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...

  Music is one of the most underestimated tools in second language acquisition. It is not a gimmick, not a “fun extra,” and not merely a motivational hook. Music is a cognitive scaffold, a prosodic tutor, a cultural archive, and—at the highest levels—a precision instrument for tuning the learner’s internal linguistic compass. Its role changes dramatically across proficiency levels. What music does for a novice is not what it does for an ILR 3 learner, and certainly not what it does for someone pushing toward ILR 4. Here is how music functions across the arc of proficiency. Beginning Levels: Music as a Prosodic On‑Ramp At the novice stage, music provides structure before meaning. Learners don’t yet have enough vocabulary or grammar to “learn from lyrics,” but they can absorb: Prosody — rhythm, stress, intonation Phonotactics — what sound sequences feel natural Chunking — storing phrases as unanalyzed wholes Affective safety — music lowers the affective filter The goal here is no...

  Public speaking is often treated as an “advanced skill” in second‑language learning, something reserved for students who already have strong grammar, broad vocabulary, and confident pronunciation. In reality, the opposite is true. Public speaking is catalytic at both ends of the proficiency spectrum: it stabilizes fragile early language systems, and it sharpens the already‑refined linguistic instincts of near‑native speakers. 1. At Lower Levels: Public Speaking Builds Stability, Control, and Identity For beginners and intermediate learners, public speaking forces the language system to do three things that ordinary conversation does not. It requires sustained utterance. A learner must hold a thought across multiple sentences, which strengthens syntactic control and reduces the “stop‑start” fragmentation typical of early proficiency. It pushes learners into intentional vocabulary selection. In spontaneous conversation, learners can rely on circumlocution or gestures. In public ...