MSI Press Blog

  Today's excerpt comes from  Achieving Native-Like Second Language Proficiency  (Speaking) by Betty Lou Leaver. Factor 2: Onset of Language Learning        The younger the language learner when he or she begins study, the more likely that learner is to reach native and near-native levels of foreign language proficiency. So goes the convention wisdom—and the conventional folly. What the data from this study show is that learning foreign languages in elementary school years is a positive thing; however, it will not bring anyone to a Level 4 any faster than learning the language as an adult. Indeed, in some areas, given their greater cognitive development and already existing linguistic system(s), adult learners, hour for hour, are generally much more efficient learners than children. Researchers sometimes are “fooled” because children are much better at eliminating a foreign language than are adults, and they appear to learn more language faster si...

  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. Contrary to popular belief, far from all the interviewees, including the polyglots, were good classroom language students. One remembers receiving a D in a college Japanese course and being told to give up on languages and take an easier course. In a bygone day (clearly), a French professor threw a book at a current Level-4 speaker of French in exasperation at her then very strongly non-Parisian accent. A near-native speaker of Russian got C after C in college Russian courses and was gently encouraged to consider other languages. Many of the interviewees reported frustration with their early language-learning e...

  Today's excerpt comes from  Achieving Native-Like Second Language Proficiency  (Speaking) by Betty Lou Leaver. INTRODUCTION A Research Study on High-Level Language Achievement         The purposes of the research study, described in this volume, were (1) to assess the behavioral aspects of Level 4 language proficiency, (2) to determine the most important factors that contribute to reaching that level, and (3) to examine the nature of Level 4 language from two perspectives: the teachers who teach it and the users who apply it in their daily and professional lives. This volume reports on purpose #2 (determining the important factors that lead to attainment of Level 4 proficiency) specifically for the skill of speaking.             In this study, the researchers interviewed in depth foreign-language users who had developed one or more language skills in one or more languages to ...

  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. The study, following common thought, expected to find a commonality among the highly proficient language users in age of onset, i.e. that beginning as a child results in higher proficiency. However, that was not the case. Age of onset did not matter much except for naturally correct pronunciation picked up by children (though often that was affected by interlanguage contact that happens in immigrant situations) that had to be acquired with great effort by adult learners.  The important characteristic in terms of age of onset did not appear to be child vs adult but (1) whether the learner had been exposed t...

  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 am...

  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 f...