MSI Press Blog

  Excerpt from  Think Yourself into Becoming a Language Learning Super Star Tactics and Strategies   Deepening Your Knowledge No matter how you look at it, if you are going to get better at your language, you will need to broaden and deepen your knowledge. More words, more sophisticated words, more complex sentences, greater grammatical control, and a growing understanding of the culture are all important. This is not what we call proficiency, and someone with less knowledge but more skill at using what he or she knows can actually be more proficient in a language than someone who actually knows less. However, a broad vocabulary, a deep understanding of grammar, and a wide acceptance of cultural differences (and the knowledge of those differences) can set you up to become highly proficient once you develop the language skills you will need (reading, writing, listening, and speaking). Strategies So, how do you go about getting this broad vocabulary, deep understanding of g...

  Jim Bernhardt of the U.S. Department of State once coined the term “gee whiz culture” to describe the kind of cultural content most language programs teach—curious customs like Day of the Dead or quirky etiquette rules. These are fascinating, yes. But they’re not enough. For real language users—even those with modest proficiency—acquiring culture is as vital as acquiring grammar. How people speak and how they behave are inseparable. Without the cultural component, no matter how fluent you are, you’ll still be perceived as a foreigner. 🧬 What Does It Mean to “Acquire Culture”? It’s not about memorizing holidays or historical timelines. It’s about absorbing the unspoken rhythms of a people. It’s about knowing when to speak, when to pause, how to gesture, how to sit, how to blush. It’s about comfort, not just competence. I’ve been called a cultural chameleon. Not because I know everything about every culture I’ve lived in—but because I’ve learned to move within them natu...

  Excerpt from  Think Yourself into Becoming a Language Learning Super Star The Brain Scape in Language Learning There are some psychological phenomena that exist that are not exactly cognitive distortions but have a similar effect on learning capacity and performance. They might be called cognitive distractions, except that they also have a strong emotional component. Three representative “cognitive distractions” include tolerance of ambiguity, ego boundaries, and mental management. The uniqueness of this trio is that they are continua with strong poles and weak poles. The strong poles—ability to tolerate ambiguity, thin ego boundaries that allow you to approach the native speaker with comfort, and mental management that puts you in charge of your own performance. Tolerance of Ambiguity Do you feel lost if you cannot understand 100% of everything going on around you in your classroom, including every single word you hear? Do you need to know every work in a reading text, bro...