MSI Press Blog

  Today's excerpt comes from  Communicative Focus  by Boris Shekhtman and Dina Kupchanka -  The Communicative Focus          We call the correlation between ideational and mechanical planes of speech Communicative Focus (CF). This term was introduced by Betty Lou Leaver and Boris Shekhtman (2002) in the book Developing Professional-Level Language Proficiency . CF convincingly reveals the communicative essence of a person's speech and shows that communicative quality of speech, first of all, depends on how automatic this person is in expressing his or her ideas.     This correlation may have different modes. The ideational and mechanical planes may coincide with each other, which makes CF completely automatic, and this coincidence means that ideational plan has enough controlled mechanical elements to express itself. The ideational plane and mechanical planes may not coincide with each other to this or that de...

    Today's excerpt comes from Communicative Focus  by Boris Shekhtman and Dina Kupchanka -  Communication between Native Speakers and Non-native Speakers and the Essence of Speech We are interested in communication between native and non-native speakers for one very important reason: this is the kind of communication for which all teachers are essentially preparing students. Regardless of the level of our students, whether they are beginners or already near-native speakers, if they want to use their second language, they nolens-volens enter this type of communication. We need to help them to participate in this communication with dignity and power and to close the gap between their language skills and those of native speakers. In order for us to prepare our students in this way, we must be knowledgeable about the specific nuances of verbal communication between native and non-native speakers.     The most obvious difference between the language perfor...

  Recently released - the audiobook for Communicative Focus  by Boris Shekhtman and Dina Kupchanka. In the current volume, the author describes in detail the theory and nature of the principles and practices used in his approach to language teaching. He is not afraid to talk about some aspects of language learning and teaching, such as the development of lexical and grammatical accuracy, as well as the need for memorization and the development of memory, that have been increasingly omitted from the classroom as a result of the rise in popularity of theories that debase their significance but which are very important, especially if students are to reach the highest level of proficiency. He also discusses some ideas, such as the unique nature of the connection between language and meaning that native speakers experience that non-native speakers must learn to deal with-in differing ways at differing levels of proficiency. His focus throughout is on communication and the nature of...

  Excerpt from Communicative Focus - Appendix. Table 2. Teacher’s Guidelines for Working with Student’s Repetitions     REQUIREMENTS     MISTAKES   RECOMMENDATIONS   1.   Set up the assignment clearly and keep your promise.   Instructor changed the assignment and did not inform the student about it, as a result the student did not understand what the instructor wanted him to do Every time a change is made  in the assignment, make the student aware of it, even if the change is seemingly insignificant.   2.   It is their repetition, not yours.   Instructor performs the repetition more times than the student himself or herself Present the expression once, at least twice and then let the student do the job   3.   Make the repetition ...

  Communicative Focus  was written through collaboration of Boris Shekhtman, who had left the Foreign Service Institute to open his own highly successful private school, using language teaching techniques that were quite unique but extremely effective, and Dina Kupchanka, a young teacher who taught for him.  The realization of the principles introduced in  Communicative Focus  had appeared earlier as actual classroom exercises in several publications, a book published by Cambridge University Press ( Developing Professional-Level Foreign Language Proficiency ),  How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately  (an immensely popular book published by MSI Press), and articles in the Journal for Distinguished Language Studies. The theory behind these activities had never been spelled quite so explicitly before (lack of room in the previous publications to include theory). Further, it took some time before the profession was ready to move on from teaching ...