Sink or swim with a smile
Monday, September 22nd, 2008Full Immersion.
We’re talking 99% Korean input here and that’s 100% scary.
It’s no joke - Americans are among the few countries that typically prefer an assisted-approach to language learning. Meaning we generally like to use L1 (our first language - English) to help explicitly learn L2 (the target language - in KC101’s case - Korean). Most people who support this teaching model claim that the stress levels of the students are decidedly lower and that learning can take place in a comfortable L1-rich environment. Koreans are not the only ones who prefer full immersion (the exclusive use of L2 in the classroom) but since we are all students of Korean, let’s focus on that for the moment being. However, I eagerly wait to hear from fellow KC101 students about other countries and their approach to language learning!
Koreans adopt the immersion teaching model out of the thinking that it just works - when you are surrounded by a language, you have an opportunity to learn it. When you have a rich amount of input (i.e. listening) mixed with opportunities to have meaningful output (i.e. speaking) hey! You got yourself a language! Score!
But what about the ones who don’t get past the learning curve? What about culture shock? What about adaptability? What about learning preferences? What about learning differences? What about exceptional learners? What about everything?
No dice. With full immersion, you get it or you don’t. You are either motivated to learn or you aren’t. You either want to speak Korean or you don’t. You either make meaning from the input or you don’t. It’s like Yoda said “Do or do not; there is no try”. Hey, we’ve all heard of this method - it’s the sink or swim model!(Note: the next paragraph is best read with three servings of sarcasm and one gallon of Hatorade to wash it down).
Yea! Sink or swim! What an awesome way to feel unique and special, isn’t it? Man, I love hearing about my friends who “couldn’t hack it”! Or how about the ones who do “make it” but never studied? Oh, I love hearing about those too. Man it sure is cheap too - full immersion doesn’t require an interpreter - cause I understand everything! Sure am glad I spent a month’s salary on that plane ticket and left all my friends and family and life as I know it to live in a strange new environment where up is down and I am finally a minority. Sweet! Oh this is awesome! Gosh, I love waking up all alone in the morning and staring at myself in mirror wondering if today will be the today that I don’t feel like an idiot. Carpe Diem FTW! (Wow - that there’s enough sarcasm to last me a week)
Of course there are obvious pluses to learning a language in an immersion setting. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always work for everyone. Some are either unable or unwilling to leave their home life to live abroad. Some cannot get over the feeling of helplessness. In the states, you are your own person - independent and free. But in Korea, you are an imbecile - a foreigner who gets by either by the color of your skin or the sound of your accent. Even still, you are dependent on public transportation and privacy is a privilege that most don’t get. All that “me” time? Gone.
And of course, even though immersion does indeed provide a chance to “speed up” the learning process, we oftentimes are let down by our expectations set by other learners and (of course) movies. Anyone remember Dances with Wolves? Didn’t it take him like a week to be fluent in Sioux? What a jerk.
Perhaps it is fair to point out the cultural expectations of students and how that plays a role in this debate. Typically, American students are expected to “do their best” (which is of course subjective) and become socially competent. Shyness is considered somewhat undesirable while self-confidence is nurtured. We like our students to be well-rounded individuals who can balance responsibilities at home, part-time work, and satisfactory academic achievement. We also instill at a young age that individuality and uniqueness are celebrated and worthwhile. We also like to focus on the process over the product.
Korean students have different expectations. Responsibilities at home take a much smaller role (sometimes non-existent) while their academic workload practically doubles. It is quite common to go to school in the morning, study in the afternoon, go to a 학원 in the evening, and study some more at night. Performance is more important than the process in which you studied or applied yourself. Shyness is oftentimes equated to humbleness while self-confidence can be interpreted as arrogance. Fitting in is a subtle yet powerful undertone that can motivate many outside thinkers to think “inside the box” early on in their academic career.
Having pointed out some of the macro-level differences, immersion-type classrooms seem like not that big of deal now. Seems that life as a Korean student is pretty stressful with quite a lot of responsibilities. Throw in that homogeneity is the norm in Korea and you have a recipe for comparing apples to oranges: immersion in the West is taken in a different context than the East. Here’s a little illustration to how I see two common occurrences in schools.
It’s not that all American students are outgoing, it’s just that doing outgoing things such as initiating conversation, being brash when asking for a date, putting yourself out there - all things are more common in the states and aren’t nearly as stressful as an environment where you can’t understand what’s being said. It’s not a hard and fast rule, but I typically see more tears coming from my American friends in an immersion setting than say, a Korean classmate.
And yet, there’s hordes of foreigners coming to Korea to teach at countless numbers of jobs that require only a college diploma in any field and citizenship from an English speaking country. These thrill seekers and educators alike come to teach in various environments with the full English immersion model being the most common in the schools and academies.
I’d like to tell you a question a love to ask my classmates when learning Korean “Hey, How much did you just get?” (meaning, how much of what he/she said did you understand?) Then I measure it in percentages. When I attended a newcomer’s orientation at 이화여대, I couldn’t help but score myself just at the 30% mark. That’s 30% of the conversation I understood. Here and there I picked up a word or two - maybe a verb ending or a suffix or whatnot. It’s fun to see what your friends got out of it, too. “Oh so what was she saying about this?” or “Did you catch what she said about tomorrow?” It’s funny to see how one person caught one part of the conversation while another caught the part you missed.
To wrap things up, either way, immersion definitely is one of many ways to successfully learn a language. It certainly isn’t the only or “best” method as there simply is no convincing research evidence that points to one method as the best (although plenty of edutainers will swear by their method). However, it is enough to say that certain methods work with a certain amount of success. Immersion does work in Korea; however, it’s not the only way to learn English. Hey, look at the approach that KC101 takes - it works too - given the right attitude, work ethic, and setting, KC101 can teach you some serious Korean. Having said that, if you get a chance to learn Korean in an immersion environment, I say take it - just bring a box of tissues for the tears - you’ll have plenty to shed over the stress 
Thoughts?
Posted by Matthew in How Koreans Do It |
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Wow. You made plenty of interesting points in there, if your research is good then I have learned alot. I really enjoy your writing style also, the for the read.
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:48 pm
As you pointed out, I think motivation is very important for language learning. Learning a language is a process that’s full of disappointments, when you realize you’re not progressing as quickly as you’d like, but also full of gratifying moments, when you find yourself able to do something you couldn’t do before.
I had five years of French classes at school, but due to lack of motivation, the skills that remain now are almost only passive, and I found myself barely able to buy a subway ticket at the counter in Paris.
On the other hand, I started learning Korean at university out of personal motivation (and on my free time) two years ago, and am now quite confident in my “survival” language skills (although they’re untested as of yet).
As for language classes - you raise very valid points about immersion, but I also think that language exposure has been drastically undervalued in many of the language classes I have visited to date (in high school and university in Germany).
I think the reason for this is that it is very difficult for a teacher to find the right amount of L2 to use in class. For instance, describing the content of an excercise in L2 increases the exposure, but is likely to leave half the class wondering what they’re supposed to do. This limit is probably very hard to determine by the teacher. Still I think it’s impossible to learn speaking a language naturally without lots and lots of exposure to it.
In Korean, I felt that, since the classes at university were given in 100% German, I had to increase my language exposure - by meeting language partners, watching dramas/movies, reading internet news… otherwise my active language capabilities would be near-zero at the moment.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:13 am
Until now, I’d never heard of the drink “Hatorade.” You must tell me where I can get some. I hope it’s available in Canada.
At the Korean academy I taught at, about 3/4 of the students’ classes were “L1-style.” Grammar, reading, and listening were taught by Korean teachers in Korean. My classes, the speaking classes, were taught completely in English. What I found frustrating was when I needed to explain a grammar point to the class, and they didn’t know basic grammar terminology in English. I’m not talking about such things as “subject complement” or “subjunctive tense.” I’m talking about words like “noun” and “verb.”
So, I don’t have anything against “L2-style” learning, just that it would be helpful for learners who may pursue immersion-style learning in the future, if the instructors would teach (and preferably use) grammatical points in the target language, rather than the students’ native language.
September 24th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Oh Hatorade is available everywhere. It breaks international borders - It’s even in Korean: 해토라드
good for what ails ya!
Yeah I seemed to lack in the academia-related topics, too. Our teacher kept asking “질문 있어요?” but none of us knew what the word was for question at the time. So, after she repeated the question a few times, I raised my hand and meekly asked, “질문 뭐예요?” I suppose it would have helped to have a sort of classroom vocabulary cheat sheet handy, but then again, if I couldn’t recognize the question, what exactly might I have asked if I could only speak Korean?
October 15th, 2008 at 12:20 am
Hi!
I am a Korean native living in NYC and lead to this site by Matthew from other language site. (thanks to him)
I always am curious about the effect of the immersion teaching method, and here you are, satisfying my curiosity, like a cup of icy water in a hot summer day.
To make my point short and sharp, I should say this immersion thing is madness to me who is a slow learner and got ‘F’ on my English test in high school, my highest education, even though I was in the L1 rich environment- English taught in Korean.
Just imagine that I was put in that make-or-brake immersion class in my young and tender age!
Only time I was put in that ‘mad’ class was when I moved to the USA and the time I put myself in the US Army class.
Talking about the ’stress’ to the point of nerves break-down!
How did I survive from that mad class?
Thanks to the basic English grammar I learned in middle and high school!
Even though I failed the English test, I still know the basic structure, word order, and a lot of vocabularies which helped me read books and learn from them, without a teacher but with Mr. Webster after I was out of the highschool class.
After living in the USA for about 25 years, now I think I am ready for the immersion class, because I can understand 99% of what I can read, of course with Mr. W, about 70% of what I hear, missing about 30% due to the fast rate of speech, new words, terms or expression, and unfamiliar dialogue like Southern or Caribbean Island.
I always insist that a second language leaner must learn to read FIRST to understand what is written, in the L1 environment.
That of course involves the learning of the grammar rule.
Only after that you can have the hearing comprehension, that is, if you can hear, memorize the sound and process the input in timely manner in order to talk back sensibly if you have enough vocabulary and ability to put them in orderly manner in Korean and cozy (?) manner to your thought, or to receive the next chain of thoughts expressed in Korean for you and in English for me.
Writing is the last step for me to achieve because putting my ‘Korean thought’ into English is not a picnic.
All I can do is to convert the Korean thought into Korean thought written in English, not English thought written in English.
You can tell by reading my post, can’t you?
I may sound like discouraging many average Korean language learnners, but the positive you must acknowledge is that I self-taught myself using books, newspapers, radio talk shows, TV shows as my tool to learn, taking my own time and progress in the L1 rich environment- my native thought and tongue plus the English one.
What do you think?
October 15th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Actually, you share a common viewpoint with many linguists. Many believe that immersion is effective but only after a solid base of grammar has been set.
I actually like this idea because it focuses on several aspects of the language at once without having to address basic grammatical issues at first. For example, if I were in Croatia right now, I wouldn’t know the subject-verb-object order let alone anything else. I’d eventually pick it up of course, but I imagine it would take a long time. Now, if I had studied just a little bit at first, I feel that even a little bit of explicit grammar-based instruction would enable be to maximize my learning and pick it up that much faster.
Through KC101, I am able to pick up on so much in the “real world” even though I don’t have full command of the language yet. But because I have explicitly listened and took notes on a particular grammar point from the lessons (but not yet able to synthesize or teach it to someone else) I can at least recognize it when it comes up in everyday speech or print. From there, I can start using it, and eventually be able to truly synthesize it and interpret it’s meaning for my own understanding.
Thanks for sharing your experience Henry! Glad to see you over here at KC101, too