“Is Immersion the Best
Way to Learn a Language?”
AGORA
Debate on the 12th of June, 2011
Pro:
KilMook, JaeWon, DoYeon, MiRang, Suji
Con:
JeWoo, SeJin, MinJi, SolPit, SuJin
Pro: We must define what we mean when we talk about the
target language? A study done by Baker surveyed 1000 students. He found that
early immersion students lagged behind for the first few years in literacy and
then they caught up. There were no negative impacts on their first language. It’s also effective for
improving cognitive skills as they develop.
Con: It takes too much time – it’s more effective to learn the basic structure of
a new language in your mother tongue.
Pro: But these are skill sets for a global society. Even
though it takes time, it’s worth it.
Con: Immersion education is expensive and will further demonstrate
the gap between the rich and poor. This type of education may cost and need a
lot of money to be effective. If I am poor, then I can’t be in this type of program because it is too
expensive.
Pro: If you look at public resources, it’s free. If public
schools implement this type of language instruction, it helps keep the private
industry problem minimal.
Con: Even so, there is limited support from the government
for these types of programs. Not all schools can afford this type of education.
If we change it, it could devastate the national school system.
Pro: But if we do it in Korea, it helps all. If we don’t, it increases privatization
and studying abroad.
Pro: The next best thing is studying abroad. It can help
bring both culture and language. Everyone deserves the opportunity to have that
rich experience.
Con: There are opportunities to go so without going abroad,
especially as we are a technological society. We can experience cultures and
languages abroad through technology. Moreover, there are social issues present
with immersion via studying abroad with things like the goose father
phenomenon. We would need to find other ways to have cultural experiences to
reduce social problems if too many people go overseas to live and study.
Pro: In what other ways?
Con: Technology!
Pro: But it’s limited. It is a technological society, but you need
higher English levels to access that information. So many documents are in
English, so it becomes a huge waste of time to translate documents [in order to
gain cultural knowledge].
Con: There are other activities outside of class that can be
used to enhance language ability.
Pro: Including going abroad?
Con: I think we’re defining immersion too narrowly as going
abroad. If immersion includes activities inside classrooms, then I think we can
move in a different direction.
Pro: Yes, we are focusing on going abroad, but we also
support programs in schools that use the target language for instruction.
Con: I think we could divide the topic as abroad and
classroom programs. Obviously there are problems with going abroad. Students
then have trouble adapting to home culture.
Pro: Studying overseas is much more of a cultural
advantage. Not only do you experience the country’s academic and language offerings, but you also
interact with the people you study with. It’s more diverse. And you are not likely to forget
your own culture.
Con: But it happens.
Pro: But being abroad to study another language, going
abroad 1 or 2 years doesn’t really affect you culture or identity in a negative way.
Con: Maybe short term it appears to have no effect, but long
term can have an effect as you adapt. It can make it more difficult to fit back
into our own culture.
Pro: But in this global society, overcoming culture shock
is as important as learning a language.
Con: Should we all go, then? It’s very expensive, and cost is an important thing
to consider. What would you suggest for cost? Yes, it might have a good effect,
but what about paying for it?
Pro: English immersion and other language immersion is
being surrounded by the language for a significant amount of time. Actually
learning the language becomes more realistic that way. Going abroad is just one
way.
Con: So KAIST-styled English classes is the way to go?
Pro: English in the classroom is an effective tool to learn
language instead of learning it from a Korean friend.
Con: So KAIST is a type of immersion program disadvantage.
The gap between rich and poor is present, as is the intensity of immersion
sometimes has tragic consequences.
Con: Besides, many people feel they’re left behind by English immersion classes and
will try to catch up by going to academies, which costs more money.
Pro: Immersion can lower academy enrollment rates because
only learning English at school doesn’t make English perfect. Now we see that those
who go abroad generally have better English ability and those who don’t are less confident.
Pro: According to Student International Language Teacher of
the year, studies show immersion increases critical thinking, creativity,
mental flexibility. Scores for verbal and math on standardized tests went up. I
think language immersion develops better skills that help other subjects in the
long term.
Pro: There are also different levels of immersion: total
and partial. Total is 100% and partial is 50% when you learn only some material
in the target language. You can take leveling tests to determine which one a
student should take. In middle school, there were three different English
levels and you could pick which one you wanted to take. I think the KAIST case
did not offer such flexibility.
Con: So your solution is leveled classes with different
amounts of immersion teaching? What is the difference between what you just
described and what we do now?
Con: What you described has a lot of limitations, including
financial. What is spent on these programs and how are they paid for. Even
though this happens currently in schools, there might be some misperceptions,
especially with cultural knowledge. We can’t just put foreigners in every class, but we can’t have Korean teachers transmit
American culture because they may not all be informed on it.
Pro: So the internet can supplement responsible teachers. Young
students can get this information in this technological age. And not all
foreign language teachers are professional or should be teaching in a classroom.
Con: Korean education has a lot of paradoxes. Politicians
are focused on getting good poll results from people, not students. So they adopt
measures that are not for the benefit of students. Immersion in schools may
have problems, but they don’t think about it. Level tests are okay, but they are limited, so we need
a better solution. As for delivering culture, the best would be to get all
Americans (or foreigners) to do the teaching but we can’t. But Koreans teaching will result in cultural
misconceptions. Going abroad is too expensive, plus the wild goose father
problem. I think we need to focus on learning our language and culture first.
We learn English to communicate with people and because America and
other English-speaking countries are powerful.
Pro: Culture is just one advantage of immersion. We do it
to learn the language, which immersion is helpful for. Culture is being
overemphasized here.
Con: Culture is important.
Pro: Immersion doesn’t mean erasing culture, it means learning
language.
Con: What I mean by immersion in the classroom is that they
can teach you language, but that process can create stereotypes and bad
language habits. Example: how many SouthEast Asians speak English. Their
English is so varied that native speakers can’t understand them. I worried that we don’t have more
professional native English teachers, we will develop our own language and not
English as most of the world speaks it. When Korean English teachers deliver
information about language, it does indirectly teach us about culture, too.
Pro: I’m still not getting your objections to culture.
Con: Perfect immersion might be good, but we can’t achieve it. Political
environment needs to improve.
Con: Koreans can’t give us a truly accurate picture of America.
Pro: Going abroad costs too much, Koreans can’t teach us enough
about America,
so students don’t get the right idea. So what solutions do you have?
Pro: Also on stereotypes: unprofessional native teachers
can teach us wrong stereotypes. Also, if students are afraid of foreigners,
then they won’t learn. They are more comfortable learning from Koreans.
Pro: You disagree with going abroad, and immersion doesn’t seem compatible, but
it can help more than learning from a Korean.
One
conclusion: Immersion’s goal is to learn language.
And some teachers may not be professional, but if they are selected and
approved by the government, then we have to trust them.
Defining
immersion as going abroad becomes problematic.
Con: In Korea,
actual meaning of immersion seems to be going abroad or having all English
classes.
Pro: Identity is being determined in middle school and high
school. One or two years overseas can help you develop a more cultured
personality.
Con: Personal anecdote: my brother moved back to Korea after
living in America for a few years nd had all sorts of problems adjusting.
During early development, maybe one or two years can a big impact on acquiring
language skills. During that time, students should be able to acquire their own
culture and develop.
Pro: Not everyone has such issues adapting. Culture shock
happens, but you can learn from other cultures and widen the way you think.
