakers of thirty plus languages. Russian became the largest program, followed by Chinese, Korean, and German.
The Defense Language Institute English Language Center (DLIELC) traces its formal beginning to May 1954, when the 3746th Pre-Flight Training Squadron (language) was activated and assumed responsibility for all English language training. In 1960, the Language School, USAF, activated and assumed the mission. In 1966, the DoD established the Defense Language Institute English Language School (DLIELS) and placed it under US Army control although the school remained at Lackland AFB. In 1976, the DoD appointed the US Air Force as the executive agent for the school and redesignated it the Defense Language Institute English Language Center.
The U.S. Air Force met most of its foreign language training requirements in the 1950s through contract programs at universities such asYale,Cornell, andSyracuse and the U.S. Navy taught foreign languages at the Naval Intelligence School in Washington, D.C., but in 1963 these programs were consolidated into the Defense Foreign Language Program. A new headquarters, the Defense Language Institute (DLI), was established in Washington, D.C., and the former Army Language School commandant, Colonel James L. Collins Jr., became the institute's first director.The Army Language School became the DLI West Coast Branch, and the foreign language department at the Naval Intelligence School became the DLI East Coast Branch. The contract programs were gradually phased out. DLI also took over the English Language School atLackland Air Force Base, Texas, which became the DLI English Language Center (DLIELC).
During the peak of American involvement inVietnam (1965–73), DLI stepped up the pace of language training. While regular language training continued unabated, more than 20,000 service personnel studiedVietnamese through the DLI's programs, many taking a special eight-week military adviser "survival" course. From 1966 to 1973, the institute also operated a Vietnamese branch using contract instructors at Biggs Air Force Base nearFort Bliss, Texas (DLI Support Command, later renamed the DLI Southwest Branch). Vietnamese instruction continued at DLI until 2004.
In the 1970s the institute's headquarters and all resident language training were consolidated at the West Coast Branch and renamed the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC). In 1973, the newly formedU.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) assumed administrative control, and in 1976, all English language training operations were returned to the U.S. Air Force, which operates DLIELC to this day.
The DLIFLC won academic accreditation in 1979 from theWestern Association of Schools and Colleges,[11] and in 1981 the position of academic dean (later called provost) was reestablished. In the early 1980s, crowding and living conditions at the Monterey location forced the institute to open two temporary branches: a branch for air force enlisted students of Russian atLackland Air Force Base, Texas (1981–1987), and another for army enlisted students of Russian, German, Korean and Spanish at thePresidio of San Francisco (1982–1988) in the former Public Health Service Hospital. There were only enlisted male and female students at the Presidio of San Francisco, primarily from theMilitary Occupational Specialties ofMilitary Intelligence andMilitary Police with a small number ofArmy Special Forces. As a result of these conditions, the institute began an extensive facilities expansion program on the Presidio. In 2002 theAccrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges accredited the institute as anassociate degree-granting institution.[12]
In the spring of 1993, the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission rejected suggestions that the institute be moved or closed, and recommended that its mission be continued at the present location. In summer of 2005, the commission reopened the issue, to include the closure of theNaval Postgraduate School. Supporters of the closure believed that due to the rising property values and cost of living in the Monterey Bay area, taxpayers would save money by moving both schools to a less expensive location inOhio. Opponents argued that it would be difficult (if not impossible) to replace the experienced native-speaking faculty at DLI, as the cultural centers of San Francisco and California's Central Coast offer a more diverse pool from which to recruit local instructors, and that themilitary intelligence community would suffer as a result. The BRAC commission met in Monterey on 8 August 2005, to hear arguments from both sides. On 25 August 2005, the commission's final vote was unanimous to keep DLI at its current location in Monterey.
The DLIELC is a Department of Defense agency operated by theU.S. Air Force's37th Training Wing, and is responsible for training international military and civilian personnel to speak and teach English. The agency also manages the English as a Second Language Program for theUS military, and manages overseas English training programs. International students must be sponsored by an agency of the Department of Defense, and commonly include personnel fromNATO member countries. Over 100 countries are represented among the student body at DLIELC at any given time. The main campus is currently located on the grounds ofJoint Base San Antonio - Lackland Air Force Base, inSan Antonio, Texas. DLIELC acculturates and trains international personnel to communicate in English and to instruct English language programs in their country, trains United States military personnel in English as a second language, and deploys English Language Training programs around the world in support of the Defense Department.
The DLIFLC at thePresidio of Monterey, California (DLIFLC & POM) is the DoD's primary foreign language school. Military service members study foreign languages at highly accelerated paces in courses ranging from 24 to 64 weeks in length.[13] In October 2001, the Institute received Federal degree-granting authority to issueAssociate of Arts in Foreign Language degrees to qualified graduates of all basic programs. As of 2022, DLIFLC also offers bachelor's degrees to graduates of DLI accredited Intermediate and Advanced courses.[14]
Although the property is under the jurisdiction of theUnited States Army, there areU.S. Navy,U.S. Marine Corps, andU.S. Air Force presences on post, and all four branches provide students and instructors. Members of other Federal agencies and military services of other countries may also receive training, and members of otherlaw enforcement agencies may receive Spanish language training.
As of 2015, a number of languages are taught at the DLIFLC including Afrikaans in Washington, DC and the following in Monterey: Modern Standard Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), French, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish.
The DLIFLC also maintains the DLI-Washington office in the Washington, D.C. area. The Washington office provides training in languages not taught at thePresidio of Monterey, such as "low-density languages" which do not require the same large volume of trained personnel. There is some overlap, however, as students from theDefense Attaché System (DAS) are given local training in languages also available at the Monterey location.
Language training through DLI-Washington is conducted at theNational Foreign Affairs Training Center (NFATC) of theUnited States Department of State, and at various contracted foreign language schools in the metropolitan Washington, DC area.
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36°36′21″N121°54′37″W / 36.6057°N 121.9104°W /36.6057; -121.9104
