Second Language Sustainment Training with the Tactical Language and Culture Training System

The purpose of this project is to develop new language training methods that help guard against language skill decay, and help recover from skill decay when it has occurred. It leverages previous DoD and ONR investments in language learning technology, but it focuses squarely on the language attrition problem. In addition to providing language training that is resistant to decay, it pays particular attention to the problem of how to quickly recover language skills after attrition has occurred. This latter focus is a unique feature of this work, and is a key innovation. It is a fact of military life that there will be gaps between the time when languages are trained and the time when they are used. Thus some skill decay is inevitable, and so methods are needed that enable learners to recover their language skills as quickly and efficiently as possible. The developed technology will support both computer-based language training and mobile language training. The work has been informed both by the theory of learning and decay, as well as analyses of data from language learners using language training software.