Tips To Create An Immersive Classroom Language
Many people agree, that immersing ourselves in languages is the best way to learn them. Creating an immersive classroom therefore, is an ideal way to encourage good speaking and listening skills for language students, however this concept is much easier said than done.
Secondary (Middle) School students are especially difficult to convince, with many of them feeling too embarrassed to want to speak in their target language in front of class mates for fear of getting it wrong.
Tips
- Teach 80% of the lesson in the target language – allowing 20% for more technical grammar explanations and to clarify any meanings or phrases you have discussed.
- Understand that students will feel slightly derailed if they are expected to communicate purely in a language they don’t know as well as their own. --- They will inevitably compare their lack of skills to their fluency in English and become frustrated.Create a reward system where students can collect points every time they speak up in their target language.
- Don’t teach anything too technical in a target language – teach information instead. It’s much easier for students to feel comfortable learning about something and increasing their vocabulary that way. Topical news stories are a great way to start with this!
- Create a comfortable safe environment in the first weeks of the class to ease students into the immersive style and help them to grow their confidence. Do this by having them work in pairs and small groups so that they don’t feel pressured to speak aloud in class.
- Use a variety of different resources to make sure you have covered all learning styles; auditory, kinesthetic and visual. Include songs, videos, objects to pass and discuss etc.
- Set your Study 1200 Language Lab so that the User Interface gives all instructions in the target language.
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