MSI Press Blog

  Transformative language learning and teaching goes beyond skill acquisition—it reshapes learners’ perspectives, identities, and agency, while typical proficiency-focused teaching emphasizes measurable outcomes like grammar, vocabulary, and fluency.rs explore new cultural identities, challenge assumptions, and develop empathy across differences. Key Characteristics Seeks deep personal change—learners experience cognitive dissonance , resolve it, and emerge with altered perspectives, identities, or ways of being. Learners are agents of their own transformation, engaging in reflection, dissonance, and resolution. Teacher is a mentor in the Carl Rogers sense—creating conditions for growth, trust, and self-discovery. Evidence of changed perspectives, reflective writing , portfolios , or projects that show growth in identity and worldview . Transformative approaches recognize that language learning is not just about communication—it’s about  becoming . Learners explore ...

    Today's publisher's pride is not a book we published, since it is not among the lines we publish and is targeted to an academic audience that we do not service in particular (coincidentally, yes, but not by plan or purpose). However, a couple of MSI Press authors appear among the editors, so, in support, we assist in promoting the book as an affiliate book. (See information about our  affiliate program .) And the book is? The recently released tome,  Open Architecture Curricular Design  (Corin, Leaver, and Campbell, eds.), published by Georgetown University Press. Currently, #94 in foreign language education books, it started out at #1 when it was released in July and has appeared in the Amazon top 100 list on multiple occasions. book description A guide to a textbook-free approach to world languages curriculums that will improve learning outcomes Open architecture curricular design (OACD) is a textbook-free curricular design framework for teaching and learn...

  When I think about English as my first language, I don’t just think of grammar lessons or vocabulary lists. I think of the way we actually spoke. Every family, every region, every community has its own idiolect—the personal flavor of speech—and its own dialect, shaped by geography and culture. Growing up in New England, I learned early that the way we spoke wasn’t always the way we were expected to write. In school, teachers corrected our spelling and word order, guiding us toward Standard English. But at home and in the community, we kept our own rhythms and sounds. We didn’t “park our car in Harvard Yard.” We “pahked owah cah in Hahvid Yahd.” That distinction mattered. In writing, dialects and idiolects were often erased, replaced by the standard language that carried authority in textbooks, exams, and professional life. Yet in speech, they remained alive, carrying identity, humor, and belonging. My dialect was a reminder that language is not just rules—it is culture, heritag...

  English was my first language, the one I absorbed without effort as a child. It was the language of my family, my community, and my earliest immersion in the world. I didn’t study it at first; I lived inside it. Every year, my understanding deepened as I listened, spoke, and eventually read and wrote. When I entered school, English became not just the language I spoke but the subject I studied. Teachers corrected my spelling, my grammar, and my word order. I learned that sentences had structure, that verbs carried tense, and that word placement could change meaning entirely. Grammar became a framework I could lean on, even if I didn’t realize at the time how valuable it would be later. That foundation in English proved indispensable when I began learning other languages. With Germanic languages, I found familiar ground in the shared grammar framework. With Romance languages, the gift of 1066—the Norman Conquest—was still alive in English. So many words had already crossed i...

  We were 20 American professors of Russian on a Soviet bus, heading northeast from Yerevan toward Lake Sevan. The trip was supposed to be simple: two hours, one lake, and a KGB minder named Liliya to make sure we didn’t stray. But the road had its own ideas. About an hour in, we passed a sign for Charentsavan. The bus driver pulled over to the side of the road, turned to one of the professors with whom he had struck up a friendly rapport, and said, “Georgii, so mnoi.” Georgiy followed without hesitation, and the two disappeared into a nearby bazaar. Liliya’s reaction was immediate. “You must not follow,” she said, her voice tight. “This is a closed city.” Then, she ran after them, coat flaring, shoes kicking up dust from the road. We waited a moment. Then, as if on cue, we scattered. Into the market we went—curious, amused, and slightly rebellious. There were onions, bread, eggplant, and the quiet rhythm of a working-class town. No one stopped us. Back on the bus, the driver was t...