Thread: English - How Effective Immersion Really Is

First I'd like to say that I have an ancestor that was full blood German but he never spoke German. His parents were naturalized and documented immigrants.

When I was in college, I tried to barter my way out of learning another language. Well, you wont get it, if you don't ask. I tried to get out of Art/Music appreciation too because of the many hours spent in music lessons. I lost both arguments but won another one.

Anyway, I had taken Latin in high school and I didn't want to waste time and money for another language. During this process, the department head told me about a student, which had just returned from an exchange program in Germany. He was there for 6 months and he was having a hard time communicating in English. He said, the student had forgotten a lot of his English vocabulary. Noticably, common words like toaster or desk top. Also, he said the student would revert back to German, in mid sentence and not even notice what he had done. Well, we have the same thing happen down here and we call it Tex-Mex. Many fluent and educated bi-linguals communicate like this in TX. Often there is a lengthy translation for a single word, therefore, it's just better to switch over so nothing gets lost in the translation.

Following my barting ordeal, I ended up in a language class. My language professor told me about his friend's wife, which had come to him for help. She was a military brat and was born in Germany but returned to the states around age 8. She had recently had a problem getting through Customs because she was asked to say something in German. She waited over two hours and was finally able to say some very simple phrases. At one time, she was a fluent speaker of German.

Also, during my time at the university, I met a German that had been living in America, since he was 10 years old. He also forgot how to speak German and he could not test out of German for credit. He actually ended up taking his native language for credit.

All of this leads to a point I would like to make, which is that immersion works really well. You have to immerse yourself in a language to really learn it. In essence, sending people to language class is futile, if they are not properly exposed to the language and willingly use it on a day to day basis. America has wasted a lot of money pretending to teach people English because they have not cast off their old language, long enough to absorb English. People will always take the path of least resistance.

Also, if you don't use it, you will loose it. In fact, I can't even speak a complete sentence in Latin but my class was paid for by tax payers and I received credit for the course. I went through the process but have nothing to show for it. I'm sure many people required to take an English course, have ended up with little understanding or the ability to use the language. They might as well have taken Latin.

The moral is, if you cast off your first language, you will surely learn a new one.

Dixie

Dixie, you are absolutely correct.

Both my children were forced to take 2 years of Spanish in high school. One can speak enough to ask a few simple questions, only because she worked with so many Mexicans while being a waitperson during college. Also, because she is a singer and had to learn to sing in other languages. What little my son knows, he learned from his Dad.

We spend millions teaching Mexican children to speak English here in TExas and then pretend we are going to teach American kids to speak Spanish when they are in high school.

There are ways these people could learn the languages they need, including Americans learning other languages, without a lot of money. Of course, any project that doesn't involve spending huge sums of money, doesn't interest our politicians - ever.

nntrixie,

Shut down the Spanish language TV and Radio. I heard a guy once tell me he learned a foreign language by watching TV.

Dixie

I am all for shutting down the Spanish stations. I get very tired of having to click through all of them on Dish network.

I have experienced the same thing. My family is of German decent, and I was always proud of my German heritage so I took the time to learn the language on my own and at one time, while not fluent, could probably have gotten by in Germany if I visited there.

Right now I do not remember a lot of it and struggle to even count in German. But for me the same can be said of algebra...I use to be a wiz at advanced math and today, since its rarely ever used, I can not do algebra.

The bottom line is that the illegals do not want to learn english, they do not want to assimilate to our culture. They want us to bend to their needs as is evidenced by the demands on our schools to teach their revisionist history and multiculturalism. And the worst part is with the MCLU and other organizations and our traiterous leaders, so far, have gotten what they want.

And I want to know why our government allows that guiterez(sp) charecter to spew his seditious, treasonous rhetoric. I am for freedom of speech, but when it calls for the take over of our nation, and killing us, I have to draw the line.

By God we are going over this on our towns board. They want to take my children's successful magnet program and make it a dual language program. I'm furious.

Read and weep.

http://www.waukegan.org/Forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5971

http://www.waukegan.org/Forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4939

See mine and others arguments....

I read some of those replies, it seems there are a lot of people there blind to the fact that we are losing our culture and our country. Of course that is the situation all over America.

Just what in the world can be gained by speaking spanish in America?
Unless you are getting the kids ready to live in a latino America.

Complacency. Look how many people dont even vote.

The problem isnt mainstream enough in the media to get through to all the dead heads in this country. Of course the reason behind that is the media is controled by corporations that drive the government.

I cant say it enough, we are living a nightmare.

Yup, I'm another one.

As small kids, we all spoke English & Italian. After all of our grandparents passed away, we were only spoken to in English. Now, only the oldest of the cousins retained the language and the rest of us can only speak curse words.

I took Latin, Spanish and Chinese in school. Can barely speak a few words of any of it now. If we don't use it, we do lose it.

.

Originally Posted by 2ndamendsis

Yup, I'm another one.

As small kids, we all spoke English & Italian. After all of our grandparents passed away, we were only spoken to in English. Now, only the oldest of the cousins retained the language and the rest of us can only speak curse words.

I took Latin, Spanish and Chinese in school. Can barely speak a few words of any of it now. If we don't use it, we do lose it.

.

I took Latin in school, which has proven handy in learning other European languages. Having travelled extensively, I have had to learn foreign languages on the ground by immersion. I have, at one time or another, managed basic conversation in Russian, Japanese, French and German but, like others here, I find that once I am back home I lose the other language fairly quickly (though picking it up the next time is a little easier). The key is not only immersion but protracted immersion. A person who plans to become an American should have no problem with that, but it seems that many of our current crop of "immigrants" don't really want to become Americans. They want to be whatever they were before they came here, but to reap the benefits of being American.

The only way some Spanish speakers are going to learn English if they are forced to. They keep falling back on the Spanish and never embrace English. The have been enabled by our government so they avoid learning Engih. Even worse, some illegal immigrants can't read Spanish.

Like you CG, I have a friend that works for the airlines and she has used survival language books to make her way around many different countries. It's a lame excuse not to learn English, or at least use it on a daily basis.

English is the language of America so learn it.

Dixie