What is immersion?
Language immersion is a curricular design in which a second language is used as the means of instruction. The belief is that the best way to learn a language is to have it used as the vehicle of instruction instead of the content of instruction (Snow, 1986). What this means is that instead of a student being taught formal language and grammar rules, they will utilize the natural process of language acquisition to acquire language rather than learn it. In the United States, the majority language is English. In an immersion program within the United States the target language, or the language which students are seeking to learn, would be something other than English.
There are a number of different frameworks within immersion learning. Two of the most popular are one-way immersion and two-way immersion. One-way immersion is a process in which a group of students all with little to no experience in the target language are instructed in that target language. Typically, this looks like students being taught in the target language between 80-90% of the school day. On the other hand, two-way immersion has two groups of students. Half of the students are fluent in the target language and half are fluent in the majority language. Instruction is delivered in both the majority and the target language so that both groups of students are able to become bilingual (Feinauer & Feinauer, 2014). In recent years, two-way immersion programs have been favored over traditional English as a Second Language programs as they focus on additive bilingualism rather than subtractive bilingualism. Additive bilingualism is the idea that a student who does not speak the majority language would be not only be immersed in their new language, but would also maintain their native language. In contrast, subtractive bilingualism is the idea that the student is immersed in the majority language without thought to preserving or growing the student’s native language abilities (Snow, 1986).
Immersion is widely sought to be the best and most effective method to learn a language. As stated, immersion allows a student to naturally acquire a language rather than learn it (Bae, 2007). When a baby is learning their first language, they are immersed in it. They spend a significant amount of time listening and being talked to before they begin to say words, phrases, and eventually sentences. When a baby is learning to speak, he or she is not taught grammar structures. Parents use understandable words, repetition, and visuals to support their child’s language learning. An immersion teacher does just this within an immersion classroom. Students have already experienced language immersion when they learned their first language. When they are a part of an immersion classroom, they are simply tapping back into the same process they used to learn their first language as emergent bilinguals (Bae, 2007).
Bae, J. (2007). Development of english skills need not suffer as a result of immersion: Grades 1 and 2 writing assessment in a Korean/English Two-Way immersion program. Language Learning, 57(2), 299–332. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2007.00410.x
Snow, M. A. (1986). Innovative second language education: Bilingual immersion programs. Center for Language Education and Research, UCLA.
