Daily Excerpt: Individualized Study Plans for Very Advanced Learners of Foreign Languages (Leaver) - What is an ISP?


 


Chapter One
What is an ISP?

An Individualized Study Plan (ISP) is a tool to use in planning your lifelong language-learning endeavors. I emphasize “lifelong” here because the achievement of native-like proficiency is, indeed, an effort that takes many years, and if one wants to retain near-native proficiency, once achieved, one needs to continue one’s study for as long as that language is important in the career or personal interests of the individual. For many learners, the ISP is one of the most important tools at their disposal to achieve their high-proficiency goals. 

ISPs can take many forms. There is no particular format that is required. There is no particular place that they should be kept. The form and format of the ISP is every bit as individualized as the plan itself. Some folks like to keep a date book. Others prefer a checklist. Yet others like to use diaries. It all depends on the individual learner and his/her learning styles and personality types. 

Although this volume suggests a format, that is only for convenience of presentation. The format used here can be modified in any way you desire. There is not one format that works better than others. Whatever works for you (or if you are a teacher, for your students) is an adequate format for the plan. 

The ISP reflects the learning objectives, learning experiences, desires, style of learning, and financial/time possibilities of any given student (Leaver, 2003b). While many students and teachers consider ISPs essential for advanced students who are about to exceed some of the possibilities of language study in a classroom, they can be equally important for serious language students from the very beginning of language study. The nature of the ISPs is to provide cohesion to the language-learning experiences of any individual student. That means that everything in the ISP is another step toward the student’s ultimate goal. ISPs also typically provide a mechanism (or maybe more than one) for assessing progress on a periodic basis; otherwise, the plan would be much less effective. 

Most ISPs include some or all of the following. 

  • Courses; 
  • Study, work, and travel abroad; 
  • Independent study; 
  • Reading; 
  • Use of the Internet; 
  • Work with a native speaker; 
  • Developing friendships with speakers of the language; 
  • Writing to pen-pals (and/or friends and relatives); 
  • Practica and internships; 
  • Watching television; 
  • Listening to the radio and tapes; 
  • Becoming acquainted with music, arts, and dance; 
  • Foreign assignments; and 
  • Periodic assessment of progress. 

The ISP contents and structure, as discussed in this volume, contain all of these options. Those that are pertinent can be included by you in the worksheet-ISP that is found at the end of this volume.


For more posts about Betty Lou Leaver and her books, click HERE.


                                Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter

                          Follow MSI Press on TwitterFace Book, and Instagram.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

In Memoriam: Carl Don Leaver

A Publisher's Conversation with Authors: Book Marketing vs Book Promotion