MSI Press Blog

Precerpt (excerpt prior to publication) from My 20th Language by Betty Lou Leaver, Ph.D. -- Introduction In the interest of full disclosure, I am not a polyglot—although I have formally and informally studied twenty languages, the most recent being Indonesian, which I undertook over a three-week period at the age of seventy-four. After this intensive study, I spent four weeks in Indonesia conducting faculty development in English for limited English speakers at a government institution. During my time there, I found myself needing Indonesian in countless practical situations: communicating with drivers, navigating train stations between Bandung and Jakarta, checking into hotels, and—perhaps most memorably—combining various nouns with "tidak berfungsi" (does not work) when dealing with hotel staff in Bandung. I helped my co-teacher order at restaurants, asked for directions (or more typically, how to get back to where I started, given my exceptional directional challenges),...

  Precerpt (excerpt prior to publication) from My 20th Language by Betty Lou Leaver, Ph.D. --  Chapter 1 The Incredibly Important Role of University Studies By the time I graduated from Penn State University shortly after my twenty-first birthday, I was definitively fluent in five languages by any reasonable definition of fluency: English, French, German, Russian, and Spanish, listed in order of proficiency at that time (though today Russian would rank right after English). I had completed advanced courses in literature, stylistics, linguistics—including morphology, syntax, and advanced grammar—and composition in all of them. I had also taken teaching methods in Spanish under a professor widely considered the best in foreign language pedagogy. My proficiency extended well beyond basic communication. I could write essays, poetry, and fiction in all five languages, tailoring my language use to specific audiences. I could read virtually anything and grasp cultural implicatio...

Precerpt (excerpt prior to publication) from My 20th Language by Dr. Betty Lou Leaver --  First Language Literacy: The Lifelong Launchpad A foundational truth in my lifelong language journey is this: literacy in one’s native language shapes the success of all language learning that follows. Literacy builds the internal architecture of language awareness—structure, logic, rhythm, and flexibility. Those who develop high literacy in their first language possess a powerful springboard for mastering others. This difference becomes strikingly clear when comparing institutional outcomes. I served as a leader in both the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) and the Defense Language Institute (DLI), where language instruction is intensive and time-bound. While students at both schools receive nearly the same number of classroom hours, the proficiency expectations differ significantly: FSI graduates are trained to reach professional fluency, while DLI students typically aim for working profi...