The initial stage of second language learning usually aims to develop the ability to converse. This conversational ability is, however, rarely the ultimate object of second language instruction. The student may want access to the literature of the culture of the second language, or to get an education in it. For these reasons, interest shifts toward reading and writing, two skills which tend to dominate the intermediate and advanced levels of second language instruction; and the student advances toward the time when he will be treated as a native speaker of the second language. The unstructured conversation of six-year-old native speakers does not differ substantially in syntactic complexity from that of adults. The child, however, has much to learn in the areas of organization and style. The task of a pre-literature text for a native speaker is to (1) teach the organizational patterns which enable an adult to raise conversation to the level of systematic instruction, narration, or coherent exposition; (2) consider the extent to which alternate ways of saying something are equivalent; and (3) prepare the child to recognize the conventional patterns of style. It is suggested that intermediate level language materials be differentiated from elementary level materials in both methodology and content. Emphasis should be less on pattern practice of single sentences and more on close reading and controlled writing of longer units of sentences. (AMM)