MSI Press Blog

  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. There is a well-spread and strongly believed myth that learners beyond professional levels of proficiency do not need a teacher. On the contrary, say these 200+ near-native speakers, they did have teachers at higher levels; they strongly felt that having a native speaker-teacher at high levels pushed them further faster because there was someone to explain the unwritten, unspoken, unanticipated aspects of language that they would not have noticed and that flies over the heads of learners even as high as professional level. Learners reaching for near-native cannot know what they don't know, but a native speaker ...

  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. The authors of the study scoured the language fields, particularly testing organizations, for learners at ILR Level 4 (near-native). None were found under the age of 30. The hypothesis of the researchers was that one has to become fully educated in one's own (as well as one's second/third, etc.) language to reach near-native levels of proficiency -- and that amount of education simply takes time and maturation. One would not expect erudition from a five-year-old. Hence, expecting the early appearance of Level 4 in young learners is probably unwarranted.  --- MSI Press publishes the only journal dedicated t...

  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. Following up on last week's post, one of the motivational frameworks considered was extrinsic vs intrinsic motivation. succeeding in foreign language study. Many individuals were both extrinsically and intrinsically motivated; each form of motivation contributed in its own way to the individual’s willingness to continue learning through near-native levels of proficiency. Roughly 88% of the interviewees identified their motivation as something that could be classified extrinsic, including 82% that were clearly instrumentally motivated; 48% identified their motivation as intrinsic. Obviously, 30% of the interview...

  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. Following up on previous posts, one of the motivational frameworks considered was the desire to pass for a native speaker.  Some of the interviewees (13%) mentioned the goal of passing for a native speaker. This goal sometimes coincided with integrative motivation. In this case, the interviewee indicated the desire to blend in with and be part of the culture in order to be accepted and experience its nature the way native speakers do. However, far from all who expressed the native-speaker goal were integratively motivated and far from all who were integratively motivated had set a goal of passing for a n...

    Today's excerpt comes from Communicative Focus  by Boris Shekhtman and Dina Kupchanka -  Communication between Native Speakers and Non-native Speakers and the Essence of Speech We are interested in communication between native and non-native speakers for one very important reason: this is the kind of communication for which all teachers are essentially preparing students. Regardless of the level of our students, whether they are beginners or already near-native speakers, if they want to use their second language, they nolens-volens enter this type of communication. We need to help them to participate in this communication with dignity and power and to close the gap between their language skills and those of native speakers. In order for us to prepare our students in this way, we must be knowledgeable about the specific nuances of verbal communication between native and non-native speakers.     The most obvious difference between the language perfor...

  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. Contrary to popular belief, far from all the interviewees, including the polyglots, were good classroom language students. One remembers receiving a D in a college Japanese course and being told to give up on languages and take an easier course. In a bygone day (clearly), a French professor threw a book at a current Level-4 speaker of French in exasperation at her then very strongly non-Parisian accent. A near-native speaker of Russian got C after C in college Russian courses and was gently encouraged to consider other languages. Many of the interviewees reported frustration with their early language-learning e...