Patty, From my standpoint, at least, I think a useful analogy might be with movement: humans who are not developmentally disadvantaged will automatically learn how to walk, move about etc. -- but that, by itself, does not make one a good basketball player (as a confirmed klutz, I can vouch for this!). And people who play basketball a lot or who teach others to play basketball have a very large inventory of terms for movements and muscles to let them talk to each other about it. When we "teach English" to students who are already English-speakers, we are not, in fact, teaching them the basics of the language -- we're teaching them how to do some very specialized things with it, things that in many cases are *not* natural (writing, and communicating with audiences that aren't there, for example). It's much more like basketball than like walking. -- Bill Spruiell Dept. of English Central Michigan University To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/