Back in October of 2009, I was just starting my tenure in the Peace Corps. As a budding trainee in Tanzania, I was charged with the task of learning Swahili in the two months of allotted pre-service training. It sounds like a tremendous feat that only those with nerves of steel and unshakeable dedication could possibly conquer. Being able to function in a language in just two months? There’s no way! But year in and year out, volunteers all over the world are sworn into service as competent speakers of their new language, able to survive and meet their needs in a remote location on their own.
The Peace Corps is more or less known as having one of the best language learning programs in the world. How do they do it? What’s their secret? The keys to rapid language acquisition are no secret, and there’s nothing special about what the Peace Corps does; they are simply better than everyone else at putting them into practice.
One of the most effective ways to learn a language is to immerse yourself in it. Put yourself in a position where you hear it every day. Throw yourself into situations where you are forced to produce and engage with the language. This is probably the most difficult and uncomfortable part of the learning process, especially at the beginning stages—you don’t understand much of anything being said to you, and you can barely be understood by native speakers. However, this is an absolutely crucial part of your learning. You can sit in a classroom for years and talk about grammar, sentence structure, and vocabulary; you can pass all of your written and spoken tests with flying colors; but when it comes time to face daily situations and normal conversations in the real world, you’ll probably find yourself unprepared. Immersion can teach you so many things about a language. More importantly, it can teach you things about a language without the need to have them spelled out for you. In some cases, you will learn these things faster than in a traditional classroom setting (cadence and fluency). In others, it will take longer (grammatical structures). Whatever the case, your understanding will be much more deeply ingrained and your knowledge of the language will develop much more naturally.
Immersion was a very large component of our language learning in the Peace Corps. We were placed with host families during our two months of training, so we were constantly surrounded by the target language. Host families were trained to never use their trainee’s native language, even if they were well-versed in it. Our teachers were also very good about encouraging us to explore using the language in everyday situations. We were told to practice as much as possible outside the classroom, including when actual needs arose. To facilitate this sort of practice, the Peace Corps training staff was in constant communication with our host families, asking to see how we were progressing and encouraging them to get us to perform daily tasks, such as buying items at the market, cooking dinner, washing clothes, etc. We were also invited to lots of local events, like church services and weddings, where we would often have to introduce ourselves and say a little something about the United States (and since he was freshly elected at the time, President Obama). Some of these activities were targeted and reinforced recently learned vocabulary or grammar points, while others were simply opportunities to engage the language freely and learn more about the culture.
Ever since my Peace Corps service, I find myself frequently looking back to my training and thinking about how I can apply their strategies to my own classroom. Unfortunately, immersion as a learning technique is very difficult to replicate strictly in a classroom setting, especially in countries where the target language isn't an official language. There simply aren't enough teachers that speak it. Also, students generally don't use it outside of the classroom because there are no opportunities for them to use it. When it comes to learning through immersion, the best we can do is to use the target language as much as possible within the classroom, and double down on encouraging students to use it amongst each other to give them an opportunity to practice what they've learned.
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