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 with being

  Today (October 24) is the anniversary of Madeline E. Ehrman' s death in 2015. It seems difficult to believe that seven years have passed since she was sitting with the MSI Press editor, talking about what would be her last (still unpublished, but posthumously planned publication) book, The E&L Construct -- an  instrument , copyrighted at the US Library of Congress in 2002,. The E&L instrumnt identifies neurodiversity preferences that she (the E) designed and validated with Betty Lou Leaver, MSI Press managing editor (the L), when they both worked for US government institutions. The E&L Cognitive Styles Construct is not the first posthumous book that MSI Press has published, nor is it likely to be the last. It is a tribute to Madeline, however, that interest in the instrument has grown and become such that a posthumous book is considered viable. Madeline worked her entire career at the Foreign Service Institute. After she died (from stomach cancer, likely resulting fr

  Peek into the future! Wait just a bit. Coming up some time this year is the publication of The   E&L Cognitive Styles Construct . by Dr. Betty Lou Leaver and Dr. Madeline Ehrman .  At last, a book devoted to the topic that has been bandied about in the literature since 2002. Watch for upcoming excerpts. For more posts about the E&L cognitive styles construct, click HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow  MSI Press  on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with  MSI Press LLC ? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Planning on self-publishing and don't know where to start? Our  author au pair  services will mentor you through the process. Interested in receiving a free copy of this or any MSI Press LLC book  in exchange for  reviewing  a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book? Contact editor@msipress.com. Want an  author-signed copy  of this book? Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25) and c

  Introduction Ever wonder why you just could not get along with Sally Jo in high school?   Why you, as a teacher, cannot reach a particular student no matter how much one-on-one time you provide them?   Why two learners in your classroom squabble all the time and seem to delight in challenging you? Why some classes seem so harmonious, and others are clearly dysfunctional? The answer to these questions and many others lies in understanding intragroup dynamics.   These dynamics, exposed, show us an invisible, or hidden, classroom, that can differ quite remarkably from the classroom we think we are seeing, whether we are a student in it or a teacher of it (Ehrman & Dornyei, 1998). In this book, we will be using examples from and demonstrating the dysfunction that occurs in foreign language classrooms, including English as a Second/Foreign Language. Although we address the language classroom specifically in this book, the core causes of dysfunction can occur in any classroom—any

The Quinelle series of books, based on Understanding the People around You , focuses on individual personality types. The excerpt below is from Understanding the Entrepreneur: Socionics in Everyday Life . It is from the introduction, which identifies the 16 socions (Jungian personality types) presented by Dr. Filatova, using one of the two models (Model A and Model J) by which socionists organize the tyeps. Which is your type? Check below! Want more information? Read the books! Start with Filatova's book, then turn to Quinelle's books that break out the individual styles: Understanding the Analyst Understnading the Critic Undersntading the Enterpreneur Understanding the Seeker ---- at least three more coming in 2020 (Romantic, Performer, Professional) From Understanding the Entrepreneur : Model J Model J also includes 16 psychological types, but the representational system used by Model J is simplified. For each of the 16 psychological types, Model J uses

(Bethany @ A Fish Who Likes Flowers)   As National Breast Cancer Month comes to an end, I wonder how many readers know about the following? Actual pink-colored pumpkins grown for breast cancer awareness. Check out this Huff Post article about farmers who grow these pink pumpkins. A company that sells pink pumpkin shirts. There are several styles. Check them out HERE . Finally, read an inspiring article about "The Power of Pink" at the blog, A Fish Who Likes Flowers, written by Bethany, who also designed the pumpkin in the image above. Seriously, worth a read -- and a good blog to follow. Blog editor's note: As a memorial to Carl, and simply because it is truly needed, MSI Press is now hosting a web page,  Carl's Cancer Compendium , as a one-stop starting point for all things cancer, to make it easier for those with cancer to find answers to questions that can otherwise take hours to track down on the Internet and/or from professionals. The web page is in its infancy

  Excerpt from Understanding the Analyst (Quinelle)  -   Introduction Do you ever think you were born into the wrong family? Ever wonder what on earth your gifts are? This book is one in a series of 16 books based on Dr. Ekaterina Filatova’s work, which was first made available to an English-speaking population through her opus , Understanding the People Around You: An Introduction to Socionics (2009). Each of the 16 volumes is dedicated to a different socion or sociotype (a personality type within the framework of a society—or in more familiar Western parlance, a psychological type, or psychotype); these terms are used interchangeably in this book. This particular book, the one you are holding in your hands, is dedicated to the Analyst personality type, the Introverted, Intuitive, Thinker, Rational psychological type. This book will help you understand the Analyst personality around you—and if you are an Analyst, it may help you understand yourself better. It begins where Dr.

  Today's daily excerpt comes from Understanding the Seeker (Kacee Quinelle)  Chapter 6 The Seeker at Home We have spoken briefly about the home behavior of the Seeker. He or she is no homemaker and is all too frequently oblivious to health and hearth. These traits—and others—create a home climate that differs quite significantly from that of many other personality types. When the other members of the household are also Seekers, the traits are intensified. When the other members of the household are not Seekers, conflicts are multiplied.* House and Housework Given the Seeker’s lack of interest and skill in homemaking activities, the house can become quickly untidy and not at all a cozy place, especially if the spouse and children are all Seekers. Fortunately, for most households, this is not likely. The Seeker personality is not common enough that one would expect to find it in grand distribution among any groups. Still, certainly, there can be more than one Seeker in a family. Wh