Immersion programs work on the assumption that second language acquisition (L2) occurs most easily and rapidly in the target language environment and culture. They are designed to simulate to some extent native-like learning conditions by maximising the time that learners are exposed to the target language and by also exposing students to the target language culture or cultures.
Do Immersion Programs Work?
The successful results from immersion program research have led to claims that immersion pupils gain an ability to think in the foreign language. The implication being the more adept students are at thinking in that language, the quicker they will be able to process input and output and consequently enhance their acquisition of that language all the more.
Although there may be enormous advantages to immersion programs, seemingly, contrary to their intentions, Andrew Cohen, specialist in bilingual and immersion studies in “Strategies for choosing the language of thought,” Strategies in Learning and Using a Second Language, 1998, points to the fact that pupils develop and use strategies for thinking through their first language (L1) in second language learning when actually target language (LT) thought may be more conducive to genuine language learning.
Immersion Students Rely on First Language
Cohen states that in immersion programs in the USA, students still use their L1 about 50% of the time even though teachers insist in using the LT. For example, he discovered that in French language immersion students:
- gaps were seen to exist between comprehension and production
- their language consisted of simple vocabulary
- their spoken and written French contained numerous morphological, syntactic, and lexical deviations
Cohen explains this by claiming that the students learning French seem to use a process of reflexification, that is they use their L1 structure to form sentences in the LT. Furthermore, they tend to insert native words when speaking, implying they are performing on-line mental translations.
Cohen states that besides infrequent use of discourse in the classroom environment – and minimum attention to form, the potential source for all the gaps and inconsistencies between comprehension and production might be the reluctance or inability to do cognitive operations in the LT. The students “may not be as immersed as the teachers and administrators think they are,” he writes.
Spanish Immersion Programs
In addition to the French language immersion programs, Cohen examined language use in a Spanish full immersion program. Cohen wished to determine the effects of the “external language environment” and the “internal language environment” on second language acquisition. He defines the external language environment being: the setting where language related experiences could influence the learner; for example:
- the goals of the curriculum
- classroom policies and procedures
- materials and activities
- communication between the pupils, teachers and administrators
Cohen describes the “internal language environment” as how learners process language in their minds. By this he means their L1 and L2 mental systems and the role played by each language in performing the cognitive tasks for which the L2 is the primary vehicle used in the students' environment.
Cohen investigated which language students use when performing cognitive operations in math’s problems and at which point they substitute their LT for their L1. He observed 32 pupils of mixed ability aged between ages 8-11.
Overall findings showed that the full immersion pupils were using their L1 for a variety of school tasks especially for performing cognitive operations in maths. If they did use Spanish, once they came across a conceptual problem they reverted to English. In addition, the fact that immersion pupils do not fall behind in their L1 abilities suggests that they are transferring all the information they receive through the LT to the L1 by way of “simultaneous processing” thus indicating that immersion students never totally switch off their L1.
Immersion Students Not So Immersed
Surprisingly, like foreign language learners, students from full immersion programs rely heavily on their L1. However, unlike foreign language learners, they are capable of fast on-line translations. Interestingly, even though these students are surrounded by the LT, from all accounts it seems that the internal language environment of the pupils is not as intensively foreign language oriented as one would expect after such exposure. Cohen concludes with the following statement “After six or seven years of immersion schooling, the learners were behaving externally or socially in Spanish, but not psychologically or cognitively.”
Sources
- Cohen, Andrew, "Strategies for choosing the language of thought." Strategies in Learning and Using a Second Language, Addison Wesley Longman, 157-214: 1998.
Lesley Lanir - Freelance writer, lecturer and teacher trainer Lesley Lanir, writes on foreign language learning disorders, linguistics, and literature.
