Teaching and Learning to the Highest Levels of Language Proficiency - Sharings from the Journal of Distinguished Language Proficiency and More (personal story - Dr. Neil Kubler)
Perhaps the most extraordinary and unique feature of the JDLS is the personal story at the start of each journal. In the latest journal, Dr. Cornelius Kubler of Smith College (and great fame in the Chinese-teaching field) delves into all the things he did and experienced that led him to near-native proficiency. Like many highly proficient speakers of less commonly taught languages, he had experience as a child with commonly taught languages. He grew up in a German-speaking family in Daytona Beach, Florida, and studied Spanish, French, and Latin in high school and Esperanto and Italian at the Y. Yes, he writes, "never in the world would I have imagined that I would end up majoring in Chinese and linguistics, test twice in Chinese at the S-4/R-4 level in the civil and foreign service of the U.S. State Department and use Chinese as my primary professional language throughout my two careers as a State Department official and college professor." You can read the full articl