When Louise Harber started her foreign language immersion business in the 1970s, “immersion” meant traveling to another country to submerge oneself in its culture, reading its local papers, going shopping at the local markets and eavesdropping on conversations.<\/p>\n
But now, anyone can travel virtually \u2013 to a supermarket in Italy, or a department store in Mexico, or a toy store in France \u2013 and for those who can’t move abroad that’s a great thing.<\/p>\n
“There are so many materials around, you just have to surround yourself,” said Harber, who advises students to get to know local trends and try to learn vocabulary they can use in daily conversation. “Learning a foreign language is about everyday things.”<\/p>\n
The key to immersion learning \u2013 rather than poring over textbooks and memorizing vocabulary words \u2013 is being in an environment where you are exposed to the new language in everyday scenarios, because “you’re forced to learn,” she said. “It works because that’s the way you learn your own language.”<\/p>\n
Research suggests immersion learning may be more effective than only learning with more traditional classroom methods because of how our brains process grammar.<\/p>\n
In a study published in 2011, scientists from the Georgetown University Medical Center tested two groups of participants using a traditional classroom teaching model for one group and an immersion model for the other. They discovered that the students exposed to the immersion-based instruction processed the information differently.<\/p>\n
“Only the immersion training led to full native-like brain processing of grammar,” Michael Ullman, one of the researchers, told ScienceDaily.com in 2012. “So if you learn a language you can come to use native language brain processes, but you may need immersion rather than classroom exposure.”<\/p>\n
The researchers in the Georgetown study \u2013 who arrived at their conclusion after measuring participants’ retention of a made-up language (to ensure they’d had no prior exposure to it) \u2013 did not specifically describe what teaching methods were used in the immersion training, nor suggest why immersion learning may have led the brain to store the information differently. But another study, which looked at how students interacted with Yabla’s own foreign language website LoM\u00e1sTv (now Spanish.Yabla.com), which features video clips of native speakers, found that most participants were excited about this teaching method and reported it was engaging.<\/p>\n
Beyond structured platforms like Yabla, language learners increasingly encounter foreign-language content through routine digital activity. Social media feeds, online marketplaces, and user-generated video all present unscripted language in real contexts \u2013 the kind of ambient exposure that mirrors what Harber described decades ago as submerging oneself in a culture.<\/p>\n
Community college instructors teaching intermediate-level courses have noted that students often arrive with vocabulary they did not learn in class. The words come from scrolling through comment sections on Latin American YouTube channels, reading product listings on Mexican retail sites, or navigating app interfaces set to a target language. The vocabulary tends to be unpolished and sometimes regional, but it sticks \u2013 partly because students sought it out on their own, driven by curiosity rather than a syllabus.<\/p>\n
Several learners have described browsing foreign-language sites during downtime: recipe blogs, sports forums, a new online casino<\/a>, classified ad boards. They found that the low-stakes, self-directed reading reinforced grammatical patterns they had struggled with in class. One student mentioned keeping a running list of words picked up from site navigation menus and checkout flows, treating the interface itself as a vocabulary exercise.<\/p>\n That pattern fits what the Georgetown researchers observed: when learners process language in contexts that feel ordinary rather than instructional, the brain appears to handle the input differently. The distinction may not lie in the quality of the content but in the learner’s relationship to it \u2013 whether the brain treats the input as something to be memorized or something to be used.<\/p>\n The digital landscape has expanded what counts as an immersion environment. A student does not need to stand in a French toy store to practice reading labels; a foreign-language website, however mundane, can serve the same cognitive purpose. The principle Harber built her business around \u2013 surrounding yourself with the language in everyday settings \u2013 has simply acquired more settings.<\/p>\n \u201cCALL Evaluation: Students\u2019 Perception and Use of LoM\u00e1sTv,\u201d which was conducted at Iowa State University from 2007 to 2009 and included about 540 students who were studying Spanish, grew out of an effort at the university to \u201cintegrate culture and language instruction and increase students\u2019 listening competence,\u201d writes the author of the study, Cristina Pardo-Ballester. The study found that the majority of students remembered more vocabulary words when studying with computer-assisted language learning (CALL) materials such as the LoM\u00e1sTv video and audio clips.<\/p>\n Most of the participants reported that LoM\u00e1sTv content was particularly useful for becoming acquainted with the Hispanic culture they were studying \u2013 for learning accents and slang, and becoming familiar with various cities. In conclusion Pardo-Ballester said research suggests that the web-based, video-learning model does improve students\u2019 listening and speaking performance.<\/p>\n \u201cWatching the segments of a video in which speech acts appear and incorporating a role play, such as greeting, asking for information or arguing, provides practice for customary interaction Spanish-speaking populations would consider routine,\u201d she writes. \u201cThese videos could also serve as a tool to frame communicative classroom-based discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n Harber, whose company \u2018Foreign Language Immersion & Cultural Immersion\u2019 sends people to places as varied as China, Spain and United Arab Emirates, said students\u2019 motivation for studying foreign languages has shifted since she started her business and grew it with help from local services that offer business protection<\/a>.<\/p>\n While before, people would try to learn a foreign language in an effort to appear more educated and cultured, she said the global nature of our society means language learning is now more business-driven. To learn if this can affect you in your line of business you can check this website<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe we have to change the way (we) teach foreign languages,\u201d she added. \u201cNow you have to see it more as a tool, as a necessity.\u201d<\/p>\n It seems the idea is resonating with educators across the United States, as more K-12 schools incorporate immersion curriculums, whether to help students better understand other cultures or prepare them to compete in a global economy.<\/p>\n In Utah, immersion education is thriving after a lawmaker who had recently returned from a trip to China \u2013 and worried that American students would have trouble competing with their peers internationally \u2013 introduced a bill to fund foreign language education in public schools.<\/p>\n \u201cMonolingualism is the illiteracy of the 21st century,\u201d Republican State Senator Howard Stephenson told Public Radio International in March. \u201cAs many nations are rearing children with bi- and trilingual abilities, we need to step it up because we\u2019re in a world competitive arena.\u201d<\/p>\n Article by: Alice Popovici<\/p>\n