MSI Press Blog

  Joining our other volumes of this journal -- as well as our other respected foreign language books -- is Volume 7 of the Journal for Distinguished Language Studies . Volume 7 represents a gap year, as the Journal picks up issuance with a new publisher, MSI Press LLC. The purpose of the  Journal for Distinguished Language Studies  (ISSN 1547-7819) is to provide a forum for exchanging information about teaching to and reaching near-native foreign language proficiency for teachers, learners, and professional language users. Areas of interest include research, theory, and practical application. The  Journal for Distinguished Language Studies  has been published annually since 2003. Issue 7 is an exception to the publication schedule and is intended as a bridge issue between the early years, 2003-2010, and the current years, 2020 and later. In the early years, the  Journal for Distinguished Language Studies  was published by the Coalition of Distinguished...

  Joining our other volumes of this journal -- as well as our other respected foreign language books -- is Volume 8 of the   Journal for Distinguished Language Studies . Volume 8 covers 2021-2022. The purpose of the  Journal for Distinguished Language Studies  (ISSN 1547-7819) is to provide a forum for exchanging information about teaching to and reaching near-native foreign language proficiency for teachers, learners, and professional language users. Areas of interest include research, theory, and practical application. The  Journal for Distinguished Language Studies  has been published annually since 2003. In the early years, the  Journal for Distinguished Language Studies  was published by the Coalition of Distinguished Language Centers, which closed in 2010. The current issues are published by MSI Press LLC in Hollister, California. JDLS is available on Amazon . It can also be purchased at 25% discount from the MSI Press webstore , using coupo...

  Once learners move beyond ILR 3, the landscape of useful resources changes dramatically. The mainstream language‑learning world—apps, textbooks, university courses—simply doesn’t operate at the level where nuance, inference, and cultural precision become the core curriculum. ILR 4 learners need materials created by people who understand what near‑native proficiency looks like, how it develops, and how to support it. These resources exist, but they’re scattered across government agencies, specialized journals, and niche academic communities. Here’s where the real ILR 4 knowledge lives. The Journal for Distinguished Language Studies This is the closest thing to a dedicated home for ILR 4 and ILR 5 scholarship. The Journal for Distinguished Language Studies publishes theory related to attaining ILR 4, research on the cognitive profiles of distinguished learners, pedagogical strategies for near‑native proficiency, and case studies from government and academic programs. It’s one ...

  From the editor - The story behind the Journal for Distinguished Language Studies is pretty much the story behind MSI Press. When the Coalition for Distinguished Language Centers , a nonprofit organization, began holding their first conferences in 2003, they realized that they needed a publisher to handle their conference proceedings and a planned journal dedicated to helping language learners reach near-native levels of foreign language proficiency. One of the co-founders of the CDLC was the owner of a private consulting business, Mind Solutions International and offered to establish a publishing house within that business. The publishing house took on a simplified version of the name, MSI, and became MSI Press and later MSI Press LLC. (Most MSI Press authors do not know what the initials stand for since, with the closing of both CDLC and MSI in 2010, only the press remained -- and its acronymic name.) --- We have available for individual purchase each of the feature articles f...

    Book review from Issue 8 of the  Journal for Distinguished Language Studies -- REVIEW   Mastering Italian through Global Debate Authors : Marie Bertola, Sandra Carletti Publisher: Georgetown University Press, 2023 Summary Mastering Italian Through Global Debate (2022) is divided into six chapters, each one focusing on a different topical subject relevant to the current global debate. The first chapter centers on ecology. It includes a reading exercise and an argumentative essay on plastic and its environmental and economic impact. The second chapter addresses the topic of globalism versus localism, with a focus on the Covid-19 pandemic’s effect on both phenomena. In chapter three, the conversation brings attention to the themes of economic inequality, self-sufficiency, and redistribution of wealth. Chapter four takes on immigration, multiculturalism, and diversity, while chapter five addresses the question of security and individual freedom, and the clas...

  Book review from Issue 8 of the Journal for Distinguished Language Studies -- REVIEW   Dornyei, Zoltan; Mentzelopoulos, Katarina Lessons from Exceptional Language Learners Who Have Achieved Nativelike Proficiency: Motivation, Cognition and Identity Channel View Publications 2022   Series Editors: Sarah Mercer, Universitat Graz, Austria and Stephen Ryan, Waseda University, Japan Psychology of Language Learning and Teaching: 18 Bristol; Jackson: Multilingual Matters, (2022)   Natalia Lord, Learning Consultation Service, School of Language Studies, Foreign Service Institute (retired)   SUMMARY   This book analyzes the findings of a research project that Zoltan Dornyei, a prolific and esteemed contributor to the field of language learning, designed for his students at the University of Nottingham, when his course, the Psychology of Bilingualism and Language Learnin g , moved online. This is unfortunately a posthumous publication, for Zoltan Dornyei passed aw...

  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. This study showed that there are multiple paths to native-like foreign language proficiency -- and subsequent studies have confirmed this. Even the same person who is trilingual or quadrilingual takes a different path to acquiring each of those languages. Age of language learning onset, location(s) of language learning, prior language learning experience, influence of teachers and educational approaches, and opportunities (or lack of them) for cross-cultural experience, including when in a professional career those opportunities appear all shape the path followed by an individual for acquisition of a particular...