Reflections are offered on the challenge of teaching a foreign language to academically gifted adolescents. At the introductory levels, able students are impatient with materials that are too simplistic. To hold their attention, they need exercises that involve choice, complex structural changes, and creativity. Colloquial dialogues and culturally authentic situations will capture their interest. At the intermediate level, to keep pace with the students' maturing minds, the teacher must use materials that require analysis and stimulate debate. At the advanced level, a text that is appropriate linguistically may be stylistically or culturally beyond even the bright student. Careful selection of reading materials must be made. Good students demand that new material be introduced at a rate that may, at the time, exceed their ability to assimilate it. Teachers must move ahead quickly to sustain a brisk pace to keep students alert and yet not so fast that it intimidates or discourages them. In moving from schoolroom language to genuine language, students need to progress from highly structured exercises to those with a minimum of structure. Encouraging students to play in a foreign language--word games, skits, and dialogues--aids students to progress to a natural and easy use of the language. (JD)