This is great news. I would hope these methods could be packaged and use in our school systems so that more of our youth could have the opportunity to learn a foregin language. I took an intense week of Hebrew last year at George Wythe College in Cedar City. It actually helped me learn English better. There are many benefits from learning a foregin language.

I learned Chinese as a Mormon Missionary. I later earned one of my college degrees in Chinese. While I understood better why something worked in Chinese after completing my degree, the classwork using normal language learning techniques did not give me an appreciable increase in fluency over what I had learned on the streets in Taiwan. The environment and the immersian are totally neccessary to learn a language quickly and in depth.

I know that even better now that I live in another country with a different language and work all day at a desk. I have been here for one year and have only learned a few phrases.

He should expand by starting a company in the private sector. I would take a class using his methods if it was available.

Yes, there are many benfits to learning a foreign language. I think the key is immersion and using it with native speakers. Not relying on English (or whatever your first language is) and instead just speaking (signing, if you're learning sign language) with native speakers is the way to go.

While Arabic is important in the current geopolitical climate, What about Farsi, Urdu, & Pashtun?

I agree w/ FSB about understanding English better after taking foreign language.

Having taken I took the 1st yr Turkish Language sequence at the U (many yrs ago), It helped me think about what I was trying to say correctly & concisely in Turkish and English.

I speak a handful of languages. My first experience with emersion was the MTC where I learned Norwegian. My second experience with emersion was in the military at DLI where I learned Arabic. I then spent 5 years speaking Arabic and various dialects for the military. I am a little bit skeptical about the claims that they “picked up” Arabic at near fluent levels in only 2 ½ to 4 months.

I have to agree with the other posters, it is extremely important to learn another language. It helps you feel connected to other peoples, helps you be more interested in world issues, and more importantly it helps you have a better grasp of your own language. I would encourage anybody that wants to learn another language to go and do it.

"Jabra developed the Ace My Language method, which is currently contracted by the U.S. government for rapid learning of foreign languages such as Arabic, Korean, Farsi and Chinese — all of which are growing in necessity."

The term "such as" indicates a partial listing of the languages being taught with this method. Since this article is a news item as opposed to a sales pitch, I don't expect every language being taught with this method to be listed.

Can anyone sign up for these classes? I would love to if it's open to anyone, I've always wanted to learn Arabic.

I have long thought that something similar to the LDS Church missionary training program should be utilized in teaching new immigrants to speak English. We cannot communicate if we cannot understand each other. As English is the language of this country, I believe all new immigrants should be required to participate in total immersion English studies. They (and we) would benefit greatly from it. The way we're doing things now enables them to get away with not learning our language and discourages assimilation into our culture and workplaces.

I personally would love to study Arabic and Chinese just for the sheer joy of learning. This method sounds like a really good way to accomplish this.

I spent my teenage years three houses east of Hugh Nibley'home in Provo. I once asked him if the legend of his learning Russian was true. He said yes. He saw a man on the street and asked him if he was Russian, when he said yes, he then asked if he could spend time with him and learn Russian, which he did.(5 or 6 weeks , if I remember right.)

By the way Bro. Nibley answered my question as to how many languages he "Knew" by saying I feel comfortable in 14 or 15 and I can read and write three or four others.

Makes you feel totally inadquate doesn't it;)

WOW!

I wonder if they allow people to take the class if they are not involved with the government...

I would love an opportunity to learn arabic.

I think it's eight, actually.

When these guys say that they are having conversations in Arabic, they are fooling themselves. I learned Sewdish in the MTc for 9 weeks, and I thought I could have a conversation too. Until I got to Sweden, and couldn't understand anything. Lets be realistic, it takes 2 or 3 years to become completely fluent.

can see having conversations after 2 months if you are being immersed and studying your heart out.

There is a difference between that and complete fluency, which isn't what they are trying to insinuate by this article.

I wonder if they are learning the classical language or one of the dialects. If its a dialect I can see being conversational in a few months, if it's the classical (Modern Standard) Arabic, there's no way.

Certainly depends on what you mean by fluent. Speak and understand? sure no problem. But if you mean speak without out an accent and with the proficiency of a native then yeah,, a few years for anyone but a real genius. The church should start sending missionaries to Iraq. Their language skills could be greatly used by the US military. What? not safe you say?? No risk is too great to save a soul. No really.... bad idea... bad.. bad idea.

I am flattered by all the comments about the article. Our class acheives a 2/2 ILR fluency in speaking and listening which simply means the students at the present can accurately perform functions that range from talking about themselves (autobiography), their families, work, etc. as well as of others. They can accurately describe events in past, present and future. They can describe their surroundings, their geography, give directions on how to do things or commands to perform functions. They have a vocabulary of over 1500 words (some have more). They can talk about time (days of week, months) and count from 0 to infinity in the language.
I hope the description helps. I understand the skepticism by some though because many are conditioned to think that language isn't something that anybody can learn, which I respectfully disagree with.

Can civilians sign up for this class? I've been looking for a program like this. I'm studying Arabic but 3 hours a week in College is not enough.

Is the 2/2 ILR proficiency of this program based on the DLPT 5 or the (now obsolete) DLPT 4? My understanding is that passing rates for the DLPT 5, even from people in the language field, are around 20%, these are people who have at least worked in the language for years, presumably self-studying the entire time as well.

I have not heard anything good about the DLPT 5, but that's what happens every time they introduce a new one. I know that we were largely trained in our refresher courses to pass the test, so changing it would make that more difficult. We practically begged everyone we could at DLI-FLC for more immersion, because it was so difficult to try to learn for eight hours a day and then be told to "knock that off" after hours, or even during lunch. All that being said, I still picked up a 2+ 2+ (DLPT 3 then, if I recall correctly), but we were always frustrated at how difficult it was to keep it up after school. Luckily I married a classmate about a year in, so at least the two of us could keep up the practice, but I really feel like I missed a real opportunity to become truly fluent.

Believe it or not folks the reason passing rates in the DLPT5 are so low is because the English questions are HARDER than the Arabic articles. DLI ran 'sensing' sessions and the consensus among the students was that if the English was more understandable students would have scored higher.
My students are taking the DLPT5 and we are spending some time working on the English issues.

In Answer to the question whether the classes are available in the private sector the answer is that it is if you have a group of 12 students willing to take it together. We do the training in any language of your choice.

This article brings a whole new sense of reality to my life. I'm a Mensa member and I still remember the words of my high school French teacher who told me that I earned a "D", but since I tried, she was going to give me a "C." I have always thought that the language learning section of my brain had closed and that I was not able to learn a foreign language. Other students did get "A's" and "B's", so I may have had more difficulty learning a language than others.

But, given this article, it now appears that I was not optimally taught and had I been taught appropriately, I would have mastered French.

I think Jabra Ghneim is onto something and has a much larger role to play than his current one. Our U.S. education department should fund education Ph.D. candidates to write their theses on a comparison of language learning methods. It appears that Ghneim's statements can be scientifically verified with all populations (children, adults etc) and when that has been done, Ghneim should head up foreign language learning in the U.S. Too often, our valuable resources, like Ghneim, are squandered.

I originally took a language aptitude test for the border patrol when I was 21 years old. The results of the test said I couldn't even learn Spanish. At 25 I took the Defense Language Apptitude Battery(DLAB) and scored well enough to be sent to DLI for Mandarin Chinese. After 16 months I scored a 1+2+ and a 2 in speaking.
I agree that the reason many people fail to pass the DLPT5 is due to the questions. Not necessarily the english, because it was correct english, but because of the question iteself. You could listen to an entire passage and understand 80-95% of it, but the question would ask you something about the feeling of the passage, or what the speaker was trying to relay emotion wise. That added with the number of actual detractors that they would put into a passage equals failure. I feel that the test fails to measure a person's actual fluency or proficiency in the target language because of this. Without putting any thought as to the why, the pass rates themselves clearly indicate that there is a problem with the test's ability to measure proficiency.

I am in Arabic at DLI now, I took the DLPT5 already after finishing my course but did not pass. I would agree that it wasn't the Arabic that was difficult of the DLPT5 it was the questions and answer choices. I was always able to narrow down the choices to 2 and would find that those two choices were both correct answers to the question as stated in the passage however, I would venture to say that the "most" correct answer was what the test writer's opinion was on the passage. It seemed you had to think like the test writer to tell which one was correct. Again, I feel like the DLPT5 is a horrible judge of Language proficiency and more of a judge of mind-reading.

For this school in Draper. Anybody have the number? If she needs 12 people, maybe we could call in and put our name on a list.

Was there an answer to the question of whether these students were scoring 2/2 on the DLPT4 or DLPT5?

The scores of 2/2 from these students were 'assumed' and not accomplished. None of them actually got a 2/2 on the DLPT 5 or DLPT 4 for that matter. Actually, they did not get even close to it. OPI results were also less than desired. The course is targeted for conversational modern standard arabic and not any standard arabic test. DLI students, so far, are not missing anything. The claims for the final result of the course were inflated and in my honest opinion, should not have been published before tests results.