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  Achieving Native-Like Second Language Proficiency  (Speaking) by Betty Lou Leaver is a research-based catalogue of factors that would seem to predict ability to reach the highest level of foreign language proficiency and is based on common characteristics shared by more than 200 near-native speakers, identified by self-report, survey, and interviews by master testers. One of those common characteristics turned out to be tenacity in study. Some of these learners struggled in the bigger, but they never gave up. This motivation was mentioned more often than instrumental and integrative motivation, the widely recognized framework posed decades ago by Gardner and Lambert and still prevalent among language educators. Instrumental motivation was a high second. Sometimes, the instrumental motivation was for reasons of a job; other times it was to be able to communicate with newly acquired relatives. Integrative motivation was not strong at Level 4 though it was reported as strong among first

  Achieving Native-Like Second Language Proficiency (Speaking) by Betty Lou Leaver is a research-based catalogue of factors that would seem to predict ability to reach the highest level of foreign language proficiency and is based on common characteristics shared by more than 200 near-native speakers, identified by self-report, survey, and interviews by master testers. One of those common characteristics turned out to be the social environment in childhood. Nearly all survey respondents reported growing up in a bilingual or multilingual home or community. The conjecture is that having been surrounded by other languages, (1) additional sounds (not present in the native language) lodged in the brain for later use (whereas, typically, unused sounds disappear around age 15 or even earlier) and (2) the concept of another language as a form of communication facilitated the embrace of any other language later not as a system of words and grammar rules to be learned but rather as a tool for e

Today's fortune cookie is associated with Achieving Native-Like Second Language Proficiency by Betty Lou Leaver. For more posts about our foreign language publications, click HERE .                                    This book is on discounted sales at the MSI Press webstore . 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 . 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 .    

  Factor 1: Childhood Experiences         One somewhat surprising statistic that emerged from the interviews was that all of those learners who had reached level 4 had become acquainted with foreign languages very early in their life. That does not necessarily mean that they began studying those languages. In many cases, languages other than their first language were used in the family or community, and while the language learners themselves may not have picked up any of those languages well enough to speak them, they did gain one very important understanding that stood them in good stead throughout their days of subsequent language study: Languages are not exotica but rather everyday tools for communication. The venues in which multiculturalism was met by the interviewees in this study included home, community, school, and work. Any one of these venues seemed to be sufficient to trigger the concept of “language as a tool” or “language as communication” that created the facility ultim

  From the author: The content of this book was the outcome of work and research conducted under the auspices of the Coalition of Distinguished Language Centers, the US Department of State's Foreign Service Institute, the Defense Language Institute, and the National Foreign Language. Some of the results of that research was included in the Journal for Distinguished Language Studies and in Developing Professional Foreign Language Prodiciency (Leaver & Shekhtman, Cambridge University Press). The decision to write this book, in particular, came about as the result of a grant by the CCC of the National Association of Teachers of English to the author and colleagues at the University of Jordan and the New York Institute of Technology's campus in Amman to determine the variables that led to the acquisition of near-native skills in writing . The results of that particular research was shared in a series of talks across the USA and Jordan and in the Journal for Distinguished Lan

  Excerpt from Achieving Native-Like Second Language Proficiency PREFACE Contrary to popular thought in some quarters, learning languages to very high levels of proficiency, i.e. those very close to those of native speakers, is, indeed, possible. Not only is it possible, it is done on a routine basis by a number of learners, not only in other countries, but in the United States , as well. True, the numbers in the United States are not large, but they are sufficient enough to show that it can be done here, as well as in countries of Europe , Eurasia , Latin America , and elsewhere. Further, there are some very skilled teachers quietly producing these levels of proficiency also on a regular basis.       The problem is not the ability to teach to native-like levels of proficiency in direct instruction programs or the ability to learn to native-like levels of proficiency, given the appropriate help and experience. Rather, the problem lies in the all-too-pervasive mindset that high leve