Total immersion in language learning - a must for consolidation and fluency.

Total immersion in language learning is the situation where the learner spends time in an environment operating solely in the target language. In this way the learner is completely surrounded by the target language, this being defined as the language that the learner wants to learn.

I am a big fan of this method, and know from personal experience how effective it is. I lived in for years in Fiji where everyone spoke English, so I only picked up a smattering of Fijian and Hindi, (including all the swear words). However, from there, I went as an 11 year-old to a boarding school in a French colony (24/7), New Caledonia, where nobody spoke English, and I was writing my diary in French within weeks.

Can't get No Total Immersion?

If you cannot get into a total immersion situation, there is much that you can do. CREATE A SIMULATED IMMERSION language learning situation on a regular basis within your normal day-to-day life.

For a learner the immersion phase in the language learning process will really catapult your learning ahead, particularly if you communicate exclusively in the target language, and ditch your mother tongue.

As an example, if one is learning Spanish one might go to a Spanish speaking country where Spanish is the native tongue. One might then take classes where all the instruction is given in the native tongue, in this case Spanish.

One is then immersed in the language, and surrounded by the culture of the target language-speaking community.

Living with a host family will further bolster this learning process, and give you further insights into the mentality of the culture.

In reality it is very unlikely for people to really become fluent in a language without extensive periods of some form of total language immersion. Only a tiny percentage do.

Learning the language in its natural environment

In this situation, the third ear starts to come into play at a subconscious level. This is the mind's innate ability to learn the patterns and structure of a language when one is surrounded by it.

For best success with language learning, use language as a TOOL

The above might sound like stating the obvious, but it is not unheard of for people with years of high level academic language study to be too frightened to utter a word, for fear of making a grammatical error.

As Chris Lonsdale says The Third Ear, don't grammaticate!

... if you wish to really learn and use a language. Talk!

Talk, talk, talk!

Initially in the total language immersion situation it might seem incomprehensible

The locals will speak seemingly at machine-gun fire pace, with their words slurring one into the other, not clearly as one heard on one's language learning recordings, or from one's teacher.

Feelings of being overwhelmed while learning the language!

However do not force it.

Just let it flow over you, for as long as it takes.

After a period of exposure, particularly where the student has made a conscious positive decision to have an open mind and to learn the language, all the hundreds, and thousands of words, phrases, conversations, expressions start beginning to make sense.

Neural pathways are laid in the brain making more and more connections. As one is exposed longer and longer in this environment, more and more patterns start to emerge, and be recognized.

One will recognize more and more of the repeating patterns in greetings, small talk, and chit-chat.

The more that one can get into one's brain before and during the total immersion period, the material that is sitting in the subconscious ready to make that next neural connection.

The brain starts to make connections and 'make sense' of the grammar, the language structure, the way sentences are constructed. This combines with your 'previously learned' material and all those inputs from reading, learning, vocabulary learning, memory triggers, conversations etc.

Get stuff into your brain... however it suits you!

Accelerating the total immersion learning process

• Radio
• Television, Films, DVD, video
• Music
• Podcasts

Combining your learning with some structured tuition, language teaching textbooks, courses etc will accelerate the learning process, and reinforce much of what is learned when in conversation.

However if you prefer some tuition in your mother tongue...

Some people may prefer to take some tuition in the mother tongue, finding the tuition exclusively in the target language being too big a step. Perhaps those starting from a lower base will be more likely to feel this way.

I prefer to advocate trying to express yourself in the target language, but if this is too great a step, then take some tuition, with a reputable and skilled teacher who will guide you.

Once the teacher has said something in English, get the teacher to repeat each phrase in the foreign language.

As you progress, try operating less and less in English, and operate more and more in the target language, until eventually all tuition should be given in the target language.

Avoid speaking your mother tongue

You know that little voice in your head?

Well as soon as you can, get that voice in your head to talk to yourself in the target language. Nobody else need ever know!

You'll start to realize you are getting really fluent when you start doing mental arithmetic in your head, and the internal conversation is in the target language.

The more that you can exclude yourself from your mother tongue the better.

What if you cannot get into a long term total immersion environment?

But it may simply not be possible to get the time to do it. What can one do?

Lots!!

Simulated language immersion