The CIOR Language Academy is now inviting participants to apply to attend the 2009 Language Academy in Sofia, Bulgaria.
The Interallied Confederation of Reserve Officers (CIOR) is a non-political, nongovernmental, non-profit confederation of national reserve associations of the signatory countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). CIOR objectives include increasing the defense capability of the North Atlantic Alliance by maintaining close liaison with national defense organizations, fostering uniformity in the duties, rights, training and deployment of reserve officers of the Alliance and developing relationships among Alliance reserve officers in order to enhance professional knowledge and mutual understanding.
It is self-evident that communication among nations is vital to maintaining peaceful relations and that within the context of the Alliance, the greater the level of English and French comprehension and articulation, the greater the effectiveness of Alliance communications.
The primary mission of the Language Academy is to teach English and French as foreign languages (EFL/FFL), by means of reservists instructing reservists of PfP, neutral European and NATO nations. The Academy offers intensive courses teaching EFL and FFL at 3 proficiency levels. Courses are designed to develop listening comprehension and pronunciation skills. Conversation practice uses topical discussions in a military context. Learning objectives include expanding the student's ability to interact intelligibly in a military context, in social situations, ensuring that the student is understood by native speakers with minimal distraction of speech delivery, expanding the student's ability to understand what the student hears in a military context, participating in group discussions, speaking with increased fluency and minimal hesitation, comprehending short class lectures, comprehending the gist of conversational English and French, expanding vocabulary in both written and spoken form and improving skill and confidence in speaking and listening in English and French.
As a secondary mission, the Language Academy teaches cultural and military history as a supplement to its language program. The culture/history of the host nation is normally provided by a host nation guest lecturer and portions of the curriculum address CIOR background, philosophy of NATO and PfP as well as the United Nations Peacekeeping.
The Academy convenes once annually for a period of two weeks. It also convenes at other times during the year for one-week refresher courses. CLA 09 will convene July 24, 2009 through August 6, 2009 at the National Military Training Center, Charalitza (Sofia), Bulgaria.
Further details are available at www.cior.net
