DoD needs a significantly improved organic capability in emerging languages and dialects, a greater competence and regional area skills in those languages and dialects, and a surge capability to rapidly expand its language capabilities on short notice. Contents of this report: (A) Goals: (1): Create Foundational Language and Regional Area Expertise; (2): Create the Capacity to Surge; (3): Establish a Cadre of Language Professionals; (4): Establish a Process to Track the Accession, Separation, and Promotion Rates of Military Personnel with Language Skills and Foreign Area Officers; (B) Def. Language Inst. Foreign Language Center Transformation; (C) Offices of Primary Responsibility and Dates for Full Operating Capability.

Longitudinal Studies of Second Language Learning: Quantitative Methods and Outcomes provides a how-to guide to choosing, using, and understanding quantitative longitudinal research and sampling methods in second and foreign language learning. This volume will provide readers with exemplary longitudinal studies of language learning outcomes, as well as an overview of widely used methods of data analysis. Readers will understand how long-term data collection processes are organized and archived, and how the data are managed over time prior to analysis. Each of the chapters provide applied researchers with examples of how language learning outcomes gathered over time can be organized into data sets useful for insightful descriptive and inferential analyses of learning outcomes. As the only edited volume that focuses on longitudinal data analysis specifically for a second language acquisition (SLA)/applied linguistics readership, this will be an invaluable resource for advanced students and researchers of SLA, applied linguistics, assessment, and education.

Today, and in the foreseeable future, military operations require U.S. personnel to work alongside multinational partners and among local populations. The DoD has placed a greater emphasis on transforming language and regional proficiency capabilities, which includes cultural awareness. This testimony summarizes recommendations on DoD's efforts to develop language skills and regional proficiency and the steps DoD has taken to implement these prior recommendations. Specifically, the testimony addresses the extent to which DoD has: (1) developed a strategic plan to guide its language and regional proficiency transformation efforts; and (2) obtained the information it needs to identify capability gaps and assess risk.