[ELTWeekly Volume 8, Issue 3 | January 18, 2016 | ISSN 0975-3036]
Is language learning through immersion always successful? Marcin Lewandowski and Liz Asadi suggest that it can have a negative impact on learning and how students working together as ‘learning buddies’ can counteract this.
As Krashen intended
London is often a key destination for students who want to learn, improve or practise English. This makes sense. After all, what better place to learn a language than a place where this language is actually spoken by everyone, right?
The idea that the best way to learn a language is through immersion is not new. In the 80’s Stephen Krashen developed his Natural Approach Theory which argues that second language acquisition should be more like first language acquisition, i.e developed in a natural environment through exposure to input (the foreign language). Krashen believes that such input should be at a level that is understood by the learner (comprehensible), relevant and sufficient in quantity.
So far, so good. A motivated student visiting London (or any other town or city in the UK for that matter) should have little problem finding plentiful input through contact with sympathetic locals