Talk is proposed as the subject matter of foreign language courses. The key to acquiring liberated expression lies in the assimilation of the learner to the target culture. Once he/she is assimilated, the learner's involvement in a situation matches the involvement of natives of the target culture. For example, faced with some life circumstance the learner notices and interprets the clues of the event as natives do. This standardization process is controlled by the language teacher. As the learner acquires "standardized imaginings" to daily situations, the resultant involvements precipitate spontaneous talk. The pedagogic strategy consists of arranging the learners' social environment so as to provide them with real life exchanges in addition to practice exchanges. Transactional exchanges that are made real have the power to spontaneously evoke topicalization behavior (dialogue). A model is proposed which outlines six stages of language learning. The first three relate to practice talk (differentiating situational units, practicing interactional routines, accumulating ethnicity information) and the second three relate to situated talk (enacting situated exchanges, managing episodal exchanges, executing liberated expression). Illustrative activities are given for each of the six phases. (Author/JB)