Learning foreign languages is not just a trend, it has become a necessity since more and more people need to know languages in order to be able to communicate with more people around not just around them but also around the world. Most language learners learn around the world prefer to learn languages abroad to become fully immersed in the language that they are learning. If you were given a chance to be part of a foreign language immersion program, you would want to try it right?

A foreign language immersion program is a program where students are placed in an environment either in a classroom or a place in which the target foreign language is the only language used in the environment. Language immersion can happen in a local setting that has a concentrated number of speakers of the target language or it could take place in a city or country where the language is the main language of the population!

Language immersion is said to have originated from Canada over forty years ago and today, according to Walker and Tedick (2000), it is used as a language educational program model for a variety of purposes and across a wide range of cultural, social, and political contexts. Since its early beginnings, language immersion has been used not only to teach foreign languages but is also used to preserve almost extinct languages and to teach the language of a colonizer.

The Direct Method, which is also known as the Natural Method, is the template of foreign language immersion. The method was developed in the late 19th century and is based on the idea that a language learner learns his or her native language without being formally taught and can therefore learn his or her target foreign language in the same way. Foreign language immersion programs have gained popularity not only through the Direct Method but also with the fact that many people would love to be immersed in their target languages and also in the culture where those languages originated from.

Does foreign language immersion have its advantages and disadvantages? Yes, every language program has its own good and bad points depending on how language learners see it.

The following are some of the advantages:

• Only the target foreign language is spoken in the immersion environment thus, language learners are forced to communicate only in the target language

• Foreign language immersion allows students to see different cultures in different ways

• Immersion allows language learners to learn the languages as naturally as possible.

  The following could be some disadvantages of foreign language immersion:

• Language learners may not understand the instructions in the target foreign language and it may be difficult to detect if the lack of understanding is due to not understanding the target language or if they could not understand the concept even if it is explained in their native tongue.

• Putting emphasis on speaking the target language comes at the expense of language rules such as grammar and the total development may come to a standstill if the other language skills such as listening, reading and writing are not developed.

Foreign language immersion is deemed effective by some who have tried it yet the program may not be applicable for everyone since each person has a unique learning style. However, if you do wish to try it, better search for programs that allow you to be fully immersed in the foreign language that you are learning!