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. 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 among first

  I wish I knew more about all the thinking and emotions that went into Joanna Romer's A Woman's Guide to Self-Nurturing . Unfortunately, after publishing ten books with us -- all of them respected and many of them beloved -- she passed away quite unexpectedly. One of her co-authors found her on the floor when she dropped by; Joanna had died of a heart attack, with no one else around to help. After producing two books on bereavement, which reflected both her personal experience and her research as a professor of journalism, Joanna asked if we would be interested in publishing a book that she felt compelled to write -- a book for women, focusing on their mental health and comfort, based on psychology and spirituality. It some ways, it seemed like she, not all that long ago divorced, was actually wanting to write a book for herself and then share it. Usually, we tell would-be authors to move their own needs aside and focus on the needs and interests of their readers. However, Joa