Developing Professional-Level Language Proficiency

by Betty Lou Leaver (Editor), Boris Shekhtman (Editor)

This book examines approaches to teaching students who aim to make the leap from "advanced" or "superior" proficiency in a foreign language to "near-native" ability. While there are an abundance of publications on classroom techniques and methods for lower levels of instruction, almost nothing exists about the transition, which is vital for those who intend to use foreign languages in high-level arenas. Compiled by leading practitioners in this area of foreign language teaching, the book fills the gap for those developing programs at the "advanced to distinguished" level.

Genres: Linguistics, Language

324 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

The oldest of eight children, Dr. Betty Lou Leaver grew up on a farm in rural Maine. She earned a B.A. in linguistics and M.A. in comparative literature at Penn State University. Having spent considerable time working in the Soviet Union and being the first American to conduct linguistic research at the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Akademgorodok, she earned her Ph.D. in applied linguistics from the Pushkin Institute in Moscow. Including Russian, she has studied 20 languages and has provided consultation to ministries of education and institutions of higher education in 24 countries.

Prior to coming to DLIFLC in 2006 as Associate Provost for Continuing Education, Dr. Leaver worked as the chief academic officer of the Amman, Jordan branch of the New York Institute of Technology (operated in partnership with the Jordan University of Science and Technology) and for a short while dual-hatted as the Academic Dean of the Manama, Bahrain branch. Dr. Leaver has also served as coordinator and developer of the Russian and English language programs for NASA's International Space Station & liaison to the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia; subject matter expert at the Foreign Language Training Lab; Director of the Russian and Ukrainian programs and founding member of the Division of Research & Development at the Foreign Service Institute; and president of the American Global Studies Institute.

At DLIFLC, from 1989 to 1992, Dr. Leaver was Dean of the Slavic School, and from 1992 to 1993, Dean of the Central European School. Earlier, she attended the Russian basic and LeFoxe (combined intermediate-advanced) courses. She served in the U.S. Army as a cryptolinguist, then, after receiving a direct commission, as a military intelligence officer at the U.S. Army Intelligence School at Ft. Devens (USAISD). Later assigned to the U.S. Army Reserves, she took special assignments at Sebana Seca Naval Station (Puerto Rico), USAISD, and Allison Park, PA.

Dr. Leaver has taught graduate, undergraduate, and language teacher courses at Middlebury College, Monterey Institute of International Studies, University of Pittsburgh, Bryn Mawr College, and community colleges. She founded the Center for the Advancement of Distinguished Language Proficiency at San Diego State University, the Center for the Languages of the Central Asian Region at Indiana University, and the Coalition of Distinguished Language Centers.

Her publications include Developing Professional-Level Foreign Language Proficiency and Achieving Success in Second Language Acquisition (Cambridge University Press), Content-Based Instruction for Foreign Language Education and Task-Based Instruction for Foreign Language Education (Georgetown University Press), and two dozen other books. She has published more than 200 articles, book chapters, and monographs and has made nearly as many conference presentations including several dozen keynote speeches. She received the Elsevier Prize for a jointly authored article on learner variables and the International Society for Performance Improvement's award for joint research on cultures of the Middle East and Russia, funded by the U.S. Army Research Institute.

She is the mother of four birth children, three other children taken in as teenagers, and two grandchildren. She is married to Carl Leaver.

- excerpted from Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Centre

Reviews

[Lidija · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite academic (for better or worse) selection of essays on language acquisition to help students make the leap between advanced and superior levels of proficiency. The essays cover a lot of topics and not all were relevant to me, hence the three-star rating, but two essays were definitely worth reading: "The Shekhtman Method" and "In the Quest for 4+ Level Arabic". The Shekhtman methodology is very interesting to get you fluent fast, and with that in mind I would recommend his other works (especially "How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately"). As for the 4+ Arabic, there's an interesting perspective on how changes in curriculum for the CASA program enabled students to achieve higher levels of fluency. The methology is based on a graduated reading model that I would like to try as well (begins with plays, works up to short stories).

[BAHA ALDEEN · Rating 1 out of 5]

It is quite an academic book demonstrating barriers faced English learners and teachers to leap from levels to higher levels. It provides other languages experts' opinions and their psychological perspectives on how to accelerate the process of language acquisition in a scientific approach. When reading deeply and delving in the elaborate explanation of linguistic activities, it is pretty clear that nobody has found a proved academic methodology to augment English language skills of the learners.
Despite the fact that English is the most required asset in getting employed for instance; other languages teaching is more successfully applied and conducted than English.