Daily Excerpt: Individualized Study Plans for Very Advanced Students of Foreign Languages
excerpt from Individualized Study Plans for Very Advanced Students of Foreign Languages by Betty Lou Leaver Chapter Two The Need for an ISP at High Levels of Foreign Language Proficiency Achieving near-native competence generally does not come by serendipity, coincidence, accident, or “a fluke,” although occasionally (rarely) such things do happen. I know of several people who have said that high level proficiency just happened to them—but even so, it was only after many, many years of study and use of the foreign language in professional situations. Most high-level language users have reported spending much time in direct instruction, study abroad, and self-study (Leaver, 2003a). The average length of time taken by native-like speakers of nearly any foreign language, based on recent research, is 17 years (Leaver and Atwell, 2002). Some learners have been able to achieve this level, however, in much shorter periods of time. Most of these learners had a ...