Immersion

Recently, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has been receiving a lot of criticism about statements he made at this year's annual convention of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. At this event he told Hispanic journalists that immigrants who wish to learn English must avoid the Spanish media.

"You're just forced to speak English, and that just makes you learn the language faster," Schwarzenegger said.

This may seem harsh and Schwarzenegger admitted he is going to get himself in to trouble for saying it, but is it really that far from the truth?

Some say Hispanic television, newspapers and magazines are essential for Spanish-speaking immigrants to function in society. Although this is probably true for newly arriving immigrants, the earlier one can force themselves to avoid these media sources, the faster they will learn English.

How important are gestures in communication? Is body language as important as verbal communication?

"Gesturing is not merely hand-waving. It conveys substantive information — thoughts that often are not conveyed in words," said Susan Goldin-Meadow, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago.

"People naturally tend to rely heavily on nonverbal communication when they are learning a foreign language," said Lewis Johnson, the director of the Information Sciences Institute of the University of Southern California.

A recent study provides insight into the relationship between verbal and non-verbal communication. The study conducted by Simone Pika at the University of Alberta, Canada observed a group of bilingual individuals as they described a cartoon in their two languages. The subjects spoke either French or Spanish (a gesture-rich language) as their mother tongue, and English (a gesture-poor language) as their second.

Now that you have decided learning another language is important, how do you do it?

Most books, magazines and online sources recommend immersion, but language programs can offer everything from translation to bilingual instruction.

Immersion:

Immersion is absorption into language, such as teaching Spanish elementary classes to English-speaking students.

The type of language learning was first studied in-depth in the 1960s in Canada. English-speaking students were taught classes in French to help them learn their nation’s other official language, according to the National Center for Research on Cultural Diversity and Second Language Learning.

“The first lesson to be learned from immersion is that when language instruction is integrated with instruction in academic content, it is more effective than teaching the language in isolation. Proficiency in the target language is not a prerequisite to academic development; rather, language learning results from using language to perform authentic communicative functions,” the center published in a 1995 report.

You may have heard the phrase "Total Physical Response" but are unsure of its exact meaning. It may seem complicated, but it's not. It is actually quite simple. Just think of the Hokey Pokey.

During the Hokey Pokey, the participants are given commands to which they must respond with physical action. "Put your left foot in. Put your left foot out. Put your left foot in and shake it all about." Teaching language through Total Physical Response works the same way, except commands are given in a foreign language rather than a familiar one.

Total Physical Response, developed by Dr. James Asher in the late 1960's, is a style of teaching language that encourages movement and physical response to help establish meaning to new words and phrases, without the need for translation. This style of teaching is great for early stages of foreign language instruction or to introduce new vocabulary. Essentially, it is the first step to all language immersion programs.

A foreign language immersion program is simply a style of teaching that allows a student to become proficient in a second language by interacting within the classroom completely in a foreign language. It is quite different than traditional foreign language programs in that the students don’t learn by translation, but instead learn the same way we all learn our first language: by hearing it and interacting within it.

Many foreign language immersion programs are designed to allow the student to acquire a second language by teaching other subjects in the foreign language. This allows the students to gain a high level of academic achievement by hearing and using the language in their regular academic subjects rather than studying the language itself. Anyone who has taken a foreign language in high school know how difficult it is to learn a foreign language by translation, memorization and conjugation. Early Immersion is the best and easiest way to acquire a second language.

There are two major types of foreign language immersion programs: Partial and full immersion. Partial immersion programs split the day evenly between English and the foreign language. Full immersion immersion programs are taught completely in the foreign language.

In an full immersion school system, no English would be used in the early stages. Preschool and the first grade would be taught completely in the foreign language. By second grade English reading and English language arts would added to the curriculum for one period, while the rest of the subjects would continue to be taught in the foreign language. As the students progress through elementary school more and more English would be added to the curriculum, so that by the sixth grade there is an even distribution between english and the second language.

By this time students within a foreign language immersion program would be highly proficient in both English and the second language. As they continue to progress, students would choose between several subject taught in the foreign language while the rest of the subjects are taught in English.

When a child first starts a foreign language immersion program he will not understand everything the teacher is saying. For this reason immersion teachers use a variety of techniques beyond verbal communication to get the message across. These techniques include exaggerated body language and facial expressions, visual aides, and highly expressive and rhythmic intonation in the voice. A teacher can also use songs, useful phrases, chants, rhymes and others things of this nature to help communicate ideas as the child gets acclimated to the foreign language. All of this would be done within a structured and familiar routine.

Immersion if the way we all learn our first language and is the most effective and fastest growing style of foreign language education currently existing in the United States.