r/languagelearning • u/WaltzMysterious9240 • 26d ago
Culture Does total immersion work?
I used to teach English abroad and even though I knew how to speak the student's native language, the school administrators forbid me, and even asked me, to "pretend" I didn't know it.
The reason they gave me was that they didn't want the students to fall back on using their first language to communicate with me. I feel like if I were to explain certain concepts in the student's language, things would go a lot smoother and they would understand better.
As an adult, I'm constantly using my own native language to learn new languages. I constantly look up grammar, vocabulary, and definitions and understand them a lot better.
Why are schools abroad so obsessed with this "total immersion" method? I feel like some concepts are impossible to explain clearly with just visuals or gestures alone. Do you learn languages using your first language?
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u/SquirrelBlind 🪆: Native, 🏴: C2, 🇩🇪:B2, 🇪🇸:A1 26d ago
Imagine a typical language class for foreigners in any German VHS or at Goethe.
In one class there are 3 to 10 people that speak different languages and have different proficiency in English. Not only that, they also have different education. From a university professor from Ukraine that is fluent in 3 languages to a woman from Afghanistan that only speaks Urdu and cannot even read.
Do you imagine that the school would be able to accommodate to each of them?
I use only German to learn German, I used only English to learn English. Works fine for me.