Armed Forces News

A new language test scheduled to roll out in October will better measure language fluency in real-world situations, the Defense Department’s senior language official said July 13. The new test is the fifth generation of the Defense Language Proficiency Test, a battery of tests that assesses native English speakers’ reading and listening skills in a wide range of foreign languages, said Gail H. McGinn, principal DoD deputy for plans. The computer-based DLPT 5 test will be more challenging than previous language tests, said McGinn, with longer passages and, in some cases, more than one question for each passage. The new test, along with higher language proficiency pay, are keys to the Defense Language Transformation Roadmap, a major initiative to develop foreign language and cultural expertise among its military and civilian members. Congress recently authorized increasing the cap on language proficiency pay from $300 to $1,000.