MSI Press Blog

  The following excerpt comes from Practices That Work (Thomas Garza). Introduction             This volume represents a revised and expanded version of the 2008 first edition titled What Works: Helping Students Reach Native-Like Second-Language Competence and includes, in addition to all of the excellent original contributions, [1] eleven new pieces from language practitioners with experience in Language Flagship Programs and/or university programs with established records of success in bringing learners to Professional-level proficiency in languages. Like its predecessor, this new edition seeks to offer the reader a broad selection of tested, successful models of practice from classrooms in both government and post-secondary institutions that have attested results of professional proficiency among its learners. Its intended audience is the language practitioner who understands that the goal of attaining high-level prof...

  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...

  When Boris Shekhtman and Betty Lou Leaver were searching for a publisher for their book on reaching ILR 4, Developing Professional Level Foreign Langauge Proficiency , a reviewer for one of the traditional American publishers suggested not taking on the book because "no one needs near-native proficiency." She then pointed to herself as a teacher of French whose proficiency was ILR 2, and she was considered a brilliant and successful teacher. She did not need anything higher than that, and neither did anyone else. Well, she was wrong, and fortunately Cambridge University Press had the foresight to realize that the topic was important, known to few (which is why that French teacher had such low proficiency) and would someday be sought-after information. They wanted the seminal work; they got it. And it has been the go-to work for more than two decades now. The reviewer’s comment reflected a long‑standing and deeply limiting assumption in American language education: that “goo...

  In earlier posts, we’ve talked about hares and tortoises in language learning—those classic learner types who approach fluency either in a burst of brilliance or with deliberate, measured steps. Today, let’s revisit the hares, particularly those who have found a comfortable resting place at Level 3, or “Professional Proficiency,” and seem quite happy to stay there. Hares, often synoptic, right-brain dominant learners , shoot ahead in language acquisition. They become impressively fluent very quickly. They can talk around vocabulary gaps with creative circumlocutions. They can paraphrase on the fly, improvise idioms, and charm listeners with their expressive energy. But what happens when the hare, having outpaced the tortoise in reaching Level 3, falls asleep just shy of the finish line ? This, as Ehrman points out in Developing Professional-Level Foreign Language Proficiency (Leaver & Shekhtman), is the phenomenon of level  fossilization . (There are other forms o...

Most language learners aim for fluency. Some even reach what’s called Professional Level Proficiency —that sweet spot where you can function in a workplace, navigate nuance, even toss in an idiom or two. But those aiming beyond that—toward near-native proficiency —often find themselves mysteriously stuck. Stalled. Plateaued. Why? The answer, according to Shekhtman (in Developing Professional Level Language Proficiency ), lies in one of the most stubborn and often ignored culprits in language acquisition: grammatical fossilization . He breaks down language use into three categories: Automatic-correct Automatic-incorrect Not-automatic Ideally, we all move from not-automatic to automatic-correct. But what often happens instead? Learners get comfy with automatic-incorrect. These are speech habits that have been internalized—and once they're habitual, they’re hard to undo. That's grammatical fossilization: the incorrect gets baked in, and it won’t unbake itself . Fossilization: Y...