A second language, or third, fourth, fifth language etc. , must be used to be retained. How many of us have had SLT and a year later could still receive the same marks on the evaluation? The problem with the way the current SLT is done is that the majority of people take it for one reason only: to improve their PER score and merit listing. It is a tick in the box. Therefore, those individuals who have the time to get it, get advanced over the people who are too busy, and quite possibly more deserving.
However, there is a need to have senior leadership at both the Officer and NCM level to be bilingual. And I agree that some individuals need to be immersed in the language to pick it up, and then need to practice it constantly to keep it. Others will have a natural ability and be able to take a course and then recall it when required. Maybe we need to score the second language marks differently on PERs. After initial SLT, the longer a member keeps a functional level in their second language without additional training gets a higher score on the merit board. This would at least show an attempt to keep up second language skills, even if it is self study.
I also wonder why if all province's, with maybe the exception of Quebec, have mandatory second language training in their school systems, so many soldiers don't have enough French to understand the Vandoo Cpl giving them orders? Have we just identified a huge waste of taxpayers money? :