The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2005

frequent user and fan of the new leadership and man- agement courses at FSI — such as ‘Managing and Testifying before Congress,’ ‘Appearing Effective in the Media,’ ‘Senior Executive Threshold Training’ (the first class), and the ‘Chief of Mission Course.’” Says Amb. Haslach: “All the courses were to the point and on the mark. I was also impressed with the on-site training in cri- sis management that FSI provides to posts. The country team and I participated in a two-day Crisis Management Exercise, which better prepared the embassy for fire, nat- ural disasters and terrorist attacks. This training proved invaluable when we had an incident at post.” From 1957 to 2004, a major component of the depart- ment’s leadership training program was the nine-month Senior Seminar, the U.S. government’s highest level of executive training in foreign affairs. Hundreds of ambas- sadors, generals, admirals and top-ranking officials of for- eign affairs agencies are among its alumni, but FSI dis- continued the course last year, citing the small number of people (just 15 State Department employees a year) who could take the training and the expense involved. This was a highly unpopular decision among many senior FSOs (see “Speaking Out: A Tribute to the Senior Seminar” by William Stedman in the July-August 2004 Foreign Service Journal ). In its place, FSI has incorporated many elements of the Senior Seminar into a new program called Senior Policy Seminars. This approach offers similar instruction but in small modules — usually one or two days devoted to a specific topic. These courses not only reach many more senior FSOs at a time, but also make the informa- tion available to mid-level personnel. The School of Language Studies: Room for Improvement For many Foreign Service personnel, language study produces their most vivid memories of FSI, if for no other reason than the amount of time and energy they invest. We received more responses dealing with that aspect of training than all others combined. Many students give the program high marks. Walter Shepherd, a USAID FSO currently serving in La Paz, comments that he has had good experiences at FSI all three times he has attended: “They designed a special Spanish refresher program for me on the third occasion I was there. My courses focused a lot on development and food aid terms I would need to know as a Food for Peace officer in Bolivia. I was a very satisfied customer and felt FSI had prepared me well for the posting.” Several State new hires who have gone through train- ing in Romance languages within the past couple of years also e-mailed us to praise the quality of instruction they received. And while she was highly critical of FSI in some regards, one mid-level Arabic student says, “I had some teachers who had taught for many years, took their work seriously and had developed a method/style of teaching that worked for them.” The quality of instruction seems to vary considerably depending on the language and the teacher. In particu- lar, we received numerous detailed complaints about the Arabic, French and Russian programs, revolving around several issues that may well be more generally applicable: Lack of quality control. After the relative lull of the 1990s, the combination of the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative and the increased emphasis on Arabic and other incentive languages following the 9/11 attacks has forced FSI to scramble to hire sufficient staff to meet the skyrocketing demand. As State was competing with other government agencies and the private sector for a finite supply of qualified teachers, it is understandable — perhaps even unavoidable — that the overall quality of Arabic-language instruction would be adversely affected, at least at first. FSI hires many language instructors on a contract basis so the least competent can be weeded out. (Currently, about half of the staff are contractors.) Nonetheless, while teacher evaluation is a subjective exercise to some extent, many students are convinced that they are not being well served. One student, speak- ing on background, reports: “I had one teacher who was newly recruited, confessed that she hated to speak Arabic and did not seem to particularly like teaching.” Several other students note that even though all FSI classes are supposed to be “immersion” (i.e., conducted in the foreign language), some of the instructors consis- tently use English — even when the students ask them to stick to their native tongue. There seems to be widespread agreement (among stu- dents, at least) that FSI’s longstanding requirement that all language instructors be native speakers all too often comes at the expense of teaching ability and fluency in English. Similarly, while using native speakers to teach has the advantage of exposing students to a wide variety of accents and dialects, it can also be detrimental. One employee of a non-State foreign affairs agency was F O C U S 24 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 5