Do you ever wonder what motivates a learner to come to class? Maybe they want to travel, boost their CV, or grow a TikTok following. But this article in the National Guard [‘An official website of the US government’ -yikes] got me thinking about more unusual – and high-stakes- reasons to speak another language: how about defending national security?
At this year’s Best Linguist Competition, hosted by the US National Guard, language testing took place under live-fire scenarios. Over 300 linguists -from active-duty military to reservists -competed in a unique, real-world challenge designed to push their linguistic, cultural & analytical skills to the limit.
You’ll be thrilled to learn that the Washington National Guard’s 341st Military Intelligence Battalion won & were named Command Linguistics Program of the Year.
Linguists were assessed through multi-phase, scenario-based missions including:
- Live voice intercepts, in which they translated audio in real time.
- Document & site exploitation, where they identified critical intel (& red herrings) in mock warzones.
- Open-source analysis, filtering through online data to detect disinformation & propaganda [now this is something I can get onboard with]
- A final Commander’s Brief, where they had to present their findings persuasively to a higher up.
Sgt. Daniil Rubashka, who speaks Russian, Ukrainian & Mandarin, was named Professional of the Year. He’s been in the army five years, but started translating for his parents as a child. His trajectory seems to reflect what’s known as heritage language development -where functional bilingualism grows from lived necessity, not formal instruction.
These tasks also mirror Task-Based Learning as advocated by Nunan, Long & Willis -but with an intensity most ELT classrooms can only imagine. Still, there are insights here for teachers working with learners far removed from combat zones.
Teacher Takeaways?
Purposeful tasks drive motivation. These linguists didn’t learn language for a certificate -they learned it to make split-second decisions under pressure. The clearer the purpose, the greater the engagement.
Language is never just words. Understanding disinformation or filtering online content is an important skill which relies on cultural literacy -not just grammar. Are we giving our students the tools to decode beyond the sentence?
Learners don’t all have the same motivation. It’s tempting to see our learners as rather homogeneous in terms of motivation, background, errors & so on. It’s good to be reminded that they’re not.
Do your students ever surprise you with why they want to learn English?
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