Professionalisation and the STANAG

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Professionalisation and the STANAG

• national requirements and NATO standards
• Allan Juhl Kristensen Royal Danish Naval Academy

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Royal Danish Naval Academy
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Aim

• 1) show how increasing professionalisation
  requirements nationally challenge the STANAG as a
  testing and teaching standard
• 2) explore question is drive towards
  professionalisation creating a schism between
  English for clearly defined professional purposes
  i.e. maritime/naval English and the general
  proficiency measurements of the STANAG and the
  tests backwash potential?

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Professionalisation

• 2006 Danish Government Globalisation Strategy
  make country more competitive internationally
• To achieve this, all higher education study
  programmes must meet international quality and
  relevance standards, the European Standards and
  Guidelines (ESG). http//acedenmark.eu/accreditat
  ion/why-and-how.html

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Professionalising the Danish Defence

• Officer academies accredited 2011
• Naval Academy offers two prof. BAs
• Naval Leadership and Operations
• Naval Leadership and Engineering

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Accreditation requirements

• level, quality and relevance according to Danish
  HE framework (Bologna quality assurance
  guidelines)
• knowledge, skills and competence taxonomy
• knowledge, skills and competence derived from,
  oriented towards and transferable to profession
• course content based on research, knowledge and
  practice within field

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Professionalising English

• Standard Training Certification and Watchkeeping
  (STCW) conventions for shipmasters and marine
  engineers
• Naval Leadership and Operations course content
  developed with future commissions in mind
• squadron feedback forum
• case-based, interdisciplinary scenarios
• 1 2 shift towards domain-specific English
  away from STANAG descriptors

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Further professionalisation initiatives

• 2012 Defence review
• Revised accreditation model to make useful the
  civilian education system and focusing training
  and education within the defence on core military
  subjects (Feb. 2013)

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The future

• Diploma in military leadership and strategy
• Recruit candidates with bacherlors degrees as
  well as able ratings
• RDNA course reduced from 58 to 28 months
• 50 reduction in English provision
• Deliver training/education just-in-time

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Complying with accreditation requirements

• ESP approach curriculum and syllabi as close to
  and relevant to the profession as possible to
  achieve as high a degree of knowledge and skills
  transfer to enable competent performance onboard
  navy vessels and later on in staff roles 
• Develop course content and materials based on
  existing job descriptions in collaboration with
  squadrons 
• Interdisciplinary integration with e.g.
  navigation, naval warfare, leadership and
  international politics
• English teachers as consultants in subjects where
  course materials are in English
• Case- and task-based learning in which
  learning/teaching takes place in e.g. a simulator

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Relevance of the STANAG?

• STANAG

• Prof. Bachelor/Diploma

• general as well as professional English
• measure English proficiency (non-military
  specific) of military personnel. (Tannenbaum
  Baron)
• educated, native speaker benchmark

• functional ability to perform specific,
  job-related tasks
• measure specific uses of English language among
  identified groups of people, such as doctors,
  nursesnaval officers (Tratnik Manent )
• professional FL learners/users in multi-cultural
  settings

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Re-placing the STANAG

• narrowing ESP/professional focus of accreditation
  model means that STANAG is losing relevance as a
  tool for testing as well as for providing input
  into teaching and syllabi design
• currently removing STANAG descriptors from
  revised course descriptions or editing them so
  they serve professional purposes only

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Potential weaknesses

• more heterogeneous intake may well lead to bigger
  differences in language proficiency
• time to focus on core maritime/naval skills only
• little time if any for general English/remedial
  work
• inadequate English language provision

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Officer of the competition state?

• abandoning goal of well-rounded, well- educated
  officers
• each individual becomes responsible for
  maintaining his/her market value as a human
  resource by acquiring the knowledge, skills,
  competencies needed to secure and remain in work
• language providers deliver strictly professional
  English just in time in an education marketplace
  (running sushi model)