What do we know about individuals who reach native-like levels in a foreign language?
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 vicarious motivation. This complex type of mixed motivation was reported by a subset of individuals who were married to a native speaker of their foreign language. Of the roughly 40% of the group with foreign spouses, slightly more than 1/3 described what might be called “vicarious motivation.” The external driver was a relative, and, on the surface, the motivation to learn the language well for the spouse or children would seem to be an extrinsic motivation, perhaps not all that unlike motivation that comes from a teacher or ment...