Foreign languages have been offered in education for centuries, but the importance of learning a foreign language in today’s society is growing. With the blurring of borders, international contacts are increasing, such as studying, working, and living abroad. Learning a foreign language is therefore more of a must than a may. But how do you master this language?
Different Approaches
Over the years, various approaches have been visible in education. Since the 1940s, the grammar-translation method has been used in foreign language teaching. This method involves students first listening to an instruction, for example: ‘We conjugate the verb to be as follows…’. Then, students complete various exercises, such as fill-in-the-blank exercises. Finally, students are expected to use the verb correctly in other contexts, such as in a conversation.
In the 1970s, the American linguist Stephen Krashen initiated a counter-movement. Krashen advocated for a natural approach in which students can unconsciously acquire language rules through extensive exposure to the target language, meaning lots of reading, listening, and communicating.
Acquisition requires meaningful interaction in the target language – natural communication – in which speakers are concerned not with the form of their utterances but with the messages they are conveying and understanding.
It wasn’t until the 1990s that this method gained ground. Since then, this approach has been called communicative language teaching. A term often used instead of communicative language teaching is immersion.
Does Immersion Work?
In the current market for foreign languages, both the grammar-translation method and the immersion method are used. Some methodologies are entirely based on the grammar-translation method, others combine both approaches, and still others focus on immersion. But which approach has the most positive effect on learning a foreign language?
Thousands of projects have repeatedly shown that immersion is very effective. Do these good results for the immersion method mean that only methods with this approach should be brought to market? And what about grammar instruction? After all, you are immersing yourself in the foreign language by reading, listening, and speaking. Is there still room to explain grammar? And how does education using the immersion method work? What does this approach require from the teacher and the students? Besides all these questions, there is also a very practical question that schools face: When should you start teaching a foreign language?
The Next Articles Are…
We will answer all these questions in a series of articles. In the next article, we will discuss how to incorporate grammar instruction in the immersion method. The other articles will successively examine immersion and when it is best for a student to start. English as a foreign language will be the focus of all articles, as this has been our area of specialization to date.
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