Agency overview | |
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Formed | 1955 |
Employees | 10 officers |
Agency executive |
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Website | www.govtilr.org/ |
The Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) is an unfunded organization comprising various agencies of the United States federal government with the purpose of coordinating and sharing information on foreign language activities at the federal level.
The ILR's primary function is to act as an avenue for the varying participating federal agencies to keep abreast of modern methods and technology regarding the teaching of language, the use of language, and any other language related issues.
The ILR membership consists of a large number of people with professional interest in language with regards to the teaching, learning, or use of language in a professional context. About 60% of the membership are federal employees. [1]
Aside from general membership, the ILR has three standing special interests committees:
Committees are chaired by federal employees from five different agencies.
Additionally, the ILR hosts the ILR Special Interest Group (SIG) on the Center for Advanced Study of Language (CASL). CASL SIG meetings, unlike ILR plenary meetings, are not open to general membership, allowing only federal representatives in attendance.
Any interested person may attend unrestricted ILR plenary meetings and events, requiring only two days' advance registration via the ILR home page. To become an ILR member, a person must first join their mailing list. Joining a specific committee requires only notifying a co-chair of the committee involved, and regularly attending meetings. Further details are listed on the ILR website. Membership is free.
Plenary meetings are held monthly between September and June. Lectures and demonstrations on linguistic general interest topics are featured at every plenary meeting. Prior to each plenary meeting, each committee meets to discuss specific topics of interest. Some committee meetings are not open to general membership, due to coverage of certain topics of federal interest. These meetings' attendance restrictions are announced in advance.
Most plenary meetings boast between 75 and 100 attendees.
All officers of the ILR are volunteers who hold full-time federal positions elsewhere.
Office | Officer |
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ILR Coordinator and Chair of the Steering Committee | Dr. Scott McGinnis |
Co-chair, Testing Committee | Christina Hoffman |
Co-chair, Testing Committee | Inna Sabia |
Co-chair, Training Committee | Doug Gilzow |
Co-chair, Training Committee | John Samaha |
Co-chair, Translation and Interpretation Committee | Maria Brau |
Co-chair, Translation and Interpretation Committee | Teresa Salazar |
Co-chair, Culture Committee | Allison Greene-Sands |
Co-chair, Culture Committee | Ewa Zeoli |
Co-chair, UARC SIG | Marsha Kaplan |
Co-chair, UARC SIG | Stephanie Stauffer |
Webmaster | Dr. Bogdan B. Sagatov |
The Foreign Service Institute, the National Cryptologic School, and the Defense Language Institute lend additional minor clerical assistance.
The origins of the ILR can be traced back to 1955, when the Foreign Service Institute's Howard Sollenberger, the CIA's Clyde Sargent, and James Frith of the Air Force Language Program, conversed regarding the need for communication and coordination between federal agencies in training, policies, and practices of foreign languages.
Subsequent meetings included attendance by members of the local academic community as well as Charles Ferguson, Director of the Center for Applied Linguistics.
The ILR was formally institutionalized in 1973, after a study conducted by the General Accounting Office demonstrated the value of the organization.
Since the 1950s, the ILR has made a number of contributions to the field of linguistics, both for American and foreign linguists, including, but not limited to: [3]
The Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) is a scientific and professional organization for people working on natural language processing. Its namesake conference is one of the primary high impact conferences for natural language processing research, along with EMNLP. The conference is held each summer in locations where significant computational linguistics research is carried out.
Interpreting is a translational activity in which one produces a first and final target-language output on the basis of a one-time exposure to an expression in a source language.
The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment, abbreviated in English as CEFR, CEF, or CEFRL, is a guideline used to describe achievements of learners of foreign languages across Europe and, increasingly, in other countries. The CEFR is also intended to make it easier for educational institutions and employers to evaluate the language qualifications of candidates for education admission or employment. Its main aim is to provide a method of learning, teaching, and assessing that applies to all languages in Europe.
The Medical Library Association (MLA) is a nonprofit educational organization with more than 3,400 health-sciences information professional members.
The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) is the United States federal government's primary training institution for members of the U.S. foreign service community, preparing American diplomats as well as other professionals to advance U.S. foreign policy objectives overseas and in Washington. FSI provides more than 800 courses—including up to 70 foreign languages—to more than 225,000 enrollees a year from the U.S. Department of State and more than 50 other government agencies and the military service branches. FSI is based at the George P. Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center in Arlington, Virginia.
The Defense Language Proficiency Test (DLPT) is a battery of foreign language tests produced by the Defense Language Institute and used by the United States Department of Defense (DoD). They are intended to assess the general language proficiency of native English speakers in a specific foreign language, in the skills of reading and listening. An Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) is sometimes administered to Defense Language Institute students to establish the graduate's proficiency in speaking following training there, but it is not part of the DLPT.
International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL) is an organisation in the field of English language learning and teaching. It is based in Britain and was founded in 1967 as ATEFL, by W. R. (Bill) Lee, who also served as the organisation's first Chairman until 1984.
ILR may refer to:
Language proficiency is the ability of an individual to use language with a level of accuracy which transfers meaning in production and comprehension.
The Pimsleur Language Aptitude Battery (PLAB) was developed to predict student success in foreign language learning, or language learning aptitude, and for diagnosing language learning disabilities. It is published by the Language Learning and Testing Foundation.
On August 11, 2000, United States President Bill Clinton signed Executive Order 13166, "Improving Access to Services for Persons with Limited English proficiency". The Executive Order requires federal agencies to examine the services they provide, identify any need for services to those with limited English proficiency (LEP), and develop and implement a system to provide those services so LEP persons can have meaningful access to them. It is expected that agency plans will provide for such meaningful access consistent with, and without unduly burdening, the fundamental mission of the agency. The Executive Order also requires that the Federal agencies work to ensure that recipients of Federal financial assistance provide meaningful access to their LEP applicants and beneficiaries.
The U.S.–Russia Joint Commission on POWs/MIAs (USRJC) was established in 1992 by the presidents of the United States and the Russian Federation, George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin. The USRJC was established to determine the fates of the United States's and the Soviet Union's unaccounted-for service personnel from World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, Afghanistan and the Vietnam War, Laos and Cambodia.
The Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) is an advisory committee established by the United States Congress with the official mandate of promoting the fullest possible public access to a thorough, accurate, and reliable documentary record of significant U.S. national security decisions and activities. The Board is composed of nine individuals: five appointed by the President of the United States and one each appointed by the Speaker of the House, House Minority Leader, Senate Majority Leader, and Senate Minority Leader. Appointees must be U.S. citizens preeminent in the fields of history, national security, foreign policy, intelligence policy, social science, law, or archives.
Igor Korchilov is a top-level Russian-English conference interpreter who worked with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev from 1987 to 1990, a period that covered the Cold War era.
The Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs is a group within the executive branch of the U.S. government, and is responsible for promoting healthy outcomes for all youth, including disconnected youth and youth who are at-risk. The Working Group also engages with national, state, local and tribal agencies and organizations, schools, and faith-based and community organizations that serve youth.
The National Language Service Corps (NLSC) is a civilian Corps of multilingual volunteers who are readily available to serve the federal government by providing foreign language services as required. NLSC Members use their language skills to facilitate communications with other speakers of their language and to serve as a bridge to their community and the federal government. To date, Members have supported the government in assignments that have included interpretation, translation as well as providing cultural and regional knowledge and expertise to government agencies.
The Interagency Language Roundtable scale is a set of descriptions of abilities to communicate in a language. It is the standard grading scale for language proficiency in the United States's Federal-level service. It was originally developed by the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR), which included representation by United States Foreign Service Institute, the predecessor of the National Foreign Affairs Training Center (NFATC).
A foreign area officer (FAO) is a commissioned officer from any of the six branches of the United States Armed Forces who is a regionally focused expert in political-military operations. Such officers possess a unique combination of strategic focus and regional expertise, with political, cultural, sociological, economic, and geographic awareness. Foreign language proficiency is necessary in at least one of the dominant languages in their specified region.
The Deutsches Sprachdiplom der Kultusministerkonferenz (engl.: German Language Certificate of the Education Ministers Conference) is an official German language certificate of the German education authorities and the Foreign Office (Germany) certifying levels of knowledge of the German language in schools worldwide. The program, originally intended to stimulate interest in German, has run since 1973 and, different from the equivalent certificates of the Goethe Institute, is meant for students at officially recognized schools abroad, either Diploma schools or German Schools Abroad. The program prepares the participants for a study in Germany in matters of language and cultural issues. It finishes with an exam and a certification on language competencies on level A2/B1 or B2/C1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. The certificate together with national school leaving examinations entitles foreign students to apply for university entry in Germany.
Founded as the Institute of Linguists in 1910, the Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL) received its Royal Charter in 2005, and is the UK's not-for-profit Royal Charter body for languages and linguists.