MSI Press Blog

  Most conversations about foreign language learning stop at “fluency.” It’s a soft, stretchy word—comfortable for marketing, vague enough to mean anything from ordering dinner to debating constitutional law. But there is a level beyond fluency, one that few people talk about and even fewer ever reach: ILR Level 4 , the realm of near‑native proficiency. This level is not about speaking well. It’s about thinking in the language with the same flexibility, nuance, and cultural intuition that you use in your first language. It’s the ability to read between the lines, to catch the joke before it’s explained, to shift registers without conscious effort, to navigate ambiguity without slowing down. It’s the level where the language stops being a tool and becomes a cognitive habitat. So who teaches to this level—and who actually needs to learn it? Who Teaches to ILR 4? (Almost No One) Reaching ILR 4 requires a very specific kind of teaching, and the truth is that most language progra...

  Today's meditation from  Weekly Soul: Fifty-two Meditations on Meaningful, Joyful, and Peaceful Living   by Dr. Frederic Craigie. -5-   Don’t ask what the world needs; ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.   -         Howard Thurman   Several years ago, I was in Chicago for a professional conference. Life-long baseball player, fan, and addict that I am, I never pass up an opportunity to see a major league game on the road. I took the Red Line to the Sox-35 th  Avenue stop for U. S. Cellular Field (where the White Sox play; it will always be “Comisky Park” to me) and got off with the crowd. On the platform was a small, thin, elderly man with Chinese features, playing a two-stringed fiddle (which I later learned is called an erhu) with the accompaniment of a small CD player. The music had a beat to it and was really moving along. His eyes were closed, ...

When the pandemic hit, many communities struggled with shortages, confusion, and fear. But in San Juan Bautista, something different happened. Farmers dropped off boxes of produce at the schoolyard. Volunteers — just a couple of people, no formal organization, except through coordination with the City Council — helped stack boxes, load boxes, and answer questions. Homemade masks appeared inside the produce boxes, sewn by hands no one ever identified. Colorful, different, fun. People drove up, collected what they needed, and went home. I did not need a box, but my neighbor did. I picked one up for her each week; no questions asked. No lines. No paperwork. No stigma. No panic. The local store never ran out of toilet paper. Or paper products of any kind. People bought what they needed at the moment. They left the rest for those who might need it. The city code enforcer (closest thing to law enforcement in town) passed out big cards to every family. Put a yellow card in the window if...