Slovak Language Instructor, DLI-W

Summary:

The Unconventional is seeking a highly skilled Language Instructor to join our team to support the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC). DLIFLC is responsible for ensuring that our Nation's effort to understand the languages and cultures of our friends and foes alike are met. The DLIFLC provides culturally based foreign language education, training, evaluation, and sustainment to enhance the security of the nation here and abroad. DLIFLC plays a critical role in the preparation of service members for their missions whether as Foreign Area Officers, foreign affairs or liaison officers, military attaches, or simply as the language "go-to" soldier in a platoon on a patrol in a far-off province where the need for a language and cultural expertise can mean the difference between key national security mission success and failure, or simply life and death. In this role you will be responsible for providing classroom language instruction for the Defense Language Institute - Washington (DLI-W).

Specific duties may include, but are not limited to:

• Provide professional foreign language instruction to students in a classroom and/or virtual environment. Instruction can last six (6) hours or more per day, with courses ranging from ten (10) weeks or longer.
• Will prepare for each class he/she teaches, tailoring the lesson to individual student’s needs.
• All instruction and instructional support services provided under this contract must be based on proficiency-oriented principles of second language acquisition with a strong focus on instructional methods that are the most effective for adult learners.
• Instruction must be culturally-based, learner-centered, employing authentic materials and real-world tasks that resemble what students may do with their language skills in their final job assignments. Emphasis is placed on communicative competence in real-life situations and practical application of language skills to include appropriate military terminology and exposure to both formal and informal language including colloquial and idiomatic speech.
• The program emphasizes creativity and flexibility to meet the unique instructional needs of a diverse student population.
• At all levels of proficiency, from the beginner to advanced, level- and topic-appropriate lessons, materials and activities must be utilized to generate as much uninhibited, spontaneous use of the language as possible. This helps advance the students’ proficiency in all three evaluated/tested modalities in addition to writing.
• Writing skills must be taught to promote/enable language acquisition, leading to increased proficiency in a target language.
• Adults are goal-oriented and typically want practical applications for their learning. Methods like Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) align well, as they focus on using the language for real-world communication and specific purposes. However, older methods that focus on grammar instruction as a foundation for building language skills, particularly early in the course, are equally acceptable.
• Sufficient attention must be devoted to the skills associated with non-participatory listening and general reading comprehension to permit level- appropriate attainment of the end-of-course proficiency objectives. This must be done through deliberate and frequent exposure to a range and variety of authentic target-language materials, accompanied by appropriate tasks and activities.
• The program is expected to bridge the gap between global and job-specific language performance skills and to prepare students for tasks they will likely perform in the target language. These skills include reading handwriting, keyboarding, writing for professional purposes and general correspondence.
• Training must engage the students’ higher order thinking skills (analyze, evaluate, create), develop independent learning skills and adhere to the best practices in and principles of adult education.
• The training MUST incorporate the use of diverse instructional technologies such as, but not limited to, electronic flash cards, online learning applications (apps), games, virtual and augmented reality, social collaboration tools in the LMS, a Human Language Technology tools (HLT) and Gen AI.
• Intercultural Competence and cultural knowledge MUST be integrated into language instruction in all phases of training. DLI recognizes that languages cannot be learned in a cultural vacuum. Language and culture are intricately intertwined and difficult to separate; therefore, language skills are to be developed in a context that includes information on the value systems, behavioral patterns, institutions, geography, and political, economic, and social systems of the areas where the target language is spoken.
• In all languages Contractors are expected to use authentic materials and language together in immersive ways with diagnostically oriented teaching methods guided by the following principles:
  • Diagnostically oriented approach
  • Learner-centered, skill-integrated approach
  • Content-based curriculum and instruction
  • Task-based and scenario-based instruction
  • Instructional materials that address individual students’ needs
  • Use of meaningful, interactive tasks
  • Use of target language (TL)
  • Use of authentic materials (current news, opinions, columns, etc.)
  • Immersive environment
• Curriculum/materials should include:
  • Sufficient quantity, analysis, and comprehension of listening and reading Target Language (TL) texts
  • Integration of productive TL skills (speaking and writing)
  • Application of Higher-Order Thinking Skills (HOTS)
  • Reinforcement of vocabulary and discourse models, meaningful asks/activities/homework
  • Integration of linguistic structure and vocabulary with discourse structure, pragmatics, and socio-cultural awareness
  • Ancillary objectives such as manner or tenor (level of style, proper use of registers, cultural connotations, and politeness forms) and colloquial usage and/or slang must be introduced and taught during the course
• All courses regardless of length must include a syllabus.

Required Qualifications:

• At a minimum, must possess a Bachelors degree or equivalent and have at least two (2) years of successful relevant experience in intensive training, teaching adults using proficiency-oriented methods and materials aimed at ILR skill levels 2 and 3. For the purposes of this contract, intensive training is defined as follows: The student is full-time (solely dedicated to language study for four to six hours per day) with no other duties during the period of training.
• Successful, relevant experience of at least four (4) years in teaching the target language to adult learners in an intensive, proficiency-oriented environment may be substituted for education. Demonstrated experience successfully using educational technology tools to enhance student learning is preferred. Experience teaching remotely is a plus.
• Must be an educated native speaker of the current standard form of the language/dialect taught and additionally have strong English language skills. With written permission of the COR, instructors who are non-native speakers, but who possess near native language proficiency in all skills (minimum proficiency for the language to be taught is a Level 3 as defined by the ILR SLDs); along with strong English skills.
• Must possess the ability to adapt to students with varying learning styles requiring different teaching strategies.
In addition to the requirements detailed above, instructors must have Oral Proficiency Interview scores of Level 3 or above on the ILR scale or Superior or above on the ACTFL scale in the Target Language. Additionally, instructors must prove their proficiency in English by providing an Oral Proficiency Interview score of Level 2 or above on the ILR scale or Advanced or above on the ACTFL scale. Contractors must provide documentation demonstrating scores (English and target language)
• - documentation will not be older than 18 months.

Clearance: Must be able to pass a background check.

Location: National Capitol Region

Travel: Travel is not anticipated.