MSI Press Blog

  Achieving Native-Like Second Language Proficiency  (Speaking) by Betty Lou Leaver is a research-based catalogue of factors that would seem to predict ability to reach the highest level of foreign language proficiency and is based on common characteristics shared by more than 200 near-native speakers, identified by self-report, survey, and interviews by master testers. Following up on previous posts, one of the motivational frameworks considered was instrumental vs integrative motivation. Had there been an a priori hypothesis for motivational issues in this study, the interviewers would have hypothesized that integrative motivation would dominate among highly successful learners. The results, however, were very much the opposite. In fact, a very decisive 82% identified their motivation as instrumental, whereas only 38% identified theirs as integrative. (As with the extrinsic-intrinsic model, some interviewees reported motivation from both categories.) Instrumental Motivation...

  MSI Press has added to its collection of affiliated books, a self-published book edited by Boris Shekhtman, a prolific author of MSI Press books and books published by Cambridge University Press. Contributing authors include Dina Kupchanka (Specialized Language Training Center), Natalia Lord (Foreign Service Institute), and Svetlana Sibrina (Specialized Language Training Center).   To purchase this book on Amazon. click HERE . For more posts and Boris Shekhtman and his books, click HERE . For more posts about Dina Kupchanka, click HERE . For more posts on language learning, click HERE . To see more affiliated books and learn about affiliated status, click HRE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter.