New Journal Entry #13

[Mark Kligman]

The article "How Immersion Helps to Learn a Language" discusses how language immersion allows people to process and apply a new language with native-like capability. In my opinion, immersion is an easy and efficient way to learn and significantly improve a learner's ability to grasp a language. I can make an example of this out of my own experience, since my capability to speak Russian and Ukrainian proficiently without stuttering and getting confused with the phrasing of English opposed to Russian, is visibly better when I'm back home in Ukraine because the dominant language being spoken and heard by myself and my surroundings is Russian. This is also due to the fact that I do not have an option to rely on another language like english, and in order for others to understand what I am trying to say I have to interact with my peers and family in Russian, and make sure that what I am saying makes sense in Russian even if the phrasing is not what makes sense in English (a problem I very often run in to.)  My Russian speaking capabilities and clarity once I come home from Ukraine to the US are significantly better. On the other hand, due to my absence from the US, my English goes through the same struggles as does my Russian, because I become accustomed to hearing and speaking one specific language. I have definitely heard of language immersion before, however I had not really read any studies that supported the theory of language immersion up until I read this article. I also found the study that used electroencephalography, which is a test that measures brain processing in order to determine that people who learn a language through language immersion, actually end up using the brain patterns of a native speaker. It is very reassuring that the brain patterns that are found during immersion are not present with the language learners who learn the sam language in a formal setting, such as a typical classroom. Overall I believe that there is nothing more significant that language immersion for a language learner who is seeking to polish his or her skills in a native manner, which is what makes the difference between being an amateur and a capable speaker of a language being learned.