MSI Press Blog

  At Level 3, you can speak clearly, confidently, and even eloquently. But a native speaker listens not just to what you say—but how you say it. Take French. You're worn out. You say, "Je suis fatigué." Correct? Absolutely. Students learn that at very early levels in their textbooks and classrooms. Native-sounding? Not quite.  In a casual context, a native speaker might say: “J’ai un coup de barre.” — I hit a wall. “Je suis crevé.” — I’m beat. “Je suis au bout.” — I’m at the end of my rope. These expressions signal fatigue—but they also signal insider status. They say: I don’t just know French. I live it. 📌 Why This Matters “Je suis fatigué” marks you as someone who learned French in a textbook or classroom setting. “J’ai un coup de barre” suggests you heard it in a café, in a story, in a moment of laughter or complaint. The difference isn’t just semantic. It’s social fluency—the ability to match tone, context, and culture. 🚧 The Level 3 Trap: Lexical ...

  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. One of those common characteristics turned out to be tenacity in study. Some of these learners struggled in the bigger, but they never gave up. This motivation was mentioned more often than instrumental and integrative motivation, the widely recognized framework posed decades ago by Gardner and Lambert and still prevalent among language educators. Instrumental motivation was a high second. Sometimes, the instrumental motivation was for reasons of a job; other times it was to be able to communicate with newly acquired relatives. Integrative motivation was not strong at Level 4 though it was reported as strong am...