I have always been interested in finding ways to make the teaching of foreign languages effective or to achieve the highest possible results in the least amount of hours. This quest brought me to the conclusion that the decisive moment in teaching foreign languages is not about the quantity of grammatical and lexical elements we can convey to a student but about teaching a student to use those elements in communication. As we know, there is teaching a language and there is using a language. Both of these processes have their own rules and peculiarities. I discovered that success in teaching a foreign language is much more significant when it follows not the principles of the language itself but rather the principles of its usage in communication. I can say that all my books to a certain degree are about this.

In short, the core of my foreign language teaching method can be expressed in a simple and concise statement: I do not teach a foreign language; I teach how to use a foreign language in communication.

When people hear this, they usually ask the following questions:

1. Does this mean that I ignore teaching the language itself (i.e. grammar and vocabulary)?

2. Why do we need to know how to communicate with the language? Don’t we already successfully do it without you?

3. Isn’t it true that other methods, especially the communicative method, also teach how to use foreign languages in communication?

These are my answers to above-mentioned questions.

1.

No, this doesn’t mean that I ignore grammar and vocabulary. It just means that learning grammar and vocabulary is a secondary objective. Using language in communication is the first priority. That being said, this priority cannot be successfully implemented without solid and confident control of grammar and vocabulary. The necessity to develop this control immediately leads to finding the most effective ways to assist a student’s memorization process. Thus, emphasizing the principles of communication, rather than the details of a specific language makes the process of language acquisition more effective.

2.

No doubt, students do not need help in communication, if it is in their native language but we are talking about different type of communication: communication among foreigners and native speakers. Students are not linguistically equal to native speakers in this type of communication and they need to be trained in how effectively use their language not to become linguistically disabled in this communication. For this purpose I give students a set of strategies, which, if implemented, help them dramatically improve their communication with native speakers. These strategies have nothing to do with the language itself. They are instead connected to deeper nature of communication process.

3.

No. Other methods, including communicative methods, do not teach students how to use foreign language in communication with native speakers. They invariably function in the frame of a language itself, and teach on the basis of grammar rules, not rules of communication. It is true that communicative methods use a lot of exercises like role playing and dialogues which are typical for the process of communication but they do not present rules and tactics that provide effective use of a language. These rules and tactics are not elements of the language but elements of communication and to be effective they have to be explained and implemented through special communication exercises.

After these answers I usually get another group of questions.

1. What are the most effective ways to assist students’ memorization process?

2. Can you give us an example of a communication rule?

3. Can you give us an example of a communication exercise?

In this case I direct people to two of my books: How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately, and Communicative Focus. The first book is mainly written for students and the second for language instructors.

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Boris Shekhtman has been considered a national authority on teaching students to use foreign languages effectively in communication with native speakers. He has developed a unique set of tools designed to enhance an individual's communication in a foreign language environment. The devices described by him allow the speaker of a foreign language to demonstrate this language more impressively and help to immediately improve foreign language skills in communication. These devices or rules were tested with adult professionals in such varied fields as journalism, diplomacy, government, and international business.

That's what Dr. Betty Lou Leaver, Associate Provost for Continuing Education at the Defense Language Institute, writes, "Communication rules are quite generic by nature. They transcend the linguistic and sociolinguistic aspects of language. They are not language-specific. They are mechanisms for putting students in control of information flow, of idea exchange, of negotiation, and of any other communicative function, regardless of the language being spoken. They subordinate linguistic performance to social performance and sociolinguistic knowledge to psycholinguistic legerdemain.

Legerdemain, indeed, is an appropriate word because to many these rules of communication seem like magic. And if it is magic to control one's environment, then it would be hard to argue otherwise. In essence, though, these rules of communication are just what they are labeled. Shekhtman has analyzed social performance through speech and discovered the keys (rules) to being in control of a conversation. "

Boris Shekhtman presented his communication rules at numerous seminars for a number of U.S. Government agencies including the Library of Congress, the Department of State, the Department of Defense, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Agriculture and Air Force. His clients include correspondents of major news organizations such as ABC News, CBS News, BBC, NBC News, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Time Magazine, and Associated Press. The content of the seminars is well described in his books. The most popular of them are: Developing professional-level language proficiency. (Cambridge University Press, 2002); How to improve your foreign language immediately. (MSI Press, 2003); Achieving success in second language acquisition.(Cambridge University Press, 2005); Communicative Focus. Teaching Foreign Language on the Basis of the Native Speaker's Communicative Focus. (MSI Press, 2007). The seminars received high evaluation from students, teachers, companies and linguistic conferences.

Boris Shekhtman is also a leading expert on helping students reach near-native second language competence. At FSI he developed the first course for Level 3-4 students. That course has been described in a number of publications and was presented to the Interagency Language Roundtable in 1985 as a program of excellence. In the 6 years that he taught at FSI, with classes ranging in size from 4 to 6 students, everyone who entered at Level 3 with prior in-country experience (the prerequisite for enrollment) and remained the entire 6 months, achieved Level 4.

Boris Shekhtman was a key person in organizing nine conferences of the CDLC for the purpose of providing support to the universities, institutions, and schools with programs that teach foreign languages to the near-native level. He is on the Editorial Board of the Journal for Distinguished Language Studies, which is a forum for exchanging information about developing high levels of proficiency in foreign languages. He is an editor of five books on socio-cultural and socio-linguistic competences, a coauthor of Mark Smith's Diary: Cross-Cultural Lessons in Russian-American Mentality (FSI and ERIC, 1986); author of Working with Advanced Foreign-Language Students (MSI Press, 2003); contributor to the groundbreaking book What works: Helping Students Reach Native-Like Second-Language Competence. (MSI Press, 2008). He has lectured and provided consultation to many government and private language programs.