The Center provides intensive training for the U.S. military and other U.S. government personnel through a Congressionally-funded Defense Critical Language and Culture Program created through the Department of Defense and administered through the National Security Education Program. This training includes intensive on-site and on-line courses in Modern Standard Arabic and Mandarin Chinese, as well as in the strategic cultures of the Arab World, Afghanistan, Iran, and China. Our aim is to prepare military officers and civilian officials to assess the challenges of both conflict and crisis management in the Middle East. We also offer courses designed to enable students to understand modern China and to communicate with their Chinese counterparts at a time when bilateral relations are becoming increasingly complex. We offer a core group of classes (see the various program pages) that range from basic to advanced levels through a Montana-based Defense Critical Language/Culture Program. We are, however, committed to adapting the content, length, location and timing of our programs to fit the needs of military units and other US government entities that adopt our services.
In the 21st century, military strength will be measured not only by the weapons our troops carry, but by the languages they speak and the cultures they understand.
--President Barack Obama
We are proud to announce changes to our App Store apps, Afghan Solider and Afghan Villager. Both applications were carefully examined and everything from graphics to content to functionality was updated. We are very excited to be able to offer these tools to not only our students, but anyone who is interested in learning more about Afghan culture.
Six ROTC cadets, funded through the Project GO (Global Officer) grant, are departing this month for a two month intensive Arabic study aboard program at Al Akhawayn University located in Ifrane, Morocco. These students were selected from a large national pool of applicants.
We are excited to announce that three new classes will begin this month, which include a Pashto, Dari and Korean course. All of these classes are designed to help our students enhance their language proficiency while also including an hour a day of culture training.
We are excited to announce the launch of our third Korean course. This course, which will be taught by Dr. Choi, will run for five weeks and will be geared to get its students to a proficiency level of a 1/1 or higher.
The Defense Critical Language & Culture Program is proud to announce that our Advanced Dari class will be graduating this month following their two-week long FLEX/Iso-Immersion. We are incredibly pleased with the hard work and dedication that these students showed. Learning Dari is not easy, and all of these students not only exceeded the expectations of our faculty, but far surpassed the benchmarks set by the United States Department of Defense.
The Defense Critical Language & Culture Program is proud to announce that it has launched a new advanced Dari class this month. The class, which will be a future a two week iso-immersion in February, is geared to get students speaking at the 2+/2+ level.
In conjunction with the Arabic Studies Program here at The University of Montana, the Defense Critical Language & Culture Program successfully ran its ARAB 291: Conversational Arabic winter session course. This course, utilizing the Video telecommunicating software, successfully allowed students from all across America to participate. The course, which was taught by our own in-house Arabic instructors, was part of the ROTC’s Project GO initiative.
We are excited to report that we have launched three new classes which include an Arabic, Dari and Korean class. All these classes are taught using VTC. Using the VTC technology, our talented instructors have the ability to teach their lessons and communicate with students by a simultaneous two-way video and audio transmission that goes from our classrooms in Missoula, MT to our students.
The Defense Critical Language & Culture Program is proud to announce that the Elementary/Intermediate Dari class, following their Iso-Immersion Monday, November 12 through Friday, November 16, will be graduating from our program and gearing up for deployment. The students did a phenomenal job learning the very difficult Dari language.
Partnering with the Arabic Studies Program, the Defense Critical Language & Culture Program received course credit approval for its ARAB 291 Conversational Arabic winter session course. This course, which will be taught over via an online platform, will give ROTC cadets at the Novice-Mid proficiency level an opportunity to practice the Arabic language and learn more about the cultures of its native speakers level.
The Defense Critical Language & Culture Program’s success made the front page of Missoula’s local newspaper on October 15. As one of five critical language programs funded by the Department of Defense, it has immerged as one of the top programs of its kind.
Our Arabic students and instructors are preparing for our programs first Arabic Iso-Immerson, which is scheduled for the last week in October. The Iso-Immersion, which will be housed at the Lubrecht Experimental Forest, is as an opportunity to fully immerse our students with the Arabic language and cultures prior to their deployment oversees.
The Defense Critical Language & Cultural Program is excited to report that another six month intensive Pashto course is underway. The troops have arrived in Missoula and are excited to learn the cultures and language of Afghanistan. This course is designed to get its students to an intermediate proficiency, a 1/1.
