Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center
The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC) is regarded as one of the finest schools for foreign language instruction in the nation. As part of the Army Training and Doctrine Command, the institute provides resident instruction at the Presidio of Monterey in two dozen languages, five days a week, seven hours per day, with two to three hours of homework each night. Courses last from 26 to 64 weeks, depending on the difficulty of the language.
DLIFLC is a multi-service school for active and reserve components, foreign military students, and civilian personnel working in the federal government and various law enforcement agencies.
The present facilities at the Presidio of Monterey accommodate approximately 3,500 Soldiers, Marines, Sailors and Airmen, as well as select Department of Defense and State members. To attend DLIFLC one must be a member of the Armed Forces or be sponsored by a government agency.
DLIFLC students are taught by approximately 1,800 highly educated instructors, 98 percent of whom are native speakers of the languages they teach. Aside from classroom instruction, faculty also write course materials, design tests called the Defense Language Proficiency Test, and conduct research and analysis.
To further advance student knowledge in a particular language, DLIFLC has designed an immersion program which consists of an offsite facility where students spend from one to two days in an isolated environment with their instructors and are not allowed to speak English. The facility is equipped with kitchens and sleeping quarters, while the program consists of real-world exercises, from bargaining for food and clothing at a market place, to going through customs, or making hotel reservations. DLIFLC also sends a number of students on 30-day in-country immersions to countries as far away as Korea and Morocco.
Non-resident, or post-basic instruction primarily takes place in the Continuing Education (CE) directorate, which is located near the Presidio at Ord Military Community in Seaside, Calif. Intermediate, advanced and refresher courses are conducted at this facility. DLIFLC also maintains Language Training Detachments sites at more than two dozen locations abroad and at home. Instructors at these locations are by and large from DLIFLC’s Monterey home base.
To support the general purpose force, DLIFLC produces Language Survival Kits which are pocket size pamphlets with CDs designed to be used in the field and range in topics from search and cordon, to medical terminology.
DLIFLC offers a program called Headstart2, consisting of an interactive 80-hour self-paced program which teaches basic language, culture and limited reading and writing. The Avatar characters used in this product are designed to function along the lines of today’s interactive computer games. Headstart2 is currently available in 30 languages.
In 1946 the school moved to historic Monterey. Nobel laureate John Steinbeck captured the spirit of Monterey during this period in his novels Tortilla Flat (1935) and Cannery Row (1945).
At the Presidio of Monterey, the renamed Army Language School expanded rapidly in 1947–48 to meet the requirements of America’s global commitments during the Cold War. Instructors, including native speakers of more than thirty languages and dialects, were recruited from all over the world. Russian became the largest language program, followed by Chinese, Korean, and German. After the Korean War (1950–53), the school developed a national reputation for excellence in foreign language education. The Army Language School led the way with the audio-lingual method and the application of educational technology such as the language laboratory.
In 1963, to promote efficiency and economy, 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.
(Link: http://www.dliflc.edu/about/)