Staff Officers Military English

On Monday September 13, fourteen students from two different nations came to SWEDINT to participate in the Military English course.

Military English 2010 Photo: SWEDINT

The ME is conducted twice a year. This time, students came from Armenia and Sweden and represented both civilian as well as military personnel. Even though the students work for the Armed Forces at various positions and have different backgrounds, they all have a common goal – to learn more English from a military perspective. The purpose of the course is to prepare individual, nationally trained staff officers and civilians from UN/NATO/PfP/EU/AU countries for assignments in a headquarters on a Peace Support Operation or as participants in multinational Command Post Exercises.

The ME course focuses on strategic directives and guiding documents, headquarters organisations and the tasks of different branches. It also provides an insight and understanding to the definitions used for the principles of Peace Support Operations as well as NATO Operational Planning Process. All in all it aims to broaden the participants’ range of military related vocabulary through various tasks, discussions and seminars.

Two of the instructors, Mr James Gilmour and Mr Luke Duckworth come from the Defence School of Languages in Beaconsfield, England. Their long experience of teaching English to foreign students at various levels is a benefit both for the students as well as for SWEDINT. The third instructor, Captain Hanna Jungwallius (SWE AF) has long experience in teaching English to personnel in the Swedish Armed Forces.

This will definitely be a very intensive one-week course with a steep learning curve, but hopefully also an excellent opportunity to get the taste of the world of multinational linguistics.

Course Director
Maj Matti YLINEN
SWEDINT