success, we acknowledge that much work remains. our vision and strategy are designed to build language and cultural capabilities so they are available to d.o.d. and other federal agencies when needed. thank you, sir, for the opportunity to share the department's efforts in this area and i'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. >> thank you very much. please proceed with your statement. >> thank you, chairman. i'm proud to sit before you along with my esteemed counterparts. i want to thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee today and in particular for your continued support for the fbi's foreign language program and critical mission. the director of intelligence language services division is responsible for the organization's entire program. they support the fbi's mission by providing quality language services to the fbi and its partners.

these services include foreign language recruitment, hiring, testing, training, translations, interpretations, and other foreign language related functions at the fbi. the language services section provides a centralized command and control structure to ensure our linguist resource base of over 1,400 linguists, an increase of 84% since 9/11, is aligned with priorities set by our operational divisions and intelligence priorities. the fbi relies on foreign language capabilities to quickly and accurately inform operations and enhance analysis. the success of the fbi's mission is clearly dependent upon high-quality language services and the ability to translate and analyze information in a timely manner. the fbi's foreign language program has made great strides in its ability to meet the rising demand of fbi language needs since 9/11. the program has moved forward

through increased recruitment, hiring retention, specialized training, technology, and collaboration. we have also significant lip increased the range and volume of the foreign language training the fbi offers to personnel who need to develop language proficiency to do their jobs. programs include academic emergent training and tailored language courses. we realize we are not able to address our foreign language needs with recruitment, hiring, or training alone. so we also invest in the development of human language technology tools. these tools provide the ability to triage and process large volumes of information while enabling the workforce to enhance productivity. through collaboration, we address our foreign language needs by leveraging the intelligence community and other partners through cross-community resource sharing, joint duty assignments and interagency short-term temporary duty assignment opportunities.

we work with the national security education programs national flagship universities in georgetown's english for heritage speaker programs to funnel people into the contract linguist process. and we reach out to the national language service corps when we have language needs we cannot meet with in-house language resources. as the executive agent for the national virtual translation center, we are able to provide virtual language support. not only for other intelligence community partners, but also for other agencies with foreign language challenges. in closing, i want to thank you for the opportunity to appear here today and provide testimony on the fbi's foreign language program. as you know, more detail has been provided in my written testimony which i respectfully submit for the record. i am also looking forward to answering any questions you may have for me today. >> thank you very much.

mr. nordin, please proceed with your statement. >> senator and other folks attending, i am honored to act as spokesman for the director of national intelligence in today's hearing. i am particularly honored as i know this will be the last hearing of this committee subcommittee chaired by you, sir. we in the foreign language community are indebted to you for your leadership in bringing world language study to a focal point in national dialogue. thank you. foreign language capabilities together with a deep knowledge of the cultures and societal infrastructure of the populus to our security are a paramount importance to the successful performance of the strategic and tactical intelligence missions of today.

the complexity of the intelligence community's mission in today's world and the variety of nations and non-state global actors impacting our national security and national interests make it an absolute imperative that we possess a deep understanding of their cultures, interests, and intentions along with the capability to understand it, communicate in their languages. professional language skills, cultural awareness, intellectual knowledge are core competencies in the collection, processing, analysis, and dissemination of intelligence information. the shift and real and perceived threats to national security and global stability from 1992 to the present resulted in an increase of number of world languages that were essential to understanding and dealing with those threats.

a sharp increase in our needs for skills in the less and least commonly taught languages led to shortfalls in sufficiency and proficiency in the community's language workforce. in order to meet the needs of the day, the community and our forces engage contractor services. comprised primarily of foreign nationals and civilian immigrants. citizen immigrants. we know that we must build an organic civilian and military language workforce of translaters, interpreters, negotiators and language analysts capable of supporting our steady state needs and vetting the contract capabilities needed during surge. thus the community is now set on a course to significantly increase and improve our organic capabilities. together with rational employment of their foreign language skills and foreign area knowledge. in order to retain their services, we need to offer these

professionals rewarding careers as language specialists. while the technology today and many tomorrows ahead will not replace the skills in processing foreign language. rational integration of key technologies can facilitate the work process and enable higher productivity on the part of the language equipped analyst. the director of national intelligence advocates a significant increase in foreign language capability through expansion of the language capable of workforce while facilitating and expediting their work through integration of state of the art human technology into the collection and analytic processes. together with the defense department leadership, we are exploring the feasibility and potential cost benefits of a professional military -- and

intelligence forces. research has shown the advantage of starting language at an early age as noted before. the program which supports language students and teachers in the elementary and secondary school systems is an essential first step. current investment and language education. by targeting our recruiting and hiring the best and brightest products of programs currently sponsored under ic and other federal funding. and the community will continue to recruit and hire native and heritage speakers. i see that my time is about expired, i would like to continue for another minute, sir. >> yes. >> i would be remiss if i did not cite two activities sponsored by the defense department and the intelligence community that have and will

continue to have major impact on national foreign language capability. first, the defense language institute foreign language center. that continues to produce novice language specialists from graduates. worldwide initial online learning as well as maintenance and enhancement continuing education to all entities. second, the center for the advance study of language, a university affiliated research center at the university of maryland. the center is charged with improving the way we teach, learn, and employ second and multiple languages through research toward enhancing and optimizing human cognitive skills. the work of the center is contributing to improved aptitude testing, training, and working memory. and improved understanding of the languages of africa and asia. on behalf of the director, i

thank you for this opportunity to address this important national issue. and one final statement, sir, as foreign language capability is an inherently government responsibility. the federal government must continue its investment in these precious, valuable tools for the national security. >> thank you very much. mr. nordin. you testified, it seems, that the panel agrees to this that foreign language skills are critically important to our national security. however, the department's only k-12 initiative which is the foreign language assistance program could lose out on funding by competing with other

core subjects and funding for the title vi language programs have been significantly reduced since before. my question to you is how will you support the department's international strategy to develop global competent students in light of these budget cuts? >> well, thank you, mr. chairman, for that question. it is true we have rolled that money into, you know, lump sum funding for k-12 to provide more flexibility and more efficiency in the management of those programs. but we also have -- we're placing more globally an emphasis on the development of global competencies. really the fundamental message that we're transmitting is that in order to achieve the

objectives of the president's 2020 goal, we have to have a quality education that includes. so we are to move beyond the focus of math and english language competency to encompass other subjects, these will also be emphasized and highlighted. and throughout the pipeline. >> the rest of the panel. how will cuts of the departments of education's language and international programs affect your efforts to build and maintain your department's language capabilities? >> thank you very much for that question. and it's very relevant to what

we do in the state department in terms of training our officers for language skills. we know that it's more difficult to train people as adults than it is to bring them in with a foreign language skills early on. and it is our belief that young people who start language training as early as sixth and seventh grade come prepared with the languages when we hire them. and right now, we're spending -- and this figure's a very rough figure, but about $250,000 for each position that we're training people for. if i use a rock as an example where we're signing people for one year, they come in, we have one officer in the position, we have one officer in the first year of training, and one officer in the second year of training. if we brought those people in with the language skills, we would save that amount of money upfront with our officers. again, thank you. >> thank you.

doctor? >> sir, to follow up and to build -- build on the last set of comments, dod has built a lot of partnerships with the support of our national language fellowships with the states and we've made a lot of headway. but this relies on an infrastructure and capacity that was laid down by the department of education. so simply put, it makes a hard problem harder. clearly continued partnerships public/private partnerships, partnerships will help us get through this. but there's no question that we valued our partnership with the department of education in the past. >> thank you. ms. north? >> as you know, the fbi recruits from our communities out there, and whether we recruit from a heritage community and native community or those people who have learned a language through education. for us, our challenge is to get

them through the recruitment and background process. so as the department of education increases the number of students for us to recruit that are u.s. citizens who have spent their life here in the u.s. as opposed to overseas, that increases the ability of us to get them through their background, their full scope background quicker. and for that reason, we definitely appreciate what the department of education is doing for us in that respect. >> thank you. mr. nordin? >> yes, sir, i think we have a responsibility in our outreach program from all of the federal entities. to go out and help the school boards and the systems to find ways to continue the language education. and i think that's a responsibility that we bear. >> thank you. >> as i mentioned in my

statement, i believe coordination is key to addressing our language crisis and strategically target limited resources. how is the department working with other federal agencies to make sure that its programs are addressing our national security needs? >> mr. chairman, thank you. well, in pursuant to the higher education act, with the 16 cabinet agencies and the federal government to receive recommendations on areas of national need for expertise in foreign languages and what regions. the department's deputy assistant secretary for international foreign language education and the senior staff to ope serve as advisory committee members for the department of defense, national security education program, and the department of state's title

8 program. to assist with the administration of the full programs administered by the department. and the staff of the -- of our international education division works cooperatively with the department of commerce's international trade administration western hemisphere office to plan and participate on seminars intended to give students and faculty at hsis an understanding of funding in international business education. and we're also members of the interagency language round table which is an unfunded interagency organization that was formally established in 1973 for the coordination and sharing of information about language-related activities at the federal level. so that's -- that group is a premiere way for the department agencies to keep abreast of the progress and implementations of techniques and language learning, language use, and other language-related activities. >> thank you.

i'd like to ask the rest of the panel also to -- to answer this follow-up question now. will you please discuss steps your departments have taken to coordinate federal language education programs? >> thank you, again for that question. as you know, we have a premiere language foreign service training institute at the foreign service institute and we make available places at the foreign service institute for other agencies to participate in our language training program. we also participated in interagency committees that look at language training. we think it's very important as our embassies represent the platform for all agencies overseas for those agencies also

to have people with language skills who arrive to fill their positions, as well. so we see it as key to all of our foreign policy goals to have other agency individuals with the requisite language training. >> sir, by far our biggest effort is the national security education board which helps us run the national security education program. this board has -- was established by senator borin in 1991 and has been meeting since '94. it brings together about seven federal agencies. and the national security education program has done its main goal is to establish federal partnerships among the federal government. partnerships with federal and state entities, and even public private partnerships. in doing so, we've helped create

state road maps for education. these road maps are an opportunity for individual states to work with our flagship institutio institutions. and they create a clearinghouse for best practices in providing language instruction to our kids. this pipeline then flows through elementary school, middle school, high school, and into our flagship colleges where we provide several initiatives the scholarships and the grants to make sure we're not only creating folks with an awareness of language but some with that professional level of expertise. where we sponsor an immersive experience overseas. and that creates a better pool for not only d.o.d. but all of our federal partners to draw from.

within dod, we have several initiatives, our project general officer. we have a new pilot with rotc candidates, and several initiatives for our federal area officers. and we already heard about our defense language institute to create classes for military members to come in and learn. some of the teaching devices that are available through dli are also open to federal partners. thank you, sir. >> thank you. ms. north? >> so one of the better ways we are actually collaborating with our partners is through the national virtual translation center. this is a center that was created as a result of the usa patriot act back in 2001 and then in 2003, the fbi became the executive agent for this center under the odni. what this center does is they

are virtual capability for the u.s. government and the intelligence community where they've provided support, not only for the intelligence community but for dod, the combatant commands particularly at one center we have in doha where they provide regional expertise to the embassies in that region. we're also a member of the interagency language round table, and the foreign language executive committee or flex com which is an interagency committee where best practices are shared and different initiatives and the outcomes of those initiatives. one of the results of that is the fbi created a language quality program where all of our products are then quality controlled before they go out the door. that became a best practice, and that process and methodology for that was shared among our

partners. not only here in the u.s., but also overseas. and then we were just continuing to leverage the other ic partners as far as technology is concerned. as we know that as technology develops, we need to be able to triage our collection faster and in a more expeditious manner. we're hoping that through the combined efforts of all of our partners that this technology will advance to a rate that we can use it on a daily basis and that we'll cut back the time it takes us to actually review that collection that is a priority for us. >> ms. nordin? >> the start talk program that the dni initiated as part of the national security language initiative in which teachers and students in the elementary and secondary school system are

treated to a summer of study and interchange in the languages that they have. there's a number of the community meeting places where we all get together. it is a primary one which is currently led by a employee of the army. however that unchartered and unfunded organization is doing just fine after 30-some years. and it is -- its work is added to by the foreign language executive committee of the odni. the state department's fsi is a dpreat host to this organization. and you have the defense language steering committee. the national education security education program, all of these

things work together, sir. it is the most collaborative group of people that i have ever worked with. thank you. >> thank you. >> this question is for the four of you and for the national security agencies. dod has filled only 20% of the positions with language requirements with qualified employees, and other agencies here are struggling with this issue, as well. what challenges are your departments facing in recruitment, hiring, and retaining personnel with the needed language skills? and what steps have you taken to address these challenges?

>> thank you again for that question. we're actually doing very well now in filling our language-designated positions with people with the requisite language training. and right now the state department is at about 70%. we have a very high bar for that, and that is people who have tested recently in the language at a 3.3 level. it's because we've done a lot of work over the past few years with the training flow we were able to develop based on our 3.0 diplomacy hiring. we've hired over the past few years, about 15% more so that we can put people in language training while others are in the jobs. we're somewhat concerned as we approach the next year because we don't have the hiring float. we think we will only be able to hire to attrition and we need to

continue to encourage more hiring and get support and resources for more hiring to continue to have that training to continue to train qualified people. >> thank you. >> yes, sir. well, i've talked a lot about our first challenge and that's to try to improve the pool. after folks come in, we have sort of two ways we think about this. teaching folks who come in their language capability. defense language institute and foreign language center. and that's creating an in-house of language speakers. this is hard and it's expensive, but it does serve its purpose. we're also using the language training centers. in order to further improve our language capabilities, we

have -- we're trying to improve how we use these folks. you may have seen recently that the army is creating regionally aligned forces. and this will help us build expertise in -- in other cultures as well as give service focal points for folks who speak those languages around the world to go and practice. we're also trying to expand how we use over the last several years we've tried to expand how we use heritage speakers. we have the national service language core which is a very important surge capacity. that's about 196 languages that are at our disposal, and there's no way we could've created such a competency starting from scratch. we're very thankful for that. we also have something called the 0-9 program and the mavny program, these are methods for

heritage speakers to come and serve as uniformed military members and serve as in-house language and cultural experts. these folks have been critical to our efforts in iraq and afghanistan over the last ten years. and we also have the defense language institute's english language center, and again that's to increase the language capacity of our partners. >> thank you, mrs. north? >> so as i mentioned earlier, we actually have a linguist workforce of over 1,400 which is an 85% increase from 9/11. and a retention rate at 94%. so we're actually doing fairly well in that regard. we've implemented what we call a workforce planning model where we actually targeted recruitment toward languages where there's a shortfall or anticipated need