As the mother of a 10-year-old boy as well as the language teacher of adult migrants, I am often in a position to wonder at the glib, confident, oral fluency of my child in contrast to the hesitant, halting, broken, jerking, unassured, more-miss-than-hit staccato of my language students. Many a time have I, on their behalf, envied my boy his brash, native fluency, wishing some of it would blow their way, onto their fractured lives which could be so transformed but for the barrier that is language. There must be many a language teacher yearning to facilitate this kind of verbal flow and confidence in their students.