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(U//FOUO) Motivating 'Benched' Language Students
FROM:
(S) Deputy Chief, Levant and North Africa (S2E3)
Run Date: 06/27/2006
(S) An S2 office introduces trainee language students to their future coworkers, with positive
results...
(S) Back in January 2004, NSA launched the Language Enhancement Program (LEP), aimed at
"building the bench" of tomorrow's cryptologic language analysts. (See related article .) Today
there are 180 LEP students at the National Cryptologic School; they are learning Arabic, Korean,
Persian/Farsi, Chinese, and Pashto. If you hope LEP graduates will eventually call your office
"home," please keep reading... there's an action for you in this article!
(S) When I heard that the newly created LEP would hire people with 2/2 skills (i.e. limited
working proficiency) in commonly taught languages such as French, and cross-train them to a
3/3 level (i.e. general professional proficiency)* in critically needed, less-commonly-taught
languages such as Arabic, my heart went out to those students. You see, I began my career as a
Russian language student trapped at Airport Square for 9 months, with no idea what I had been
hired to do; but at least I had survived 2 years of college Russian and I knew that my course
would run for only 9 months before I'd be introduced to the real world of operations.
(S) These LEP students are a brave group, coming to learn a new foreign language and knowing
that they must achieve a 3/3 level proficiency before they cross into the world of operations. So
naturally, I developed a soft spot for these students, even though I had never met them.
(S) Then, in my former job in Counterterrorism and now in my current job in MENA**, I
developed another soft spot -- for the Agency's Arabic linguists, who are too few and too
overworked. I've often heard people tell these linguists to "hang in there" because Arabic
students will eventually come to the rescue. But how will these "benched" students stay
motivated long enough to graduate from the LEP? I knew that if they could just get a glimpse
into the exciting world of operations, they'd have a better chance of staying with the program.
So, I combined these two soft spots for the common good and instigated a "LEP Students' Day in
the Life of the Levant/North Africa Division" event.
(S) I chose the word "instigated" carefully, because I just solicited the help of linguists and
intelligence analysts in my division, threw in some organizational planning (like what kind of
drinks and snacks to have on hand) and stirred the pot a bit. The result was a day that inspired
and motivated the LEP students, and reminded seniors linguists that enthusiastic and welltrained help really is on the way.
(S) If you hope LEP graduates will eventually call your office "home," I encourage you
to host some students for a day. It's not hard to do; we even have a "LEP-Day Planning for
Dummies" guide to share. (Contact me at
nsa for a copy.) The LEP students are on
the bench today, but they'll be in the bullpen and on the mound before you know it!
(U//FOUO) Notes:
*See USSID AP2150 Section 5 for further info on proficiency levels.
**MENA = Middle East North Africa
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)."
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DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108