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The "Created Immersion Strategy"

 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies Post Reply
9 messages over 2 pages: 1 2  Next >>
CaucusWolf
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5291 days ago

191 posts - 234 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Arabic (Written), Japanese

 
 Message 1 of 9
03 April 2011 at 5:18am | IP Logged 
        Total immersion usually involves actually going to the country, but what if you didn't have to? the idea of created immersion is the idea that fluency could be attained through self study and the use of skype, facebook and other social networks. Practicing with live speakers who correct your writing and speaking is like having a teacher after all.
           Perhaps, when the native speakers are busy you could be immersing yourself in television programs and websites. If we had a daily regiment of 3 hours a day with our language learning materials and 3 hours with a native speaker much could be achieved. However, realisitcally you probably couldn't get 3 hours with a native speaker/speakers because of time zones, work etc.
        If you did find a native speaker to help you for 30 minutes a day and then blended this with 3 hours of television and website immersion, could you reach your fluency goal? Could anything more than a high intermediate level be achieved this way? Or does the final goal require total immersion in country to achieve fluency?
1 person has voted this message useful



Arthaey
Groupie
United States
arthaey.com
Joined 5065 days ago

97 posts - 155 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 2 of 9
03 April 2011 at 5:52am | IP Logged 
I'm stuck at high-intermediate or low-advanced in my Spanish right now, so I'll definitely be watching this thread
for others' comments!
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Splog
Diglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
anthonylauder.c
Joined 5688 days ago

1062 posts - 3263 votes 
Speaks: English*, Czech
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 3 of 9
03 April 2011 at 11:21am | IP Logged 
CaucusWolf wrote:

        If you did find a native speaker to help you for 30 minutes a day and then
blended this with 3 hours of television and website immersion, could you reach your
fluency goal? Could anything more than a high intermediate level be achieved this way?
Or does the final goal require total immersion in country to achieve fluency?


Being "in country" only helps if you take advantage of it. I have lived in several
countries, before settling in Prague, and in all of them I met communities of expats
who lived in an expat bubble and never learned the local language. Contrast this with
the many speakers of English around the world who have never left their own country.

Kato Lomb explained that your micro-environment (the bubble in which you live) is more
important than your macro-environment (the country in which you live). In other words,
what matters most is the things that you deliberately expose yourself to all the time
rather than those that you come across by accident.
13 persons have voted this message useful



jazzboy.bebop
Senior Member
Norway
norwegianthroughnove
Joined 5437 days ago

439 posts - 800 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Norwegian

 
 Message 4 of 9
03 April 2011 at 7:53pm | IP Logged 
If you want some idea about creating an immersion environment and finding out about someone who immersed themselves to a very high degree in a foreign language, you should definitely check out All Japanese All The Time.

I've linked the contents page. Scroll down a bit and you will find numerous pages about the immersion environment.
1 person has voted this message useful



CaucusWolf
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5291 days ago

191 posts - 234 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Arabic (Written), Japanese

 
 Message 5 of 9
04 April 2011 at 2:28am | IP Logged 

jazzboy.bebop wrote:
If you want some idea about creating an immersion environment and finding out about someone who immersed themselves to a very high degree in a foreign language, you should definitely check out ...

I found the articles that talk about totally taking yourself away from English to be interesting.
Splog wrote:

Kato Lomb explained that your micro-environment (the bubble in which you live) is more important than your macro-environment (the country in which you live). In other words, what matters most is the things that you deliberately expose yourself to all the time rather than those that you come across by accident.

Expecting the language to just come to you is no way of approaching language learning. I think the problem is people feel a sort of bond with native speakers of the same language. (Either that or they're just lazy.) Its unfortunate that some feel living in country is all it takes to gain fluency.
1 person has voted this message useful



Cainntear
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Scotland
linguafrankly.blogsp
Joined 6030 days ago

4399 posts - 7687 votes 
Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh

 
 Message 6 of 9
04 April 2011 at 9:37am | IP Logged 
Splog wrote:
In other words,
what matters most is the things that you deliberately expose yourself to all the time
rather than those that you come across by accident.

Note the word (my emphasis) expose.

Exposure and immersion are very different things. I'm not going to argue on the effectiveness of exposure vs immersion, but it doesn't help anyone to discuss one as though it's the other.
1 person has voted this message useful



slucido
Bilingual Diglot
Senior Member
Spain
https://goo.gl/126Yv
Joined 6694 days ago

1296 posts - 1781 votes 
4 sounds
Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan*
Studies: English

 
 Message 7 of 9
04 April 2011 at 4:15pm | IP Logged 
Cainntear wrote:
Splog wrote:
In other words,
what matters most is the things that you deliberately expose yourself to all the time
rather than those that you come across by accident.

Note the word (my emphasis) expose.

Exposure and immersion are very different things. I'm not going to argue on the effectiveness of exposure vs immersion, but it doesn't help anyone to discuss one as though it's the other.


I don't understand what do you mean. What's the difference?


1 person has voted this message useful



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