Immersion does help you learn a language. I'm proof of it. Well, kind of.
Actually, the first language I started speaking was Kannada. The only reason I learned this language is because it was the language my parents spoke to me. Even today, I only speak Kannada with my parents. I'd rather not speak English with them because I'm afraid I'll start to forget Kannada. My point is that I can fluently speak Kannada because I was exposed to it, I was immersed in it even though the level of immersion was low. It's not like I was living in India learning this language, but I was fully immersed in it in my home. So, I do consider it some form of immersion because I learned the language and the culture.
It was interesting to read about the experiment they conducted with the two classes, one studied a language in a classroom setting and the other trained through immersion. I think this article shows that immersion is definitely more beneficial to language learners and I agree. However, I have to comment as someone who learned a language through immersion that classroom learning is also beneficial. I say this because there are holes in my knowledge of Kannada. I know how to speak it, but that doesn't mean I understand the grammatical, structural parts of the language. I think that part is necessary as well.
I'm also very excited about living in Korea for a year so I can learn the language through immersion as well. I'm good at learning languages and I hope to pick it up quickly when I am there. I decided to study Korean through the SDLAP before going abroad because I didn't want to skimp out on the grammatical, structural part of the language and I think it's been very beneficial for me.
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