MSI Press Blog

  Today's story behind the book tells the tale behind a 4-volume series of books: Teaching and Learning to Near-Native Levels of Language Proficiency ,  edited by: Volume 1. Betty Lou Leaver & Boris Shekhtman Volume 2. Richard Robin & Inna Dubinsky Volume 3. Inna Dubinsky & Donna Bain Butler Volume 4. Donna Bain Butler & Yalun Zhoua   From the publisher --  In the early years of the Coalition of Distinguished Language Centers , little was known about how to achieve near-native levels of foreign language proficiency. In fact, that was the reason the CDLC was founded -- to research and promulgate ways to help learners achieve these very high levels of proficiency. The CDLC began with annual conferences, which attained a certain level of popularity. Word of mouth was working; grants were acquired; information was coming. But it was not being codified. A decision was made to look into publishing some of the work of the CDLC, which is actually how MSI Press LLC was esta

  It is Tuesday. Time to tall turkey. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is--for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side. Today, we step away from our weekly format to tell a couple of stories that might be revealing and helpful to authors who think that the only ways to get a book published are through the help of a literary agent, direct contact with a publisher, or self-publishing. Likely, very few authors think they might be contacted by a publisher and asked to write a book. But it does happen. How it happens, though, tends to be an "oh, by the way" that comes up as a publisher's need or as a publisher's insight about opportunity. Thre examples come from our publishing house.  When the pandemic broke out, there seemed

Excerpt from Practices That Work by Thomas Jesus Garza.  Be Sensitive to Learning Styles   Betty Lou Leaver (Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center) Madeline Ehrman (Foreign Service Institute) Teachers working with language learners at all levels have for some decades now recognized that learners have specific sensory and cognitive preferences when it comes to learning and specific ways of interacting with classmates. These individual differences can be very important both in positive and negative ways in the language process, the significance of which may change as one progresses up the ladder of proficiency. One phenomenon that has been observed by language teachers and their learners over time is the “tortoise and hare” syndrome. Learners who are painfully accurate—and therefore slow— in the beginning of language study often outdistance their faster peers who can plateau at the Advanced/Superior threshold because they have become comfortable with being