1. Name, Rank, Country Duty Title Date of Briefing
BILC Seminar
Helsinki, Finland
4-8 Oct 2015
Beyond NATO… Beyond the BILC…
Beyond your wildest dreams!!!
Beyond NATO… Beyond the BILC…
Beyond your wildest dreams!!!
MICHAEL ADUBATO
presents
Title of Brief
Beyond NATO… Beyond the BILC… Beyond your wildest dreams!!!
Name, Rank, Country
Duty Title
Date of Briefing
SECURITY CLASSIFICATION

2. What is…
The of
Things to come…

3. The Shape of things to come…)

4. The SHAPE of things to come…
“the way the future is likely to develop” – oxforddictionaries.com
“the form or style that is likely to develop or be popular in the future” – dictionary.cambridge.org
“the future of all things SLTC associated” – Mike Adubato

5. What is NATO
NATO/NATO HQ is located in Brussels and there are a LOT of committees and other commands under NATO. (Phil Turner is our NATO man; I’m just the ACO guy!) The main military commands are ACT – Allied Command Transformation and ACO – Allied Command Operations Gen Breedlove, US AF SACEUR

6. The SHAPE Language Testing Centre
We are basically a safety net
We are the ONLY language testing center in ALL of NATO
We are a section manned by two personnel; “yours truly” and my colleague, Chrystelle Petitjean (Belgian civilian)
Our main job is to verify whether or not individuals assigned to ACO/SHAPE meet the language requirements as outlined in their Job Descriptions (JDs)

7. But our net seems to have a hole in it!

8. IAW SHAPE Directive 75-4: ALL newcomers should report to the SLTC with a copy of their language certificate within 30 days after their arrival at SHAPE – but the majority of them do not!
SLTC then has to track these military officers and NCOs down to remind them of their responsibilities
This is very time-consuming and of course it is impossible to track down all when you’re not sure who/where they are

9. The sad thing is –
Some of the nations (we contact their National Mil Rep office) are unsupportive/unsympathetic of our problem and offer little assistance in getting their personnel to comply with SD 75-4

10. EXAMPLES -
NMRs have been contacted on many occasions to remind them to remind their personnel to report to the SLTC
NMRs have been informed that their personnel should have certificates that state when they were tested and not when the certificate was signed

11. EXAMPLE OF NOT FOLLOWING THE RULES:
A colonel shows up with a certificate that has no test date but a “signed by the commandant” date (signed Spring 2015)
I informed him of the situation and asked him when he actually took the test. He said “about 5 years ago.”
Told him that he had to take the test. He signed up for it but also reported to his NMR that they are not complying with SHAPE policy

12. NMR’S SOLUTION:
“None of our military personnel are authorized to take an English test at SHAPE!”

13. But there is a directive in place, a contact that says that nations have agreed and will abide by these directives!

14. Sooooooooooooo… I contact my Branch chief (LTC, BEL AF)
Who contacts the CDR, BSG (COL, US AR)
Who contacts the DOM (BGen, BEL AR)
Who hopefully contacts the NMR in question
Who will most likely tell him “NO!”
Going through this “chain of command” has often dragged on for months with no results on other issues

15. ANOTHER EXAMPLE
LTC X fails the writing part of the test so must re-test 4 months later.
Two months later (than the 4 months) I finally get him on the phone (he never replied to VM messages, s, etc)
Said that it was useless to re-take the test because “you are going to fail me again anyway”
I contacted his NMR (Commodore) who said that he preferred that his deputy take care of the problem
The deputy was told by LTC X that we at the SLTC were very disrespectful to him because we sent his negative test results to his EXO before sending to him…

16. Etc, etc…

17. Another example
Just had a Belgian NCO come to test last week. He needs 3322 for his job.
He says, “I need to speak and listen at Level 3 but my (X nation) colleague always asks me to answer the phone because he doesn’t understand and he has a 3323 profile!”

18. Here we go again!!! ANOTHER EXAMPLE:
MAJ L. is assigned to the counter-intelligence team at SHAPE
He presents his national certificate: 2222
He needs: 3333
His command doesn’t seem to feel that he needs a test (although he is an interrogator – with 2222?!)
His NMR said that if he was required to test that they would remove him from the post.
Here we go again!!!

19. PROBLEMS
There are five (5) Major positions that require 4343 (although nobody is sure why)
Spoke with MAJ F., French Army who failed his entry test
“I was told not to worry about it because they will keep me regardless.”
“They want to keep my profile 4343, otherwise they are afraid that they will get somebody with an SLP 2 profile.”

20. MORE EXAMPLES
One nation has a national directive that states that if you score lower on your most recent test that you will keep your old test results!
One nation, it is rumored, fills out language certificates at the NMR’s office that show exactly what the individual needs IAW the JD!
One nation (on separate occasions) re-issued a language certificate for a couple individuals after presenting ones that did not meet the JD’s SLP.
“Our mistake; we gave you the wrong one!”

21. We are the only testing center in NATO.
NATO HQ – IS/IMS just do not bother with STANAG testing, although IS uses some “strange” test (not STANAG 6001) for civilian recruitment purposes
ACT – they are the part of NATO responsible for training and spend money for this purpose (BILC visits to nations for language testing/training assistance) but can not even ascertain the language levels of their own personnel
BUT! – testing and language training is a national responsibility!!

22. 2015 Testing @ SHAPE – Jan to Sept
Number of tests: 146
(29 are volunteer tests)
Entry tests: 69
an Entry test is the initial test that a newcomer takes
Re-tests: 48
taken 4 months after the entry test (if necessary)

23. 2015 Testing @ SHAPE – Jan to Sept
Number of tests passed: 41 = 28%
Entry tests passed: 35 = 50%
an Entry test is the initial test that a newcomer takes
Re-tests passed: 6 = 12%

24. Language certificates for 2015:
79 received by the SLTC
Of those received, 27 were invalid (36%) because they did not match the required SLP on the JD
So the BIG question…
WHY WERE THESE PEOPLE EVEN SENT TO SHAPE?!!?

25. According to J1, SHAPE:
There are approximately 3500 personnel working at SHAPE (includes from native speaking nations)
Turnover each year is approximately one-third
Which to me means that there are still a LOT out there who need to be tested or present their national language certificate but are hiding within the halls of SHAPE

26. What level is needed to work at SHAPE?
Whatever it says in the JD!
But what do you really need?
It depends on your job
ALL officers require 3333, while COL’s require 4343
Senior NCOs require 3322 (and sometimes 3333)
Junior NCOs require 2222 (there are not many of these!)

27. AD 45-1, 3-2a:
Test results should be current and dating back to a maximum of 3 years. Prior to posting and at national expense, nations should carry out language testing as necessary upon personnel being nominated for ACO positions.
This means that the language certificate should reflect when the test was taken and not when the certificate verifying these levels was signed.
As of 1 April 2015 certificates that do not show the test date and are not in English or French will not be accepted, meaning that the individual will be tested at SHAPE.

28. Sooooooooooooooooooo…
Nations are training and testing their military personnel IAW STANAG 6001
Some are; some are NOT
I get to see those with 4444 profiles who struggle with the language
I get to hear the complaints from military officers who are baffled that their colleagues have 4343 or 3333 from their nations when they cannot understand what they are saying or understand their s or letters

29. “Don’t bust your arm patting Retired Long Branch HS math teacher &
yourself on the back!”
Mr. D. Mundy
Retired Long Branch HS math teacher &
soccer coach

30. There is a disconnect somewhere
Your grades are too high or they are being changed in order to meet the mandatory SLP
Military personnel are STILL being sent to NATO although they are not linguistically qualified for such an assignment
A NATO ASSIGNMENT IS NOT WHERE YOU SEND YOUR MILITARY PERSONNEL TO LEARN ENGLISH!!!

31. Linguistically, is this…

32. Questions?