Should Language Immersion Be Taught In Schools?

When we look at language learning in schools, most of us can tell it’s not ideal, especially if we have used the immersion method ourselves and seen good results from doing this.

This may make you wonder why they don’t just use the immersion method in schools, surely it would more beneficial for the kids and they might actually be able to leave school knowing a language.

While this would be cool, the reality is that the immersion method is never going to fit into the current system. The whole educational system would need changed and that is very unlikely to happen.

They Should Try and Get Kids To Immerse

The reality is that the immersion method can work for anyone trying to learn a language …but it is really effective for kids.

If you want to get a child to learn a language then all you need to do is expose them to it and they will absorb it, extremely quickly.

Children’s brains are designed for this and while it may seem intense to us adults, a kid can handle this. Just look at any child that has been raised in a bilingual household, they just take on both languages and are able to separate them really easily. It’s pretty incredible when you actually see it in action.

However, it’s not just the impressive language skills that they gain; it has been shown that being bilingual is better for kids. They generally have better brain function and can solve problems easier, multitask more effectively and have stronger memories.

Learning more than one language is actually really good for them, so really, school should be making more of an effort to teach them a language and they should be using the immersion method.

The Current School System Is Not Set Up For Immersion

When you look at the current school system you will quickly see that it is not set up of immersion and probably never will be.

If you want to learn a language through immersion then you need a lot of exposure to it, which means multiple hours a day, every day.

Schools are not set up for this, they teach multiple subjects a day, for short periods of time. This means that even if they introduced an immersion class, it just would not be long enough, or regular enough to see any god results.

If I think back to my own French classes at school, I maybe had 2 lessons a week, for like 30 or 40 minutes at a time. I would argue that is not enough time to learn a language through traditional methods, let alone using the immersion method.

If they wanted to introduce immersion, they would need to be given a few hours every day to focus on this.

(You can read more about – Why You Can’t Learn A Language In School)

Immersion Is A Unique Journey Of Discovery

One of the big problems with immersion is that it is kind a unique experience to the individual. You really just go on a personal journey of discovery, watching, listening and reading things that you find interesting and also going at your own pace as you absorb the language and make sense of things.

This means that you and I could both spend the same amount of time immersing, in the same language and have a totally different experience and maybe even totally different results.

This kind of self study and “do what you want” type attitude would not work in the traditional school environment. A teacher is going to want to have everything pre-planned and tell the students what to read or watch, which is the total opposite of how it should be done.

You could in theory give the children time to immerse. You just have to tell them to do their own thing and trust that they will actually engage with the language during that time.

If they are allowed to read or watch anything they are interested in, then I don’t see why they wouldn’t do it.

However, I really can’t imagine a class where they can all just sit back and watch their favourite anime, in Japanese for the whole class. It seems like too much fun and like something that would just never happen.  

(You can read more about – Is Learning A Language Through Immersion Effective?)

They Can’t Test The Kids If They Use The Immersion Method

A large part of the schooling system revolves around being able to test children and show they have achieved certain objectives.

This is exactly why language classes are structured the way they are. The teacher can cover certain topics and then expect you to repeat the key points later on in a test. If you can recall everything, you pass, if you don’t, you fail.

Language classes in school are more about recalling information, not your ability to use a language. The immersion method is not going to allow for this type of testing, as each kid may be learning different things and at different paces and it can be pretty hard to test exactly what they know or do not.

This doesn’t mean you will not learn things through immersion; it’s just a lot harder to test. It’s kind of like if I ask you to tell me every word you know in your native language …you are never going to be recall every word you know, but that doesn’t mean you don’t know them …it just means I can’t test you to see what you do know.

They Could Teach Children Other Subjects In The Target Language

One way the immersion method could be introduced to children is to just keep the whole system the same …but teach everything through a different language.

This does happen in a way at international schools. These are usually schools that are in non-English speaking countries, but everything is taught in English.

Most of the time this is due to the English speaking parents moving to France for example …and rather sending their kids to a French school, they send them to international school where everything is in their native language, English.

In this instance, the parents should really just send the kids to French school. They can speak English at home and get massive amounts of immersion at the French school.

This is going to be tough for the kids, imagine having to go to school and everything is taught in a foreign language. My guess is that the international schools are designed to overcome this exact problem, but they then are missing out on learning two languages.

It is funny how this is a “problem” …to me it would be amazing, I’d rather just go to the local school and get immersed in the local language. You would be living in the country, so it just makes sense.

Anyway, they could make a system like this. So you live in England, but you go to school and all the lessons, like maths, science, physical education and so on are all taught in Spanish for example. The kids are very quickly going to be very good at speaking Spanish, but also will be fluent in English, since they live in England.

I guess you would need at lot of native speakers to teach in the school, so maybe that is why it would never go mainstream, but I think this concept would work.

There Are Language Immersion Schools For Adults

There actually language immersion schools, but these are usually for adults.

They can be really effective, but they are more about learning the language, rather than kids schools where they learn all the different subjects, so it’s not exactly the same.

However, these adults’ schools are not long, they are maybe a few weeks at most. You go there and stay for like a month and just get exposed to the language the whole time.

I don’t see why they can’t just make these for kids, you could even do it over the summer holidays, and then you wouldn’t need to worry about teaching subjects, you can kind of just focus on the language.

Maybe these exist and I’m not aware of them, or maybe being away from home for that long is too intense for them or something.  I don’t know, but again, I feel this could work and could be beneficial for them.  

Conclusion

As you can see, immersion in school would be really beneficial for the kids, we could have a whole generation of bilingual children, but unfortunately there would need to be a lot of big changes, which will just never happen.

The immersion method is not compatible with the current schooling system, which means, if we want our kids to get a second language, we will have to help them with the immersion, outside of school

They only go to school for so long, there is plenty of time in the evening and weekend to immerse, exactly like how you can, after work, so if you really want to, you can do it without the help of the school system.  

(You can read more about – Is Learning A Language Through Immersion Effective?)