Language and Culture Training: Separate Paths?

Abstract

Due to the "irregular" challenges of the War on Terrorism and involvement in peacekeeping, nation building, and humanitarian aid around the world, each branch of the U.S. military has created special centers to promote the study and advancement of intercultural effectiveness. Each center has developed key concepts and ideas for teaching intercultural effectiveness training. However, a gap is growing between the two primary components necessary for intercultural effectiveness--cross-cultural competence and foreign language. While language proficiency is a necessary component of intercultural effectiveness, the services consider it of secondary importance and not as crucial as cross-cultural competence. Cross-cultural competence is considered a broader, more generalizable skill set than the time-extensive, perishable skills of language proficiency. Because of this tendency, the military is prescribing and implementing virtually separate training paths for teaching language and teaching culture.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 01, 2010
Accession Number
ADA518175

Entities

People

  • Jeff R. Watson

Organizations

  • United States Military Academy

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Human Systems
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Air Force
  • Aircrafts
  • Army Personnel
  • Doctrine
  • Education
  • Foreign Languages
  • Language
  • Learning
  • Linguistics
  • Marine Corps
  • Personality
  • Psychology
  • Russian Language
  • Societies
  • Training
  • United States Military Academy

Readers

  • East Asian Political and Security Studies within the Soviet Union
  • Instructional Design and Training Evaluation.
  • Military Leadership and Professional Education.