

	Intermediate fluency is the next stage in the process, wherein the students have an active vocabulary of at least 6000 words and can create more complex, multi-verb or multi-tense sentences, such as “I need to go to the bathroom because I cut my finger.” They will still have many errors, but have an easier time understanding the errors they have made as they work toward correcting them. They can move to more complicated literature, but may still be translating their work into their native language and back to ensure understanding. 

	The final stage is advanced fluency, what most people think of when they are told somebody is fluent in a language. This could take between four and ten years of study, when one can have near-native conversational and comprehension ability and vocabulary recall. At this point the best thing to offer the students is continued practice; this is the point where most ELL students are exited from the program and completely mainstreamed. 

	The process of learning a new language, be it English, Spanish, or Sanskrit, sounds simple on paper, but the actual process can take many years to get the basics and a lifetime of practice to maintain it. However, hopefully, as the world becomes more compact with all the ways to communicate with the world at large, more people will be willing to put in the effort to make themselves more marketable on a global level by achieving fluency in at least one language other than the language of their parents. 



In the Hallam article, the role of the teacher in the process of learning a foreign language is reviewed. The focus is on the disposition of the teacher, and the most important factors are: effective teachers believe themselves to be effective; they believe all students can learn, that it’s just a matter of how to reach them; they have a “broad frame of reference and see the larger purpose behind their teaching,” meaning they are not only teaching their content area, they are teaching the children how to learn; and they look at what is called “the people element”.  

The people element is not very clearly defined, but seems to be relating all teaching back to the human species, both the students learning and the other people they may encounter in their life’s journey. While these are good points that can be applied to any teacher, the lack of definition for many of the terms is bothersome; how can a teacher hope to measure up to such cloudy standards? A foreign language teacher especially must consider a large number of people: the people who created the language, the people who currently use the language on a regular basis (including dialects), and the people who are learning it as a second language. But who are the more important people in that equation, the ones that need more concentration. 