Foreign Service Institute Research Articles

Influence of Mother Tongue on Phoneme Pronunciation in Speaking Mandarin for IX Grade Students of SMP Tunas Bangsa Makassar

This research is a qualitative descriptive study that aims to obtain data on the influence of mother tongue on the pronunciation of phonemes in speaking Mandarin for class IX students of SMP Tunas Bangsa Makassar. The data of this research is the pronunciation of segmental phonemes including consonants and vowels in Mandarin. The research data was obtained through audio recordings related to the oral test activities carried out by students. The data that has been obtained is then analyzed using an assessment table, conversion table and Foreign Service Institute table. From the results of data analysis, it is known that there is an influence of mother tongue on the pronunciation of phonemes in speaking Mandarin for class IX students of SMP Tunas Bangsa Makassar by obtaining FSI 1+ level, namely in the category of students being able to initiate and follow conversations and socialize on a limited basis.

Conceptualization of Culture for Intercultural Communication Training: A Classic Interview with Edward T. Hall†

Abstract Among the notable early staff members of the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the U.S. Department of State was Dr. Edward Twitchell Hall, Jr. (1914–2009), who is widely credited with laying the intellectual and applied foundations for what became the field of intercultural communications (IC) and especially IC training. The FSI was established as an in-service institute offering graduate-level training to employees, Foreign Service Officers, and others to enhance their development and service at U.S. embassies, consulates, and related domestic offices. Hall’s tenure at the FSI (1951–1955) spanned the eventful and challenging years of establishing this new department and working out ways of developing and delivering training. Hall and his team grappled with how best to carry out this new type of cross-cultural orientation program. The classic interview provided here, which has not been previously published, has been made available to the public by the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. In this interview (in October 1997 at the convocation of the 50th Anniversary of the Opening of the Foreign Service Institute), Edward T. Hall reflects on the early days of his work, thinking, and challenges at the FSI.

The Impact of Linguistic Distance from English on Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Analysis

Increasing levels of globalization have contributed to English becoming a preferred language of international communication, education and trade. With countries rapidly embedding English into a large variety of curricula, the demand for English as a medium of instruction is ever growing. Using information from the US Foreign Service Institute's Professional Working Proficiency values, we identify seven distinct linguistic distance from English (LDE) categories, and examine the effects of linguistic distance on income and economic growth across 97 countries over the 1980-2018 period. In addition to the direct effects of linguistic distance on incomes and growth, we further explore its impact through the channels of education and trade. Our results demonstrate that linguistic distance from English affects income levels and growth non-linearly across countries- increased distance from English does not necessarily translate into declining levels of income or growth rates. Conversely, we find that, via the trade channel, more distant languages tend to experience positive rates of growth. Controlling for regional effects or the existence of multiple languages of instruction do not alter our findings. Sub-dividing our dataset by national income levels, we show that the largest negative effects on growth are among Upper-Middle-Income countries.

United States Foreign Service Institute: A Historical Retrospective

Purpose of the study. The article analyzes the history of the formation of a scientific center at the US Department of State, which is engaged in the training of professionals in the diplomatic field. Research Methods. General scientific research methods are used. The article is based on the principleof historicism. The research and synthesis methods, as well as the problem-chronological method, which made it possible to show the development of the institute of foreign service in chronological sequence, became the base for the study. This helped preserve historical continuity, present a unified picture and consider qualitative changes in the issue of the development Foreign Service Institute. Scientific novelty. The stages of the establishment of the institute were detailed, which made it possible to structure the information about its activities from the period of its inception to the present day. The substantive and structural elements of thedevelopment of the institution of foreign service were identified and their evolution in accordance with the political realities on the world stage was shown. Findings. Today, the institute is the cornerstone of the career of American diplomatic officers, as well as thousands of government officials from all walks of life whose work requires expertise in foreign affairs. gradually over the last seven decades, the methodological and not only the content of the educational process has changed, which was due to the everincreasing number of employees in the diplomatic service, but alsothe need to improve the training of such employees due to constantglobal changes on the world stage. New skills and knowledge is realized in the implementation of practical effective diplomacy. Today's mission of the institute is to conduct worldclass diplomatic training and provide opportunities for professional growth throughout the career of a diplomat in order to achieve success on the world stage in the matter of promoting US foreign policy on behalf of the American people. For more than seventy years o history, the institute has not only not ceased to exist, but has alsomodernized in the preparation of diplomats to modern international realities

Along the Academe‐Policy Frontier: A Tribute to Aileen S.P. Baviera

Along the Academe‐Policy Frontier: A Tribute to Aileen S.P. Baviera

THE EFFECT OF MAGIC-SQUARE GAME IN IMPROVING 10th GRADER STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ACHIEVEMENT

This Study was an experimental research. The objective was to discover thesignificance of using magic square game in improving 10th grader students’speaking achievement. Twenty students were taken as the sample: 10 students forthe experimental group and 10 students for the control group. The students in theexperimental group were given magic square game as the media to practice theirspeaking skill. The magic square game was used to improve students’achievement in speaking, while the control group were taught without the magicsquare game. They only use textbooks. The students’ performance were evaluatedby using Fulcher’s (2003) Foreign Service Institute (FSI) Weighting Table. Thescoring was done by the English teacher and the researcher. The research findingsshows that the reliability of the test was high, i.e. 0,99, whereas the T-observedvalue at the level of significance 0,05 is 20 and it was lower than the T-critic(22).Therefore, the alternative hypothesis was accepted. It can be concluded that thestudents’ speaking achievement taught by using magic square game wassignificantly higher than those whom taught without using magic square game. So,English teacher are suggested to use magic square game in practicing the students’speaking achievement.Key words: Magic-Square game, Speaking Achievement

The Effect of Using Drama on Improving Preparatory Year Students' Oral Proficiency at Al-Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University

This study aims at investigating the effect of using drama as a teaching technique on improving the oral proficiency of the preparatory year students in the applied sciences stream at Al-Imam Muhammad Bin Saud Islamic university. The sample of the study consists of 42 male preparatory year students distributed in two sections, one constituted the experimental group, and the other constituted the control group. A pre-post test was used to measure the oral proficiency of the two groups. The experiment took place during the first semester of the academic year 2011/ 2012. In order to answer the question of the study, the researchers used the Oral Interview test as an eliciting tool. The interview was scored according to an oral assessment criteria designed by the researcher, based on the Foreign Service Institute Oral Interview (FSI) (Oller, 1979). After going through the dramatization and improvisation techniques, the two groups were post tested using the same oral proficiency test. The means of the pre and post tests for the two groups were calculated. A t-test was applied to analyze the results of the subjects on the pretest and post-test at the level of significance ( statistical significant differences in the oral proficiency favoring the experimental group who was taught according to dramatization and improvisation techniques based on dialogue formats. In the light of these findings, the researchers presented some conclusions and recommendations.

Best Practices in Designing and Developing OnlineCourses at the Canadian Foreign Service Institute

This paper describes the approach and considerations taken into account while designing and developing online courses at the Canadian Foreign Service Institute at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada and how research is applied in achieving desired goals and work objectives. It details what is common to the design and development of online courses in the application of lessons from educational literature in a practical setting, in relating to concepts of eLearning and instructional design: doing a needs assessment; gathering content and working with SMEs; developing a Master Design Chart, detailed storyboard; designing activities and an overall interactive interface; and finally, conducting evaluations. The linkages between theory and practice include the applications of various theoretical propositions, such as Alessi & Trollip's eight steps to address computer-based instructional design; Gagne's nine events of instruction; Mayer's ten research-based principles of multimedia learning; Dick & Carey's six stages of formative evaluation; and Kirkpatrick four levels evaluation model. The paper proposes five stages of online course development employed at the Canadian Foreign Service Institute as a means of best practices for corporate training.

Making the Bilingual Connection: Students from North Carolina Receive Multicultural Training in Veracruz

Making the Bilingual Connection: Students from North Carolina Receive Multicultural Training in Veracruz

Frank M. Snowden Jr. (1911–2007)

Frank M. Snowden Jr. (1911-2007) Rudolph Hock Professor Frank M. Snowden Jr. passed away on February 18 of this year in Washington, D.C., after a long and celebrated life in a variety of professional vocations—instructor, scholar, administrator, diplomat. The classics world can justifiably claim that it has lost one of its giants.1 Professor Snowden graduated from the Boston Latin School in 1928 and proceeded to Harvard University, where he was awarded his bachelor's (1932), master's (1933), and doctoral (1944) degrees in classics. He began his professional career as an instructor in Latin, French, and English at Virginia State College (1933–1936) and then moved to Spelman College and Atlanta University, where he was an instructor in classics (1936–1940). From then until 1990 he was a member of the faculty at Howard University, during which time he served as Director of the Evening School and Adult Education [End Page 449] (1942–1948), Director of the Summer School (1942–1954), Chairman of the Department of Classics (1942–1978), and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts (1956–1968). After his retirement from Howard he taught as Adjunct Professor of Classics at Georgetown University (1990–1991) and Visiting Distinguished Professor at Vassar College (1992). He received honorary degrees from Bard College, Union College, Howard University, Georgetown University, and the University of Maryland. Professor Snowden was most well known for his scholarship in an area that he made virtually his own, the study of blacks in antiquity. His book, Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience (Harvard University Press, 1970), received the Goodwin Award of Merit from the American Philological Association in 1973. His other seminal work was Before Color Prejudice: The Ancient View of Blacks (Harvard University Press, 1983). Among his many other publications are the coauthored volume, The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume I: From the Pharaohs to the Fall of the Roman Empire (Harvard University Press, 1976), and his autobiographical chapter in Against the Odds: Scholars Who Challenged Racism in the Twentieth Century (University of Massachusetts Press, 2004).2 He was a Fulbright Scholar in Italy (1949–1950) and a Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (1977); he also received fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies (1962–1963) and the National Endowment of the Humanities (1970). He was a lecturer for the Archaeological Institute of America (1970–1971, 1974), served as a member of the Board of Directors (1976–1979) and as Vice-President (1983) of the American Philological Association, and was a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers (1977–1979). What is least known about him is his career in government service. Among his many postings, he was Lecturer at the Foreign Service Institute (1956–1962, 1966–1968); Leader and Specialist Lecturer for the International Information Administration of the Department of State in North and West Africa, Western Europe, India, and Brazil (1953–1960); member of the U.S. Delegation to UNESCO in Paris (1958, 1960); and Cultural Attaché of the American Embassy in Rome (1954–1956). In recognition of his outstanding educational and cultural contributions he received Italy's Medaglio D'Oro (1958). By the time I arrived at Howard University in 1984, Professor Snowden had already been formally retired for several years, though he continued to teach on occasion. I had met him previously on campus when I came to visit colleagues while I was in the area. And while there I had even seen him in action, holding forth in the classroom in his mainstay course, "Blacks in Antiquity." I quickly came to realize from his booming voice and uncompromising pronouncements why he had been dubbed "Zeus" by students in the 1940s. Over the course of the next twenty years or so, we became friends, and our friendship deepened when, in 1998, I was appointed Chairman of the Department of Classics. Although Professor Snowden was by now well into retirement, he remained active in the discipline. Before too long, however, both his wife's and his own health were in decline, and they transferred to an assisted-care complex. I helped with the administration of his extensive collection of...

Adapting counseling to changing learner demographics via a school-wide system of support

Abstract The School of Language Studies at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) offers full-time, intensive language training in more than 70 languages to US diplomats and other government employees preparing to serve at US Embassies abroad. Students at FSI, the primary training institution of the US foreign affairs community, have access to a fully independent, school-wide, language-learning counseling program, the Learning Consultation Service (LCS). LCS principles and protocol have remained intact from its inception, but changes in student demographics have demanded new approaches and practices. Specifically, multiple meetings with Learning Counselors and Learning Consultants, coaching, and more student accountability have gained priority. During the 2004/2005 training year, the LCS conducted a Learning Strategies Pilot Project with a limited number of student volunteers; feedback and observations appeared to justify the evolution of LCS protocol and counseling approaches.

Mandarin Chinese: An Annotated Bibliography of Self-Study Materials

The People's Republic of China is currently the seventh largest economy in the world and is projected to be the largest economy by 2050. Commensurate with its growing economic power, the PRC is using its political power more frequently on the world stage. As a result of these changes, interest in China and its legal system is growing among attorneys and academics. International law librarians similarly are seeing more researchers interested in China, its laws and economy. The principal language of China, Mandarin Chinese, is considered a difficult language to learn. The Foreign Service Institute has rated Mandarin as “exceptionally difficult for English speakers to learn.” Busy professionals such as law librarians find it very difficult to learn additional languages despite their usefulness in their careers.

A REPLY TO PAUL STARKEY'S REVIEW OF IN A SEA OF KNOWLEDGE: BRITISH ARABISTS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (ITHACA PRESS, 2002)

In his review, Paul Starkey questions my “almost obsessive emphasis” on the role of the Middle East Centre for Arab Studies (MECAS). My book evaluates in a few pages the contribution MECAS made to the teaching of Arabic as a foreign language and puts it in an international context, which is ignored in the review. Notably, MECAS benefited from contact with American universities and with the Foreign Service Institute (FSI). The book makes clear the many connections with American universities and other institutions, governmental and otherwise.

Selected Comments on Inside GHQ, a Prodigious Work

Journal Article Selected Comments on Inside GHQ, a Prodigious Work Get access Ulrich Straus Ulrich Straus Ulrich (Rick) Straus served 30 months (1946–1948) in the Occupation as a Japanese language officer. His longest assignments were with the prosecution staff at the Tokyo Trial and at G-2, GHQ. He also served more briefly with ATIS, G-2 and with ESS. At the Tokyo Trial, Straus was responsible for the accurate translation of German documents into English and Japanese. While completing work toward a Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Michigan, Straus entered the State Department. Half of his 30-year diplomatic career was spent on the US–Japan relationship, including assignments to the Political Section at the Tokyo Embassy, the Japan Desk in Washington, and as Consul General on Okinawa. Other assignments included US Mission Berlin when the city was divided, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Embassy Bern, and as an adjunct professor at the National War College in Washington. After retiring from the State Department in 1987, Straus taught adult education courses on Japan at Washington area universities, headed the Japanese/Korean language section at the Foreign Service Institute of the State Department, and worked on declassification of State Department documents. Straus lives in Northport, Michigan where he lectures and comments on foreign policy for the local PBS station. He is the author of The Anguish of Surrender: Japanese POWs of World War II, which was published by the University of Washington Press in early 2004 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Social Science Japan Journal, Volume 7, Issue 1, April 2004, Pages 123–127, https://doi.org/10.1093/ssjj/7.1.123 Published: 01 April 2004

Language learning

Language learning

Carleton Taylor Hodge

Carleton Taylor Hodge Alan S. Kaye How vividly I recall the feeling of eager anticipation looking forward to the well-organized and informative lectures Professor Carleton Hodge presented in his ‘Structure of Ancient Egyptian’ course at the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) Linguistic Institute of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor during the summer of 1965. I was a graduate student in linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley at the time, taking his and three other courses. Little did I imagine then that he and I would maintain a lively correspondence from that summer on for the next thirty-three years, nor did I expect that we would come to spend so much time together at the joint annual meetings of the American Oriental Society and the North American Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics, which we would regularly attend for a quarter of a century. We also lectured on each other’s campuses, and I took great delight that many of my fellow Californians personally came to appreciate not only his scholarship (Hodge 1991a and 1991c), but also his charming and celebrated wit and sense of humor. Hodge was born on November 27, 1917 to Clarence Sim and Nina (Eaton) Hodge in Springfield, Illinois, where he was raised. He died on September 8, 1998 at the age of eighty at his home in Bloomington, Indiana, where he was Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Anthropology at Indiana University (IU).1 He left Illinois in 1935 to attend Depauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, as a Rector Scholar. In those days, he was interested in biblical studies and majored in Greek and Latin, receiving his A.B. Phi Beta Kappa in 1939. During his sophomore year, however, he decided to become a linguist, since he was much influenced (especially at informal Saturday night meetings on anthropological linguistics) by a new member of the Depauw faculty, Charles (Carl) F. Voegelin, Professor of Anthropology. Voegelin was to become Hodge’s lifelong friend, mentor, and colleague at IU. At Voegelin’s urging, Hodge attended the linguistic institutes at the University of Michigan in 1938,2 1939, and 1940, studying with such giants as Edgar Sturtevant, Roland G. Kent, Franklin Edgerton, and Voegelin himself, who taught field methods courses using Delaware and Ojibway. In addition, Hodge was fortunate enough to hear lectures by Leonard Bloomfield. Hodge began his graduate career in linguistics and Oriental studies in fall 1939, at the University of Pennsylvania (where he was a Harrison Scholar and later Fellow) studying with such luminaries as E. A. Speiser (Akkadian, Hebrew, and Urartean), Giorgio Della Vida (Arabic), and W. Norman Brown (Sanskrit). He completed his dissertation under Zellig S. Harris on Hausa (published as Hodge 1947) receiving the Ph.D. in linguistics in 1943. Later that year on June 2, he married Patricia E. Sutcliffe, with whom he had four children.3 They were a devoted couple, and attended many [End Page 156] linguistic conferences together, where they could often be seen walking together in and around the hotel. I fondly recall speaking with her at many of those. Hodge’s first home and position were, strangely enough, in Bloomington, Indiana, where he would later spend most of his career. He was hired by IU for 1943–44 as an instructor of Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian in the Army Specialized Training Program. The next two years took him to the University of Maryland, College Park, back to the University of Pennsylvania, and to New York City where he worked on the aforementioned Slavic languages and also on Japanese. He was asked to supervise classes in Japanese which used a prepublication version of a manual on the language by Bernard Bloch and Eleanor Harz Jordan. In the fall of 1946 he joined the U.S. State Department, which had a program for foreign service officers, headed by Henry Lee Smith, Jr. Hodge worked for the next sixteen years on pedagogical materials using informants of Bulgarian, Modern Greek, Hausa (Hodge 1963b), Persian (both Iranian and Afghan dialects), Serbo-Croatian, and Turkish, and also served as the editor of FSI language materials (the Foreign Service Institute [FSI] was created by the Foreign Service Act of 1946). Three significant articles...

Le Courrier Électronique: Un Outil d'Enseignement en Milieu de Travail

This paper describes an experiment aimed at using e-mail to improve the written language skills in German and Spanish of Canadian Foreign Service officers working in various countries. Little literature exists on the use of e-mail in distance learning outside the university environment. There is, however, considerable literature documenting the very high attrition rate in distance-learning courses. The course described in this paper was developed by the Canadian Foreign Service Institute to take into account the published analyses of the reasons for high attrition rates in and for completion of distance-learning courses. Because attrition rates have been found to be much lower when course participants feel that the course will be of direct use to them in their professional life, the author and her colleagues designed the program to require the completion of authentic professional tasks. These tasks were (1) to check the correctness of a text translated into the targe t language; (2) to check the accuracy of a translated text; and (3) to write a number of short texts in the target language, such as a thank-you note, a request for information and a letter making a suggestion. The course aimed to expose the participants to formal language, in the form of official documents, technical language, through linguistic explanations and descriptions of the way the course would function, and informal language, through spontaneous interaction among the participants and with the instructor. A number of pre-course activities were required. These were (1) a pre-test to determine the participant's linguistic level; (2) a questionnaire to evaluate the participant's level of computer skills and (3) a questionnaire aimed at eliciting the participant's attitude towards the use of a computer for word-processing, the use of e-mail for interpersonal communication, the use of e-mail for learning, co-operative learning, and writing in the target language. Initial interest in the course was very high. However, the attrition rate in all groups was also very high. This latter result seems to be attributable in part to the fact that participants were paired and required to correct each other's work. It appears that participants had little interest in correcting other participants' assignments, but would have preferred an opportunity to rework their own in the light of the instructor's comments and corrections. This will be incorporated into future versions of the course. Given the initial high interest, it appears that it is worthwhile to repeat and refine the experiment.

Chiarella Esposito. <italic>America's Feeble Weapon: Funding the Marshall Plan in France and Italy, 1948–1950</italic>. (Contributions to the Study of World History, number 26.) New York: Greenwood. 1994. Pp. xxii, 226. $55.00

Journal Article Chiarella Esposito. America's Feeble Weapon: Funding the Marshall Plan in France and Italy, 1948–1950. (Contributions to the Study of World History, number 26.) New York: Greenwood. 1994. Pp. xxii, 226. $55.00 Get access Esposito Chiarella. America's Feeble Weapon: Funding the Marshall Plan in France and Italy, 1948–1950. (Contributions to the Study of World History, number 26.) New York: Greenwood. 1994. Pp. xxii, 226. $55.00. James Edward Miller James Edward Miller Foreign Service Institute Department of State Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 101, Issue 2, April 1996, Page 591, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/101.2.591 Published: 01 April 1996

Concepts of “culture”: Implications for intercultural communication research

The notion of “culture” currently used by intercultural communication scholars emerges out of a specific set of historical circumstances, in particular, the 1940s and Edward T. Hall's work at the Foreign Service Institute. This article reviews intercultural communication research as it is published by communication journals, and examines how culture is conceptualized in intercultural communication research. Alternate ways in which “culture” might be conceptualized are then discussed and the consequences that this might have for intercultural communication scholarship are explored.

Postwar Indochina: Old Enemies and New Allies. Edited by Joseph Zasloff. Washington: U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Institute, Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs, 1988. xx, 290 pp.

Postwar Indochina: Old Enemies and New Allies. Edited by Joseph Zasloff. Washington: U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Institute, Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs, 1988. xx, 290 pp. - Volume 50 Issue 3