MSI Press Blog

  The Role of Travel Abroad in Second Language Acquisition Travel abroad, even short-term, can ignite linguistic growth in ways that textbooks and apps rarely achieve. 1. The Power of Contextual Encounters Travel compresses experience. In a single week, a traveler might navigate airports, order meals, ask directions, and negotiate prices—all in the target language. Each interaction is brief but charged with purpose. Unlike classroom drills, these exchanges are anchored in real stakes: hunger, curiosity, politeness, or pride. That immediacy transforms passive vocabulary into active communication. 2. Listening as Survival When you travel, comprehension becomes a survival skill. You listen differently—not for grammar, but for meaning. You learn to catch tone, gesture, rhythm, and context clues. This heightened attention trains the ear faster than any listening exercise because misunderstanding has real consequences. Travel teaches humility and adaptability—the twin engines of fluency....

  Excerpt from Harnessing the Power of Grief : What other cultures can teach us   Proximity to other cultures offers opportunities to adopt much of their wisdom into our own culture. Paul C. Rosenblatt, a psychologist, tells us that cultures are not static. They are in a state of change (some more than others) with many individual differences. [Rosenblatt] [1] A Buddhist, a Jewish person, an African American, a Protestant, will grieve in the unique ways of their cultures. Variations exist among subgroups (based on lifestyle and income, religious variations within and between denominations), intermarriage, and cross-cultural influences. Consequently, we all are bumping into one another, learning from one another, loving one another, reading about one another, and interacting with one another.   Funerals and memorial services in Western culture tend to stand alone, like shooting stars in the night. They may be memorable and beautiful, but then we are left with the ...

If you have read this book and have enjoyed it, please consider leaving a review as a comment on this post (and sharing it as well at whatever sites work for you -- Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Lirbary Thing, your own blog, or any site that seems pertinent). We know you have many choices of books; we appreciate your choosing Muna's book. Unfortunately, since this book has been published posthumously, we cannot put you in touch with Muna, but if you would like to communicate with her mother, sister, or son, all of whom helped with the preparation of this book, send a request to info@msipress.com, and we will make the connection for you. (This book was released in July.)