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  From  Think Yourself into Becoming a Language Learning Super Star Chemicals I once had a student who appeared unable to retain anything she was taught. Trying to figure out the cause, I gave her a series of learning styles test, which had odd results. I called her into my office and told her, “Either you answered the questions very strangely, or you have a storm in your head.” “I have a storm in my head,” she said, which was not the response I expected. It turns out that she had been given some incorrect prescription medicine that had caused some temporary damage. With her permission, I spoke to her doctor, who told me that the medicine had caused damage to short-term memory that would, over time, dissipate. With some support from the doctor, we were able to move beyond her temporary impairment. Chemicals can impede language learning, where possible they should be avoided. Here are some chemicals you may not be thinking about: some allergy medications nicotine too much alcoho

  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 language

  From  Think Yourself into Becoming a Language Learning Super Star ATTENTION/AWARNESS Awareness/attention is critical to memory -- of anything. If you did not see something, you cannot remember it. If you saw something but did not notice details, you cannot remember it. If you did notice some details in passing but did not pay particular attention to them, you cannot remember them. Awareness and attention are key to remembering words, grammars, and other linguistic phenomena needed to be a successful language learner. The better you become at being aware of the right things and paying enough attention to them to stuff them into your memory, the faster you will acquire a new language. Let's take a look at some examples. Words Rather than trying to remember a word as a whole, try paying attention to components of the word. How many syllables are there? What does the word sound like? What are the pieces of the word (the root, prefix, suffix)? Is there anything else unique about the

  Chapter One What is an ISP? An Individualized Study Plan (ISP) is a tool to use in planning your lifelong language-learning endeavors. I emphasize “lifelong” here because the achievement of native-like proficiency is, indeed, an effort that takes many years, and if one wants to retain near-native proficiency, once achieved, one needs to continue one’s study for as long as that language is important in the career or personal interests of the individual. For many learners, the ISP is one of the most important tools at their disposal to achieve their high-proficiency goals.  ISPs can take many forms. There is no particular format that is required. There is no particular place that they should be kept. The form and format of the ISP is every bit as individualized as the plan itself. Some folks like to keep a date book. Others prefer a checklist. Yet others like to use diaries. It all depends on the individual learner and his/her learning styles and personality types.  Although this volum

  Recently released - the audiobook for Think Yourself into Becoming a Language Learning Super Star! by Betty Lou Leaver. This book encompasses traditional tips that have worked for most people and then goes way beyond them. adjusting them to individual learners and teaching the learners to develop their own heuristics for rapid and successful language learning. Within these pages, the reader can find a trove of treasure, such as strategies and tactics reading, listening, writing, and speaking mental management ways to manage cognitive dissonance ways to control emotional reasoning the connection between health and language learning understanding and improving memory knowing how personality type and cognitive style affect learning successfully preparing for tests Read less For more posts about Betty Lou Leaver and her books, click HERE . Purchase this book at discount from the MSI Press webstore . Use Coupon Code FF25 for 25% off. Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Pr

Excerpt from  Think Yourself into Becoming a Language Learning Super Star Memory, Forgetting, and Lapses   Just to reinforce the matter—or in case you are skipping around in this book and did not see the earlier memory discussion; there are three stages to memory: awareness/attention, encoding/storing, and recall/retrieval. In this section, we are focused on what happens after you have learned something and need to use it. When you want to remember, you will need to recall the information you have learned. One of three things he can happen, and we have all experienced all three: we remember it perfectly (yippee—hope that happens always, but it does not), we remember it imperfectly (oh, too typical), or do not remember it all (even if we remember having spent time studying it). Knowing what has happened in each case, brings us to a point of orienting our study and actions for better recall, as well as teaching us not to beat ourselves up when we have a glitch or lapse. Remembering p

  Today's excerpt comes from  Achieving Native-Like Second Language Proficiency  (Speaking) by Betty Lou Leaver. INTRODUCTION A Research Study on High-Level Language Achievement         The purposes of the research study, described in this volume, were (1) to assess the behavioral aspects of Level 4 language proficiency, (2) to determine the most important factors that contribute to reaching that level, and (3) to examine the nature of Level 4 language from two perspectives: the teachers who teach it and the users who apply it in their daily and professional lives. This volume reports on purpose #2 (determining the important factors that lead to attainment of Level 4 proficiency) specifically for the skill of speaking.             In this study, the researchers interviewed in depth foreign-language users who had developed one or more language skills in one or more languages to Level 4 and beyond. They were found in several US government agencies (where individuals with the h

  From  Think Yourself into Becoming a Language Learning Super Star At the Defense Language Institute (DLI) where I served as a provost for five years, I became known as the “banana provost” because I would encourage students to eat a banana daily and, for certain, to eat one on the morning of important tests. Why would I do that? Because of the role that bananas play in memory. Bananas contain potassium, which facilitates the movement of glucose through the brain. Glucose is important because it carries memory Ingram’s.   Eat a banana = remember more words   That formula may seem simplistic, but overall it works.  (Note: Other foods with high levels of potassium will do as well, e.g., potatoes. Think Yourself into Becoming a Language Learning Super Sta r contains a full chapter on various foods and how they can make you a more effective language learner.) See more posts on  this book . See more posts about   language learning.                                         Sign up fo