Foreword Richard Brecht; Part I. Principles, Practices, and Theory: 1. Principles and practices in teaching superior-level students: not just more of the same Betty Lou Leaver and Boris Shekhtman; 2. Toward academic-level foreign language abilities: reconsidering foundational assumptions, expanding pedagogical options Heidi Byrnes; Part II. Programs: 3. Contexts for advanced language learning : a report on an immersion institute Heidi Byrnes; 4. Bridging the gap between language for general purposes and language for work: an intensive superior-level language/skill course for teachers, translators, and interpreters Claudia Angelelli and Christian Degueldre; 5. Learning Chinese in China: programs for developing superior- to distinguished-level Chinese language proficiency in China and Taiwan Cornelius C. Kubler; 6. Developing professional-level oral proficiency: the Shekhtman method of teaching communication Boris Shekhtman and Betty Lou Leaver with Natalia Lord, Ekaterina Kuznetsova, and Elena Ovtcharenko; 7. The reading four project: applied technology at the higher levels of foreign language acquisition Catherine W. Ingold; 8. In the quest for level 4+ in Arabic: training level 2-3 learners in independent reading Elsaid Badawi; 9. Teaching high-level writing skills in English at a Danish University Tim Caudery; 10. Heritage speakers as learners at the superior level: differences and similarities between Spanish and Russian student populations Claudia Angelelli and Olga Kagan; 11. Teaching Russian language teachers in eight Summer institutes in Russian language and culture Zita Dabars and Olga Kagan; Part III. Learners: 12. Understanding the student at the superior-distinguished threshold Madeline Ehrman; 13. Achieving multilingualism: preliminary findings from a study of twenty distinguished-level language users Betty Lou Leaver and Sabine Atwell.

Examines approaches to teaching students making the transition from 'advanced' or 'superior' proficiency in a foreign language to 'near-native' ability.