1.
Message from the President
2. Voluntary Separation Incentives Offered Again.
3. Calendar of Events (CY05)
4. Retirements (Oct 04 – Jan 05)
5. In Memoriam (Oct 04 – Jan 05)
6. Shigeya Kihara, DLI Pioneer, dies
7.
One Day in the Life of Ivan Desinovich Kuznetsov - A Brief Account of DLI’s
Russian Program Since the 1970s.
8.
"Call Me Crazy, but I Feel I Should be There" - Sgt Jamie
Michalsky
9.
Proficiency Levels in Short Hand Form
10. DLI Rocks - Steve Koppany and the DLI "Extra Curriculum"
Band
11.
Proud German Graduate of the Army Language School (ALS)
12.
DLIAA
License Plates Frames
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1.
Message from the President
We
started these newsletters in January 2004, a year ago. Although I retired
from DLI this month, I will continue working for DLIAA in my present capacity.
I look forward to hearing from you about your thoughts, suggestions and stories.
You can write to me at president@dli-alumni.org.
Benjamin De La Selva, President .
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2.
Voluntary Separation Incentive Program (VSIP)
Back
in Nov 04, VSIP was offered again to staff and faculty, in the following priority
order: School deans, department chairs, and faculty in the Spanish,
Russian, French, and Persian
Farsi programs. These individuals must leave on or before 3 February
2005.
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3.
Calendar of Events - Calendar Year 2005
- Annual
Program Review (APR) - Feb
05 - Scaled down and with different format this year (Presidio of Monterey)
- Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Conference -
31 Mar- 3 Apr 05, in Long Beach, CA and also from 30 Mar - 2 Apr 05, in San
Antonio, TX. For more information, see www.tesol.org/conv/index-conv.html.
- National Prayer Breakfast, 22 Apr 05, Gen. Stilwell Community Center,
0630-0800
-
The Digital Stream Conference - 24-26 Mar 05, at California
State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB). For more information go to: http://wlc.csumb.edu/digitalstream/2005/
-
California Language Teachers Association (CLTA) Conference -
14-17 Apr 05, Ontario, California. For more information, see www.clta.net/conference/confindex.html
- Korean
Reunion -
Thursday, 5 May 05 (Presidio of Monterey)
-
Worldwide Language Competition (WLC) – Third
week in May 05 (Presidio of Monterey)
- Language
Day – 20
May 05 (Presidio of Monterey) -
For more information go to: www.dli-alumni.org/LanguageDay/LanguageDay05.htm
- CLPM Seminar and Joint DoD Language Conference - Oct 05 - Exact date or venue not yet determined
-
DLI
64th Anniversary – 1
Nov 05 (Presidio of Monterey)
- The
American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Conference -
18-20 Nov 05, Baltimore, MD - For more information go to www.actfl.org. The
Convention theme for 2005 is - Realizing Our Vision of Languages for All.
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4.
Retirements (Oct 04 - Jan 05)
Ray T. Clifford (Chancellor,
Defense Language InstituteI)
Benjamin De La Selva (Dean, European & Latin American School)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. In Memoriam (Oct 04 - Jan05)
Shigeya
Kihara (DLI
Pioneer)
Tatiana Romani (Russian
Teacher and Chaiperson)
Poo
Li Chu (Chinese
Teacher)
Theodore
Becker (German
Teacher)
James "Jimmy" Morrison (AV
Specialist)
Samia Rizk (Arabic
Teacher)
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6. Original DLI Instructor, Shigeya
Kihara, dies at 90
From
notes written by
Dr. Harod Raugh, DLI Historian
Monterey - Shigeya Kihara, the last surviving
original instructor of a language school for American soldiers that later
became the Defense Language Institute, died
at his son's home in Castro Valley on Sunday at the
age of 90.
Mr.
Shigeya Kihara was the
last survivor of the four original Japanese language instructors hired for
the Fourth Army
Intelligence School
at Crissy Field, Presidio of San Francisco, in October
1941. He worked through the war with the school, which was renamed the Military
Intelligence Service Language School and moved to Minnesota
in 1942. He continued as a faculty member after the war, when the school moved
to the Presidio of Monterey in 1946 and was redesignated
the Army Language
School in 1947 and later the Defense
Language Institute, West Coast Branch.
Mr. Kihara rose to become Director
of Research and Development and retired in 1974.
In retirement, Mr. Kihara was active
in educating the public about the Nisei in the Military Intelligence Service
(MIS) during World War II. He was instrumental in the writing of Joseph Harrington's
Yankee Samurai (1979); the dedication of Hachiya,
Mizutari, and Nakamura Halls (1980); the documentary
film Color of Honor (1987); the "Yankee Samurai" photo exhibit in
Nakamura Hall (1987); the Smithsonian exhibit "A More Perfect Union"
(1987); and the Army's official history of the MIS Nisei.
Kihara is survived by his wife of 62 years, Aya;
son, Ron Kihara of Castro Valley;
daughter Terry Kihara-Twomey of Ann
Arbor Mich.; brother
Hayato Kihara of Hacienda Heights; sister,
Ann Kaneshige of Kihei, Hawaii;
and several nieces.
Arrangements are pending. For more information, visit the Monterey
County Herald at: www.montereyherald.com.
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7. One Day in the Life of John Smith
(aka Ivan Denisovich Kuznetsov)
A
brief account of DLI’s Russian program since the
1970s, by Luba Grant*
Acknowledgement:
My special thanks to former students Neil Granoien (current DLI Vice Chancellor)
and Joe Krupski (DLI Chairperson - retired) for sharing their memories with
me. I’m also especially grateful to
my colleagues Alex Vorobiov, Richard Donovan, and Robert Love for proofreading
the article and providing valuable input.
“Ne strelyajte! Eto ya, a ne utka!”
(Don’t shoot! It’s
me…not a duck!) -- this
was my introduction to teaching the Russian Basic Course in the early 1970s.
Upon arrival at the Defense Language Institute (DLI) straight from the university
- where those students learned Russian at a leisurely pace from selected commercial
textbooks by practicing myriads of declensions and conjugations and diligently
translating into English Pushkin’s Eugene
Onegin, or depending on the
teacher, Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time,
and taking courses in Old Church Slavonic -- I was struck by the scope,
pace, and organization of the Russian Basic Course (RBC) at DLI.
The
daily learning activities of a student studying Russian in those days were
quite predictable. Every single lesson of the Russian course (and other language
courses) had been developed around a lengthy dialog (up to five pages long)
that the students had to memorize and recite start to finish every third day (I'll bet
some of you still remember famous lines from your days here at DLI, such as
those above). So,
in those days, if at 8
o’clock
in the morning you'd have gone from section to section
of the same class, you’d have heard the same questions and the
same responses from the pairs of students whose turn it was to recite the
dialog.
(By the way, each student was given a full Russian name, including
patronymic, right from the start of the course. Thus, a typical Russian student's name appears
in the title above, based on A. Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.) Was that the most exciting part of the day?
From the teacher’s point of view, you can bet it wasn’t!
I don’t think most of the students found this lesson to be very exciting
either. As the two students
were taking their turn reciting the dialog, the rest were probably peacefully dozing off as
often as they could.
The dialog was always followed by numerous pattern, transformation and substitution drills, as well as
dialog recombination practiced either in class or in the language lab. “Listen and repeat,” was
probably the most frequent order given in the classroom and in the lab at
that time. And the translations! Don’t
forget those! The students translated long sentences into
Russian as part of their homework, and new sentences (often made up by the
teacher to illustrate intricate grammatical points) would be translated in
class, where one student would write the translation on the board while others
wrote in their notebooks. The class would carefully analyze the mistakes prior
to proceeding to a new sentence. The entire cycle of the lesson -- dialog
preparation, dialog recitation, pattern drills, translation -- would be repeated
every third day. And so on, and so
forth. For 47 weeks.
Sounds boring? Maybe. But the course
also had many reading and conversation hours.
In the 1960s reading and the follow-up discussions were important parts
of the course. Dva Kapitana and A Hero of Our
Time were read by the students with great interest. Conversations were carried out in class on numerous
topics, and many former students fondly recall the stories their teachers
told them about their interesting lives prior to their arrival to US.
Students were expected to speak only Russian all the time.
Emphasis on proper pronunciation and intonation was very strong. The
faculty and students were able to create an immersion environment that was conducive to language learning
and acquiring knowledge about the culture
and customs of the country through many out-of-class activities, such as picnics,
trips to San Francisco, and famous
choirs. Until very recently (yes, we're
getting old) university Slavic departments all over the country often had
at least one Russian professor from this generation of students who got his/her
first Russian -- and fell in love with it – at DLI. Furthermore, some of the students later returned
to work at DLI as instructors, chairpersons, deans, and even a vice chancellor.
The Russian Basic Course used in the early 1970s was based
on the Basic Course developed about a decade earlier by DLI teachers under
the guidance of Anatoly Flaume. It
consisted of 150+ lessons, but in the 70s only about 120 lessons were taught
during the 47 weeks of instruction. The
course was divided into two tracks. One
was the Army track, which was the original version of the course, with gray
covers -- all students would begin with those.
The other was the Russian Basic Aural Comprehension Course, which was
a new version with blue books, developed later by a different team. That track was used by Air Force, Navy, and
Marine students in the second half of the course. The original course, in
addition to teaching the language, introduced students to the geography of
theSoviet Union and a detailed version of the origins
and history of Russia,
covering, rather extensively for a basic course, the main Russian tsars and
major events in pre-revolutionary Russia,
then ending with the October Revolution and a brief overview of post-revolutionary
Russia. “Govorite
tol’ko po-russki!” (Speak Russian only!) was a phrase frequently heard by the students at that time.
The Russian Basic Aural Comprehension
Course (blue covers) greatly reduced the area-studies component of the original
RBC and put more emphasis on job-specific objectives: transcription; number
dictations; and numbers in context. Students
taking this portion of the course could be observed in the lab listening to
“real” communication between two or more military personnel. “Hawk, Hawk! This is Eagle. Over!” sounded quite
realistic, even though the scenarios were written and recorded by DLI faculty.
In the last part of the course all students would be divided
into separate groups in order to give them a strong dose of service-specific
military terminology before sending them off to their next assignment. Thus, Army students would be taught, often by
civilian faculty, the Russian words for trajectories, munitions, track vehicles,
and many other military terms that remained mysterious to the faculty and
the students alike. Air Force students could translate perfectly from one
language to another communications during aircraft take-offs and landings,
and many of the students told me later how, during commercial flights in the
US, they would listen to the pilot’s transmission in English and translate
it into Russian in their head while waiting for a take-off or landing. Navy
and Marine students built an extensive vocabulary of different types of ships
and underwater munitions while learning Russian.
In 1974 - 1975 the two aforementioned programs were replaced
by a course that was based on a different approach to language teaching, the
delayed-speech approach. This course
was developed under the leadership of Valerian Postovsky. The students taking this course were not required
to practice speaking at the beginning of the program. Instead, they were exposed to a series of different
picture frames, while listening to Russian, and would mark the correct responses
on their answer sheets. Speaking would be introduced later in the course with
the belief, that, due to their earlier exposure to the language, the students
would be able to pick up this skill faster.
At the beginning of the 1980s a new Russian Basic
Course was written by DLI’s Course Development Division Russian branch, headed
by Alex Vorobiov. This course eliminated the memorization of long dialogs,
substantially modernized the area-studies component of the program, and stressed
practice in job-related skills.
Beginning in the late 1980s and continuing into the 1990s,
foreign-language teaching took a turn towards communicative, proficiency-oriented
teaching. For this purpose, yet another
RBC was written. This time an “in-house” approach was taken with another course
developed by Russian School
instructors, headed by George Rubinstein.
The course was thematically organized and presented grammar and vocabulary
in context. Each lesson had a discourse portion based on
the then-current situation in the Soviet Union, around
which numerous activities, integrating all three skills -- listening, reading,
and speaking -- were built. Like the
previous course of the early ‘80s, this course avoided dialog memorization
and encouraged real-life communication. The
sudden collapse of the Soviet Union made the area studies
component of this course prematurely obsolete, but the core of the program
continues to be used by the Russian faculty until this day.
Thanks to the latest technology, e.g., Internet
access and Smart Boards (see newsletter #III, Issue 3-04- July 2004) and clearly defined Final Learning (Proficiency)
and Performance (Job Related) Objectives, instructors can now supplement the
course with current authentic materials, without waiting for back-issues of
Russian newspapers to arrive at DLI. If you go from section to section today, instead
of the meticulous repetition of prescribed materials, you'll often see the
students working in small groups on real-life tasks that address student learning
needs. Since the outcome of the interaction often depends on student input,
these days it is very difficult to guess what the consequences of such conversation
will be. Indeed, a day in the life
of student Ivan Denisovich Kuznetsov is no longer as predictable as it was
in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
There were other, less widely used Russian courses
or portions of courses at DLI: the
Basic Course Enrichment Program (BCEP) was one. This course mainly emphasized
job-related skills for students going to Goodfellow Air Force Base. "Suggestopedia,"
also called the Lozanov method, was tried in the late '70s.
In spite of the relaxed atmosphere of the course, soft lights, rocking
armchairs, baroque music, and no homework, the experimental approach did not
prove itself, and after just one iteration, all students returned to studying
Russian the old-fashioned way. The Russian saying, “Povtoreniye
-- mat’ ucheniya” ("Repetition/Review is the mother of learning.")
ruled once again. And instead of baroque
music, Presidio of Monterey audiences would hear students enthusiastically
singing popular Russian songs, such as Katyusha,
Podmoskovnye Vechera (Moscow
Nights), and Dorogoy Dlinnoyu (Those Were the Days, My Friends). And even
later, sometime in the 1980s, the Air Force decided to send its students to
study Russian at DLI for only 37 weeks, instead of the programmed 47 weeks.
This proved to be too short, so that still today the DLI Basic Course
lasts for 47 weeks.
One major change that can be seen in the Russian
program (and all programs here at DLI) is the way students are now tested. Needless to say, all students in the past were diligently
graded by their teachers for about every activity in and outside the classroom:
dialog recitation; class participation; homework; lab performance; effort;
etc. And then there were endless tests…at
the beginning, middle and end of the program. In addition to frequent vocabulary quizzes,
larger tests were given every second week.
The latter consisted mostly of translation from English into Russian
and answering (in Russian) questions on area studies and history. Later times saw increased use of many true/false
and multiple-choice tests. Then, of
course, there was a grade for one’s oral performance. Finally, all these grades
were averaged together and that would be student’s grade for the program.
Today DLI is accredited by the Accrediting Commission
for Community and Junior Colleges of the Western Association of Schools and
Colleges. Language programs are divided into semesters,
with various course numbers following university patterns. All students earn
college credits for their coursework at DLI.
Each course is graded separately. But
even more important is that prior to graduating from DLI, students are tested
in listening, reading, and speaking skills by certified testers (who are not
their own teachers) trained by the Testing and Evaluation Division. In addition to their program course grades,
they receive language proficiency levels in these three skills which are based
on the Interagency Skill Levels (Interagency Language Roundtable -- ILR) standards.
(For a description of the various skill levels, see http://www.govtilr.org/.)
The size of the Russian program closely reflected
the nature of the Cold War between the United
States and the Soviet Union.
At one time, the Russian program was so large that it required the creation of two
off-site campuses -- one at Lackland Air Force Base, and another at the Presidio
of San Francisco. At its peak, DLI's
Russian program consisted of two-and-a-half Schools devoted to Russian language and area
studies, with more than 200 Russian teachers and nearly 2000 Russian students.
Today, since the fall of the Soviet Union, the program is significantly smaller
and is combined into one school together with the Spanish program, once again,
“down the hill,” by the Post Theater. In
spite of its small size, the Russian program retains its status and reputation
for trying innovative approaches, and it is the first program at DLI to be
making the full transition to the Proficiency Enhancement Program (PEP). The PEP program at DLI will attempt to bring
80% of students to higher proficiency levels (2+/2+/2) by reducing the section
size from ten to six students for category III and IV languages and modernizing
the curricula. It is anticipated that in the future, the PEP program, in addition
to using a reduced class size, will also extend the course length by 12 weeks
and require higher entry DLAB scores.
Much has changed since the early 1970s when
I first began teaching at DLI, but throughout its history there have always
been two constants. The first has been all the fine young men and
women who have studied here in the past, are here now, and will be arriving
here in the future. The second constant
has been the teachers, whose dedication to their work and their commitment
to their students has been ever present since the very beginning. Whether they were former immigrants who fled
the Russian Revolution, escaped Russia
during World War II, or came to the US
from China,
or whether they came much later from the post-war USSR
or today's Russian Federation
and former Soviet republics – the majority of teachers are
totally devoted to their profession and take pride in the accomplishments
of their students. And the students
are the Institute's reason for being. They and their teachers form a strong
bond and together they are the source of all the memories and so many accomplishments.
So if you happen to visit DLI in the near future, don’t be surprised
if a former teacher suddenly gives you a real bear hug and says, once again,
“Govorite tol’ko po russki!”, as if you had never
left.
*Luba
Grant was the Dean of Russian Schools I and II from 1987 to 1993; Dean of
Middle East School II (Arabic) from 1993 to 2002. Currently she is the Dean of Asian School I (Chinese, Japanese, Thai, and Tagalog).
8. “Call me crazy, but I feel I should be there.” - Sgt Jamie Michalsky
by
Jack Franke*
The
number 23 has a strange irony. On 23 March 2003 PFC Lori Ann Piestewa became the
first woman killed in combat in Iraq
near Nasiriyah. She was 23 years old. A year and a half later, 23 Oct 2004, that number came up again.
That was the day that Sgt Jamie Michalsky was killed in Kabul,
Afghanistan. Jamie was
also 23 years old.
Unfortunately, many of us have become numb to death and bloodshed
in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Jamie, however, was a different story. She was not Pat Tillman or Lori Piestewa.
She was Jamie. She was my student. I had encouraged her to go
to Afghanistan
and Uzbekistan
and become a Russian interpreter. Jamie’s death brought home all the pain
and sadness that all families experience for their fallen heroes. And now
I had to come to grips with the reality of war. At what price? The ultimate
sacrifice…
Jamie had been visiting a doctor for a hand injury she had suffered
when the car she was in rolled over. She went to the local market in Kabul
and was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Across from a NATO truck was
a street vendor. Jamie just happened to be there at that time. The Taliban
suicide bomber set off the grenades strapped to his body and flung himself at Jamie. She would never wake again after falling
into a coma.
This was Jamie’s second time in Afghanistan.
In 2002 Jamie served for nine months with her Army Reserve unit. After she
returned to the U.S.,
Jamie was offered a job as a Russian-language interpreter by Worldwide Language
Resources, a company doing business under a U.S.
military contract in Southwest Asia. Jamie had just
learned Russian during a year of intensive language training in 2001 in Monterey,
California.
Sgt. Michalsky had a large circle of friends during her 23 years
on this planet. Below is a small sample of the lives she touched:
“When
Jamie was deployed we stayed in contact by e-mails. When she was back in the
states we would get together for coffee or a meal. In one of the last messages
I sent her I notified her of two fellow soldiers that had been killed in Iraq. In her reply she expressed
her sorrow but also said, “Call me crazy, but I feel that I should be there.”
I’ve been in the military
for 26 years. In that time I have had the privilege to work with many talented
and special individuals. Out of all that talent there are a few that stand
out. Jamie was one these few individuals. She not only represented what an
American soldier should be, but also what you look for in a decent person.”
Ronnie
Miller
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
With all the "I can't get this Russian"------"
I'm not going to pass the test" to "I can do it"
to "I did it, Grams!" She was the
same when it came to her dance lessons, and that was for twelve years.
She always headed for something challenging and got a little afraid she might
not be able to do it, but with a push from here, you, and others that gal
went all the way. My husband and I are so proud of her and what
she has done in such a short time. The push and shove
I gave her she also did to me. She was my driving source and I will
miss her very much. Thank you for your condolences. As
I signed all of Jamie’s letters, Take care, (to Jamie --love
you much) GRAMS
Alice
Michalsky, her grandmother in Cokato, Minnesota
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The fact is, it was her intelligence,
kindness, humor, HONESTY, and lust for life that made me admire
her. I have never met anyone so full of life and just much darn fun to be
around. She truly lived life to the fullest, saw the world, met people everywhere,
and always brings a smile to everyone's face. My boyfriend, Lars, couldn't
have said it better, "Jamie is the coolest girl I have ever met".
I am glad we gave our friendship a chance to blossom; I would have really
missed out. She gave me some of the funniest moments of my life. She is truly
the most beautiful person. Jamie, We miss you.
Marie Fredieu
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have the utmost respect for
Jamie and her desire to serve our great nation. Jamie and I talked about the
Military on many occasions since I am also a combat veteran from the first
Gulf War. I remember the last time I talked to Jamie when she came back from
her first tour to Afghanistan; I had asked her if a second tour which was
completely voluntary was the right choice. Jamie told me that she enjoyed
the country and was looking forward to doing her part in the fight against
terrorism. That was the last time I had the opportunity to talk with
her as she was leaving the next day.
I will miss Jamie dearly for she was a true friend and I have
been truly blessed for having her touch my life. Jamie will always be
in my heart as friend, a soldier and most of all an Officer in Blue.
Carl Trussell,
Police Officer, Kileen, Texas
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now
that the pain has subsided I feel both overwhelming sorrow and tremendous
pride in Jamie, who represented all that was good in us.” Jamie penned the
lines of this prayer to her folks in 2003, and I would like to end on this
note.
…Thanks
to my family for
believing in me!
…Thanks
to my friends for
closeness of spirit!
…Thanks to God for
my experiences…
…my
successes…and the angels in my life!
---
Sgt. J. M. Michalsky
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9.
PROFICIENCY LEVELS IN SHORT HAND FORM (Levels 1 /1+/ 2 / 2+)
LEVEL
1
LISTENING
- CAN GET THE MAIN IDEA WHEN LISTENING TO:
•
Statements about basic survival needs (meals, lodging, time, transportation,
simple directions)
• Simple questions and answers
• Route instructions
READING - CAN GET SOME MAIN IDEAS WHEN READING:
• Simple narratives
of routine actions
• Simple descriptions of people, places and things
• Simple explanations intended for tourists
SPEAKING
- CAN PARTICIPATE IN SIMPLE CONVERSATIONS THAT INCLUDE:
•
Introductions, exchange of greetings, and minimum courtesy requirements
• Predictable personal and accommodations needs
• Asking and answering questions
• Simple biographical information
• Explaining routine procedures
LEVEL 1+
LISTENING
- CAN GET THE MAIN IDEA AND SOME FACTS WHEN LISTENING TO:
•
Short conversations about basic survival needs
• Brief social conversations
• Simple discourse
READING
- CAN GET SOME MAIN IDEAS AND ESSENTIAL POINTS WHEN READING:
• Announcements
• Simple narration of events
• Simple biographical information
• Social notices
• Straightforward newspaper headlines
SPEAKING
- CAN INITIATE AND MAINTAIN PREDICTAPLE CONVERSATIONS THAT INCLUDE:
• Travel and accommodation
needs
• Limited social demands
• Very limited descriptions
LEVEL
2
LISTENING
- CAN UNDERSTAND THE FACTS WHEN LISTENING TO:
• Descriptions
• Narrations of past, present and future events
• Conversations about everyday topics
• Personal and family news
• Well-known current events
• Routine office matters
READING
- CAN LOCATE AND UNDERSTAND MAIN IDEAS AND DETAILS WHEN READING:
• Simple factual, familiar materials
• Descriptions and narrations of frequently occurring events
• Simple biographical information
• Social notices
• Formulaic business letters
• Simple technical materials
SPEAKING
- CAN PARTICIPATE IN EXTENSIVE CASUAL CONVERSATIONS ABOUT WORK, FAMILY AND
CURRENT EVENTS:
• Can ask/answer predictable questions at work
• Can give complicated detailed directions
• Can make nonroutine changes and arrangements
• Can describe and narrate in the past, present, and future
LEVEL
2+
LISTENING
- CAN UNDERSTAND THE FACTS, PLUS SOME IMPLICATIONS AND EMOTIONAL OVERTONES,
WHEN LISTENING TO:
• Most routine and social
conversations
• Most work related conversations
• Some concrete discussions in a specialized field
READING
- CAN LOCATE AND UNDERSTAND THE MAIN IDEA AND MOST FACTS, WHEN READING:
• Factual,
nontechnical prose
• Some concrete discourse in professional field
• Can make sensible guesses about unfamiliar material
SPEAKING
- CAN PARTICIPATE IN MOST SOCIAL, FORMAL AND INFORMAL INTERACTIONS:
• Can satisfy most work requirements
• Can communicate effectively in specialized field
“You learn to do what you practice doing”
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10. DLI
Rocks - Steve Koppany and the DLI Extra Curriculum Band
This
article first appeared on the DLI (edu) Website.
Monterey, September 20, 2004 - When Steve Koppany jumped out of his high school's
choir bus in Austria in 1971, he never dreamed that some decades later he would
lead a rock band at the Defense Language Institute (DLI) in Monterey, California.
Koppany also never imagined that he would become Dean of Curriculum Development,
one of the Institute's most forward thinking and technologically savvy divisions,
responsible for creating curricula for more than 20 languages, as well as scholastic
materials online.
In his native Hungary, Koppany played in a popular rock
and roll band at the age of 15 in Budapest. He eventually became a member of
one of the most prestigious Hungarian choirs that toured Western Europe, "which
eventually turned out to be my ticket to freedom," he said. "About a year ago,
I decided that I wanted to get back into singing and playing the base guitar,"
said Koppany, who was encouraged to take up his hobby again by his wife Elaine.
The couple is also a long-time member of the local classical ensemble, the Camerata
Singers of Monterey County. While chatting with colleagues about getting together
to play for fun, Koppany discovered that, aside from the multi-lingual, computer-knowledgeable
individuals he hired, he also had a group of "dormant" musicians in the division's
midst!
Having discovered this, the "Extra Curriculum" band was
born. Richard Mayer, hired to work on the Global Language Online Support System
(GLOSS), plays the flute and is credited for having founded the Russian rock
group ZA in 1974. He graduated from the Russian DLI program in 1970 which sparked
his curiosity about the country and its people and eventually led him to travel
to the Soviet Union. "Being a highly proficient musician made me a popular man
in the Venice of the North (Leningrad), and I ended up playing the flute in
one of the leading underground rock groups of the city," said Mayer with a chuckle,
leaving one to wonder what this adventure may have been like in Soviet Russia
of the 1970's. Playing lead guitar is Goran Markovic, who escaped war-torn Sarajevo
in 1992 and fled to Germany. There he continued his academic career teaching
US soldiers Serbian and Croatian at the George C. Marshall European Center for
Security Studies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, until he moved to the United States
in 1999. After teaching Serbian and Croatian and developing the Serbian/Croatian
Basic Program materials, his computer skills led him to the Education Technology
programming section of the Curriculum Development division, while his love of
music made him a prime candidate for the band. Finding good female voices to
compliment the group was easy to accomplish, as DLI graphic design artist Elaine
Koppany, with years of singing experience, had the perfect voice.
Together with the lead singer, Deb DiMaggio, the division's
secretary, the two compliment the band in every genre, from rock to jazz and
pop music. DiMaggio, once an aspiring actress, has found performing with "Extra
Curriculum" more rewarding than trying to avoid the wrath of movie directors.
"One day I heard the movie director shriek 'Ax the lemonade girl' ….So much
for that 'poignant' scene," said DiMaggio, talking about the making of the movie
"Junior," with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito. DiMaggio says that she
still has not given up her dream to become an actress, but that in the meantime
enjoys entertaining DLI faculty and staff, and also finds time to perform as
lead vocalist/back-up vocalist for the Patti Macdonald Singers. With all the
in-house talent available at Koppany's fingertips, there was one crucial musician
missing - a drummer.
Within a few weeks of searching the DLI grounds, John Lett,
Dean of Research and Evaluation, came out of the woodwork. Starting out as a
trumpet player in high school and college, Lett migrated to drums, and until
the mid-80’s had always found time to play throughout his careers as a high
school teacher, graduate student and college professor. But with family and
a new job at DLI, time had become scarce and Lett stopped playing for nearly
two decades. "I was delighted with the opportunity to get back in the game when
Steve started getting his group together. It's great fun and I am glad to be
musically active again" said Lett, with a bright smile, enhanced by his silver
hair and carefully trimmed beard.
The last, but probably one of the most special additions
to the group is Tamas Marius on the saxophone. Working at the Education Technology
department as Project Manager, Marius had played professionally for years in
Norway, Finland, Germany and the United States. Locally, he performs with Monterey's
famous "Red Beans and Rice," with whom he also played at the Monterey Blues
Festival this summer. "His instrument plays a pivotal role in our band. He is
really icing on the cake," said DiMaggio, tossing her dark brown hair to the
side with a smile. "Let us rock, shall we?" "Come see us!," she said, referring
to the upcoming events the band is scheduled to play for at the Presidio of
Monterey during the holiday season.
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11.
Proud
German Graduate of the Army Language School (ALS) - 1960-61
Note: The Army Language School (1947-1963) is the predecessor of the Defense
Language Institute (1963 to present)
E-mail
letter recently sent by Laird
D. Shively to the Alumni Relations Office Director
My name is Laird D. Shively, and
I live in Brookhaven, Pennsylvania. I had the good fortune to have enlisted
into the United States Army Security Agency in the year 1960. I had the even
greater good fortune to have been assigned to the Army Language School (ALS)
to study German from early September, 1960, until March, 1961. I would also
like to recognize and mention all my classmates from those glorious six months
of studying German. They were as follows: Larry White, Michael Earle, George
Frame, Richard Relac, Nick Stoer, Donald Devino. and our NCO student monitor
Sergeant First Class Rusk.
I would also like to pay tribute to our wonderful German
instructors who taught and prepared us well for our future tasks in West Berlin
during some very tense and demanding times during the Cold War. They were as
follows: Frau Portzig, Herr Baldus, Herr Kars, Herr Schefke, Herr Trautmann,
Herr von Richter, Herr Sewald, and the never to be forgotten Herr Engler. They
were and have remained very special people to me throughout my life.
As I have already indicated, all of us except for Sergeant
Rusk, ended up being assigned to the 78th USASA SOU in West Berlin from 1961
to 1963. I think I can safely say that without breaching any security. As you
can probably surmise, we lived through two very, eventful, adventuresome years
of the Cold War, in which time span the Berlin Wall was erected and numerous
other crises came to the fore. We all hung in there very well, performed our
duties quite proficiently, lived a very worthwhile two years, were eventually
rotated back to the "States", were all honorably separated from the
United States Army, and went our separate ways.
I chose to further my knowledge and expertise in German
by attending college at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, where I was graduated
with a B.S. Degree in Secondary Education with a major in German. Sometime later
I also received an M.A. Degree in German Literature from Villanova University
near Philadelphia, PA. From the late sixties to the late nineties, I was a high
school German teacher in the School District of Haverford Township near Philadelphia.
Being a high school German teacher for all those years was a very rewarding
experience and a labor of love, not to mention it provided me and my family
with a very comfortable and happy existence. I was able to travel to Germany
quite often as a result of my teaching duties, see and experience much of the
German speaking area of Europe, and get to know many Germans who are to this
day still to be considered as friends.
I am now retired from teaching but not from German,
and I would like to say that none of the good life which I have lived would
have ever come to pass; if it had not been for my experience and the learning
of German at the United States Army Language School in Monterrey, California.
Needless to say, I was and have been very fortunate as a result of my language
experience at the USALS.
Sincerely and proudly,
Laird D. Shively, formerly Specialist Fifth Class Shively of the 78th USASA
SOU in West Berlin 1961-1963
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12. License Plates Frames. We
are planning to order frames as shown below. If you are interested in
obtaining one, please let us know.
I
am a DLI Graduate
LICENSE
NUMBER
www.dli-alumni.org
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