Teaching and Learning to the Highest Levels of Language Proficiency - Sharings from the Journal of Distinguished Language Proficiency and More (Franke on Speaking Proficiency)

 


  


Available for download, article from JDLS 8: "Road Maps to Distinguished Speaking Proficiency" (Dr. Jack Franke, Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center)

Abstract:

Although study abroad is viewed in the United States as sine qua non, the study abroad experience is not a panacea to achieve distinguished foreign language speaking proficiency.  This study attempts to uncover how persistence, study abroad, motivation, and learner autonomy play into the pursuit of distinguished speaking proficiency.  Using the theoretical framework of complexity theory and phenomenological design, the study utilizes interviews of four educators at an institute in the western United States as the primary instrument of data collection.  This study investigates the roadmaps which successful foreign language educators have utilized to achieve distinguished speaking proficiency through interviews and documentary research. Data analysis of interviews with the participants reveals distinguished speaking proficiency was a highly personal pursuit, characterized by different motivations based on the choice of a foreign language, engagement in the target culture, grit, and time.  Overall, the participants were highly self-efficacious learners, many married to foreign-speaking spouses, who spent extended periods in the foreign culture and community.  The study provides possible roadmaps for students and for educators who wish to achieve near-native speaking proficiency in a foreign language.

Order HERE. 

---

We now have available for individual purchase each of the feature articles from issue 8 of the journal at a very accessible price and will make the feature articles available from other issues as time goes on. Check our webstore to see what we have at any given time. We will announce and link each of these individually in upcoming blog posts.

The Journal for Distinguished Language Studies is available by subscription. JDLS is a biennial journal, and it is easy for time to slip by and miss the next issue. Subscription will take care of that. Subscribe HERE and never miss a copy. (Publishes typically in December of even-numbered years.)

Also, don't believe Amazon's listing of previous issues of The Journal for Distinguished Language Studies as out of print. It is very much in print and available at the MSI Press webstore. Subscription service available as noted above, and issues 1-6 are on sale for $5 each!

Amazon is selling issues 7 and 8.

For more posts about the JDLS, click HERE.

If you have a post to contribute to the Thursday high-level-language-proficiency topic, we would love to see it. Please send it to editor@msipress.com.


Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter

Follow MSI Press on Twitter, Face Book, and Instagram. 

Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC?
Check out information on how to submit a proposal.

Planning on self-publishing and don't know where to start?
Our author au pair services will mentor you through the process.

Interested in receiving a free copy of this or any MSI Press LLC book
 in exchange for reviewing a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book?
Contact editor@msipress.com.

Want an author-signed copy of this book?
Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25)
and concurrently send a written request to orders@msipress.com.
Want to communicate with one of our authors?
You can!
Find their contact information on our Authors' Pages.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In Memoriam: Carl Don Leaver

Image
  1948-2021 It is with great sadness that MSI Press notes the death of Carl Leaver, CEO of the Press and typesetter and graphic designer par excellence . Many authors have expressed not only condolences but also a sense of legacy from covers he designed that they love.  Here is his obituary: On August 16, 2021, Carl Don Leaver of San Juan Bautista passed into eternal rest. A forester with the US Forest Service in Idaho and Montana, he turned to nature photography while working in the Bitterroot National Forest. His photographs graced national magazine covers and on a weekly basis the local paper of Hamilton, MT, the Ravalli Republican. He later worked on photography projects for the US Army (AFEES) and taught photography at the New York Institute of Technology in Amman, Jordan. His final career change led him to computer graphics and publishing as co-owner of MSI Press LLC; his many typeset books and book covers have helped MSI Press authors win a large number of awards over the years,
Read more

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

Image
It is Tuesday. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is--for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side.  Today's post looks at the difference between book marketing and book promotion, two terms that are frequently confused. Leading to the confusion is that some of the same activities are needed for both. In fact, good marketing is dependent upon good promotion. Perhaps the essential difference is that marketing focuses on sales, and promotion focuses on awareness --  noting that without awareness, sales generally do not happen. Book Marketing Book marketing includes promotion, sales, and increasing awareness of the availability of the book. It generally starts with a marketing plan that identifies the target audiences and selects marketing t
Read more