6 ways to immerse yourself in a language

Guest post by Andrea Picaso Fritz

By Shawn Lipowski (Shawnlipowski) (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

Immersion is generally thought to be the best technique for learning a language. The basic idea is: if you are surrounded by a particular language, hearing and speaking it every day, then you will learn it far more quickly than you would if you were just learning in a classroom. Of course, classroom learning has its place – learning the rules of grammar provides the basis for greater linguistic sophistication. But immersion, whether alongside classroom learning or not, is guaranteed to dramatically help with vocabulary and fluency. Summer school students in the UK have a great opportunity to be immersed in English during their time away from home. Here are some ideas for you and your students to immerse yourselves in a language:

Immerse yourself in films

If your target language happens to be French then you are onto a winner here. Block off the weekend, take the Time Out Guide to the 100 best French films as your guide, switch off the subtitles and immerse yourself in the world of French cinema and language.

Immerse yourself in food

An equally pleasant method of immersion is French cooking. Just reading through a French cookery book will get the juices flowing and teach you something about the culture of the country. This kind of immersion is essential for enjoyment and motivation. Taking a short French language course in France would also give you the opportunity to sample authentic cuisine. The same applies to any country and language.

Immerse yourself at home

One of the reasons why some people want to learn another language is because their partner is from another country or speaks another language. Immersing yourself at home can work very well in this situation. The two of you can agree that the target language is the one that will be spoken at home, and all conversations will take place in this language. This is can be very effective when it works, though a downside is that for the first week or so you are going to be very limited in what you can say, apart from what your name is and where you come from. But we must all start with the basics!

Immerse yourself at work

Once you have exhausted the patience of whoever is at home, or if you don’t have a partner or other person to practice with at home then consider teaming up with someone at work. If you work for a global company then check the intranet and find yourself a language buddy in another country with whom to immerse yourself in business speak.

Immerse yourself with study abroad

With some excellent language schools around, such as http://www.esl-schools.org/ you can immerse yourself in a rich combination of classrooms and cafés, getting the best of both worlds.

Immerse yourself teaching abroad

If you want a real shortcut to learning the life and language of a country then immerse yourself in teaching abroad. The satisfaction of teaching your native language while learning another cannot be overestimated!

Tags: language immersion

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