COMMENTS ON OTR LANGUAGE SCHOOL STUDY RECOMMENDATIONS BY (SANITIZED)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-03198A000100020005-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 30, 2009
• Sequence Number: 5
• Content Type: MEMO

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MEMORANDUM TO: Coordinator, Instructional Systems Study
FROM
SUBJECT
STATI NTL
. Director of Training
Comments on OTR Language School Study
Recommendations by
7156
In general it should be said that there is no basic
disagreement with any of the recommendations contained in
the study. I would recommend certain modifications in some
of the recommendations and in addition I am requesting some
clarification of a few of them. In the following, the
paragraph numbers refer to the numbers of the recommendations
as given in the summary of recommendations at the beginning
of the original study.
A. Enrollment and Physical Environment
1. The recommendation that Language Training School
discontinue the practice of holding classes with one-to-
one student-teacher ratios is a good one and easy to
make; however, it is difficult to carry out. The study
recommends that classes start for no less than 5 students.
While 5 students would be an excellent number, 4 would
be a more prudent minimum number and in the case of the
most uncommon languages, 3 would be a logical number.
2. The recommendation to start all full-time classes
in March, July, and November only stems from the timing
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of input of CTs into the Language Training Program.
It is our intent to build our Language Training Program
for the Agency as much as possible around the scheduling
of the CT classes. We feel, however, that such a
schedule cannot always be maintained, although proper
publicity to inform our consumers will do much to make
!this schedule the major one for the Language Training
sjSchool. We feel that part-time classes should also be
if added to this recommendation.
3. We do not believe that our present quarters
can be successfully redesigned to make it suitable for
School purposes. However, if we must remain in this
location, redesign should be attempted.
4. If LTS is to move to new quarters, every effort
should be made to include special "future" teaching
equipment facilities. Such inclusion naturally is
contingent upon the availability of funds.
B. Teaching Methods
1. Teacher training for new WAE employees, as
!described on page 11 of the report; is already mandatory.
2. Special seminars for current staff have started as
part of the process of describing terminal objectives for
LTS courses and will be continued. Also under study is a
plan to include outside personnel, such as linguists, as
leaders of seminar groups from time to time.
course objectives should be given to
3. Work is currently in progress to develop detailed
course objectives in terms of terminal behavior. We
believe that priority in the development of studies of
These priority languages
can undoubtedly be completed by the end of calendar year
1966 and the others shortly thereafter.
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C. PAI
1. Commercially available PAI foreign language
courses are currently being experimentally used in
STAT
STAT
We are informed that
Sustained studies will
be contingent upon student registrations over the next
few months and the availability of the program material
is currently out of print but will be available later.
7e are using those copies which are available to us.
2. We concur in the recommendation and would STATINTL
welcome collaboration with the Coordinator of Instruc-
tional Systems Studies and Don the selection of outside
instructor personnel.
3. We concur with the recommendation that Language
Programs developed for LTS be concept units of 200 frames
length.
STAT
We believe that development of a PAI course in
should be contracted as soon as possible by
ORD as a prototype course. The contracting for develop-
ment of PAI course in the remaining languages should be
postponed until preliminary results are available from
the development of the prototype.
5. Our understanding is that bid specifications for
the above PAI courses are the responsibility of FI STATINTL
GIB
6. The proposal that future off-the-shelf PAI language
courses should be tested outside of LTS before being
subjected to student use is a worthwhile one if money
can be made available for this purpose. Cost estimates
are not currently available.
7. This recommendation to work jointly with other
Government Agencies for the support of PAI foreign language
course development should be pursued with other Government
Agencies although we are not sanguine about the possibility
.of success in this area.
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D. CAI
1. We concur in this recommendation.
E. Current Teaching Systems
1. We need to clarify the definition of "films
available for language teaching" in this recommendation.
Consultation with the 0 representative is needed. On
the outcome of this consultation will depend the possi-
bility of executing this recommendation by the suggested
deadline of 31 December 1966.
2. We are prepared to start immediately a review of
/existing language laboratory equipment in concert with
Further clarification of what is planned here will
e ::needed to support the 31 December deadline.
3. We heartily concur in this recommendation and it
is our understanding that action is being taken to imple-
ment it. If this is not the case, we would be happy to
undertake any action necessary.
4. It is our understanding that recommendation 4 is
not likely to produce significant results for the Language
Training School, but any useful by-products from a general
study of the value to OTR of closed circuit television will
be studied with interest.
5. A general one-day orientation course to language
study is in initial steps of development but its intro-
duction should be postponed until such time as students
are entering training in large groups at the same time.
We do not believe the basic systems "Effective Listening"
program can be adapted to student orientation for foreign
language training. Such orientation will probably have
to be developed especially for this purpose, either in-house
or elsewhere.
John Richardson
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