MSI Press Blog

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 wi...

  Excerpt from  Think Yourself into Becoming a Language Learning Super Star Tactics and Strategies   E When you are struggling to learn on a foreign language, it may feel like you are on a battlefield. You are, in a way. You have an objective. You are out to conquer something: the language. But that is as far as one might be able to stretch the image. We teach language for peace, and some of the best cross-cultural bridge builders are foreign language students who have achieved the capacity to use the language for work and leisure. How most people reach that point is through good language learning tactics and strategies. Tactics refer to ways of accomplishing something in the short term; they are simple and have narrow objectives. They are actions. Strategies are how one goes about accomplishing a goal for the long term: they can have greater breadth and applicability. They are plans. In language learning, strategies and tactics play a role as well. Language learners ...

  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...

  Today's excerpt comes from  Achieving Native-Like Second Language Proficiency  (Speaking) by Betty Lou Leaver. Factor 2: Onset of Language Learning        The younger the language learner when he or she begins study, the more likely that learner is to reach native and near-native levels of foreign language proficiency. So goes the convention wisdom—and the conventional folly. What the data from this study show is that learning foreign languages in elementary school years is a positive thing; however, it will not bring anyone to a Level 4 any faster than learning the language as an adult. Indeed, in some areas, given their greater cognitive development and already existing linguistic system(s), adult learners, hour for hour, are generally much more efficient learners than children. Researchers sometimes are “fooled” because children are much better at eliminating a foreign language than are adults, and they appear to learn more language faster si...

           Just out! Volume 8 of the  Journal for Distinguished Language Studies . Read the abstracts. See something you like? Explore more! The JDLS is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, other online sellers, the MSI Press webstore -- and, in some (we hope, many) cases your local academic library. (If you want it at your local public library -- just ask the librarian to order it, or better,  subscribe  to it.) Volume 8 Abstracts Beyond the Language: Debating as High-Intensity Cultural Engagement & Leadership Emilie Cleret (French War College) This article discusses the use of debating in senior professional military education (PME) at the French War College in Paris to help officers reach native-like English language competence. In France, senior Professional Military Education (PME) is delivered by two schools – Ecole de Guerre (French War College) and Centre des hautes études militaires, (Centre for Higher Military Studies). Th...