One of the problems of advanced language learners is that they do not advance very much. At least not in certain respects. A typical example of this, in my view, is my students’ use of very. It is overused, wrongly used and used as the only intensifier, to the detriment of alternative forms such as immensely, highly, supremely, vitally, acutely, heartily, deadly, forms which are likely to be used by native speakers, especially in combination with particular adjectives. Learners tend to rely on what they know. As long as there is no need to deviate from this strategy. And very is a word they have known and used for a long time. In an article I recently read this unwillingness to explore more complex language is partly ascribed to the communicative view of language. Communicative activities such as information-gap and opinion-gap tasks may – and are supposed to – induce learners to solve tasks with the language they have rather than with new language. This may lead to what is called signal redundancy. In order to increase the learners’ desire to explore and extend their language, communicative tasks, according to this article, must be transferred into creative tasks. (Tin, Tan Bee: “Towards creativity in ELT: the need to say something new”, in: ELT Journal 4/67, 2013: 385-97)