SmartNoise co-founder Ben Blair has written a series of articles on language learning, best practices for teaching methods, and some guidance on how to select an appropriate program.

A Basic Outline of the SmartNoise Methodology: The SmartNoise Methodology is based on fundamentally different beliefs about learners. SmartNoise believes that every student has not only the capacity, but given the right environment has a propensity, for learning languages.... more

Is Your Language Program Designed for Parrots?: Here are two questions that reveal the appropriateness of a language teaching method or its instructors.... more

Considerations in Choosing a Language Program: A respectable language learning program must expose students to a rich target-language environment. It shouldn't be so rich that the student is overwhelmed and "turns off", nor should it be so simple as to either not push the student, or be reducible to a list of words to master.... more

The Importance of Using Language: A basic component of language learning is making the most of opportunities to use the language. In assessing the usefulness of any language program, the student (or student’s caregiver) must ask, “How does this program allow its participants to meaningfully use the language?”.... more

The Problem of Language 'Plateaus': Few people would argue that a significant problem of education – particularly language education – is the problem of 'plateau-ing'. Unless students are pushed or moved in some way they tend to settle at a given point in their acquisition of the new language.... more

Moving Toward Native Ability: In order to improve toward fluency, a language learner must continuously more closely approximate a native's pronunciation and understanding of the language.... more

You may also find the following resources useful in your quest for fluency.

View this article outlining the benefits of learning a second language. Benefits discussed include personal, cognitive, academic, and societal.

This brief academic digest discusses recommendations for language learning in early childhood. Article claims: "Investing in a child's bilingualsim or multilingualism, after all, should yield a high return."

Practical recommendations for parents, teachers, and others to help children learn other languages. Includes specific recommendations for formal language study.