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Can you talk about the resources you used to learn in the classroom? I learned German using the Foreign Service Institute handbook and I thought it was great

Can you talk about the resources you used to learn in the classroom? I learned German using the Foreign Service Institute handbook and I thought it was great introduction to the language. I'd love to know what's in use nowadays.

csa 5y ago
I’m pretty sure this person was learning Pashto or Dari. The materials were mostly (all?) developed in-house. If they were learning Dari, they would have been better off just using externally-produced Farsi textbooks since they have a more robust history of development. The specific recommended materials for an introduction to a language depend on what your goals are for learning the language.
- least 5y ago
  Yeah, the Dari course was notoriously bad quality and rife with controversy with some of the highest failure rates in the entire Presidio at the time. Not sure if anything's changed at this point?
  - csa 5y ago
    Things improved slightly, then the program got reduced and then cut due to less demand. Somewhere in there, they got creative and had folks who passed Farsi take a 3-month Dari course to bridge the gap between Farsi and Dari, and those folks had a lot of success.
least 5y ago
The language resources were largely designed in house as the other comment mentions, so unfortunately unless you attend DLI, you probably won't get to see them. I don't think there's much in terms of content that you can't find in civilian courses, just that it's designed specifically around being in class for 6-7 hours a day rather than the 3 hours per week you'd be attending at University. There were audio recordings made specifically for the course and there is some deal with Transparent language to provide language software to the military like Rapid Rote, though Anki is just as capable as Rapid Rote is. Big things are access to native speakers (most of the instructors) and non-native "military language instructors" who can help navigate difficult to understand concepts for non-natives. Also the whole spending every day doing it over and over again part. Sorry if this isn't as helpful as you were hoping.

csa 5y ago

I’m pretty sure this person was learning Pashto or Dari. The materials were mostly (all?) developed in-house. If they were learning Dari, they would have been better off just using externally-produced Farsi textbooks since they have a more robust history of development. The specific recommended materials for an introduction to a language depend on what your goals are for learning the language.

least 5y ago
Yeah, the Dari course was notoriously bad quality and rife with controversy with some of the highest failure rates in the entire Presidio at the time. Not sure if anything's changed at this point?
- csa 5y ago
  Things improved slightly, then the program got reduced and then cut due to less demand. Somewhere in there, they got creative and had folks who passed Farsi take a 3-month Dari course to bridge the gap between Farsi and Dari, and those folks had a lot of success.

least 5y ago

The language resources were largely designed in house as the other comment mentions, so unfortunately unless you attend DLI, you probably won't get to see them. I don't think there's much in terms of content that you can't find in civilian courses, just that it's designed specifically around being in class for 6-7 hours a day rather than the 3 hours per week you'd be attending at University. There were audio recordings made specifically for the course and there is some deal with Transparent language to provide language software to the military like Rapid Rote, though Anki is just as capable as Rapid Rote is. Big things are access to native speakers (most of the instructors) and non-native "military language instructors" who can help navigate difficult to understand concepts for non-natives. Also the whole spending every day doing it over and over again part. Sorry if this isn't as helpful as you were hoping.