What we offer: Spanish Immersion expeditions

Why Spanish immersion?

Why Spanish immersion? What does immersion bring and what doesn’t it? Linguistic and cultural immersion functions fundamentally as an accelerator and a solidifier. Once you have certain knowledge, immersion helps to internalize it and make it yours – to make it stick indefinitely. Immersion especially helps you to develop speaking and listening skills, which significantly increase communicative competence. Developing listening skills in a formal way is also important since it is true that immersion alone does not achieve everything. It also requires giving a small daily effort to study since the process of learning a foreign language differs in some aspects from the process of acquiring a native language. However, if this small daily effort is made, and then practiced in a real context, the results are very fast. Immersion is an extremely efficient tool. At the lower levels, such as from A0 to A1 or from A1 to A2, with just one month of immersion, you can go up one level. Higher levels may require more months of immersion to level up.

Based on our observation of migrant students in Spanish schools, the effect of immersion is immense. We can verify that students with level 0 Spanish who combine formal daily Spanish classes with an immersive acculturation process, even with having contact at night with their native language, are able to go from level 0 to level B1 (low intermediate) in just 3 or 4 months, with the ability to join structured classes for their age at the end of those 4 months, and definitely able to insert themselves in formal schooling, in a group of Spanish friends, and in society.

From various studies, we can say that the key to language immersion is being exposed to an environment where you are going to practice the language in real, daily settings, where you are forced to use the language and learn. And use it as native speakers use it. Humans are social animals with a desire for emotional and social connection, and when that connection happens in environments where it is only possible to do it in a language other than their own, their motivation to learn the language increases and their communication skills improve a lot.

There are numerous studies that demonstrate that this is true (Cummings 2009, Kinginger 2001, Wilkinson 1998), especially when the motivation to learn it is high. In other words, the desire to integrate emotionally in society increases motivation. Moreover, certain studies that were done in the early 2000s (Segalowitz and Freed 2004, Lafford 2006, Lafford, Barbara & Uscinski, Izabella 2014 Study Abroad and Second Language Spanish) demonstrated that the main gain was in communicative and auditory skills and fluency (grammatical skills will not improve substantially if there is no studying.) A recent study by DeKeyser (2010) showed that SA (Study Abroad) did not produce a magic bullet that made a learner progress purely in the learning process but their learning and evolution is based on what is practiced outside of class, using what they have already learned formally when they leave class. Therefore, there has to be some formal learning and individual effort in order to solidify your immersion. That is where you have to be aware that immersion has its limits in terms of being a learning accelerator. Based on what we have learned from these studies, this is how we organize our classes (i.e. base camps).

Likewise, the duration of the immersion has a significant effect both on learning in that it produces structural changes in the brain and in its magnitude, as shown by some recent studies (De Luca, Rothman, Pliatsikas, 2018). According to various studies (Krashen, 1981, 1986, Botta 2002), emotions play a fundamental role in learning a second language. Cognition and Emotions (celticspainschool.com) positive experience emotionally helps to solidify the language faster and, above all, more effectively. That is why immersion is so beneficial.

Finally, according to the study by Kim, Karl HS Relkin, Norman R., Lee, Kyoung-Min & Hirsch, Joy 1997, published in Nature 388, 171-174, when young bilinguals speak, each of their languages ​​activates overlapping areas (like the same drawer) of Broca’s area of ​​the brain and there is a strong proximity of the points of maximum activity when they perform a task. In older bilinguals, disjointed areas are activated (close drawers but separated) from Broca’s area and there is a certain distance between the points of maximum activity. In foreign language learners, totally different zones are activated (drawers separated and distant) from Broca’s area and a larger distance between the points of maximum activity, with a tendency to use the mother tongue (drawer 1) to the detriment of the second language. That’s why it is an immersion process, where the use of the second language is most important (drawer 2).

Futhermore, we know how to teach phonetics so that speaking and listening skills improve. We also know how to adapt it to different languages since phonetic difficulties are not the same when an English speaker is learning Spanish as when a French, Arabic or a Mandarin speaker is.

The benefit of immersive language-learning experiences and how to create them | Cambridge English

Our Students

This is a program for any type of student age 18 or older. It’s not that we don’t like children or teenagers. In fact, we are passionate about them, and we teach and enjoy them every day in our schools. This is simply for legal reasons as we are not legally authorized to take care of students under age 18 during nights or weekends. 

This type of immersion is particularly suited to two types of students: those who have a specific use for Spanish, such as in their profession, and those who are interested in both speaking Spanish and exploring everything a country has to offer. 

The first type of student is generally the person who has already made a decision about his or her professional path and knows how Spanish would be useful in that. However, we do not want to rule out other types of students, those who are interested for other reasons. In fact, we feel that those who want to enjoy all types of nature (from beaches and crystalline waters to mountains and landscapes that take your breath away), or those who want to enjoy a journey through history, or those who purely want to enjoy another culture and its surprising and meaningful traditions, will be pleased with our program. And Spain is the perfect place to do all of these things!

No matter your purpose for learning Spanish, we admit learners after the A1 level (the first of six levels according to the CEFR, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) because we understand that that is when the immersion begins to have an effect. (Our program is not appropriate for the student who has had no exposure to ​​learning Spanish and would be starting with the very basics.) We will organize students into four groups (A2, B1, B2, C1).  For the C2 level learner, we understand that the immersion for this level must be different, so we plan to offer another type of program for them.

All of our students feel that they have something in common, an interest not only in speaking Spanish but for Hispanic culture in general, and especially for Spain. They know that in starting a conversation with a native speaker, there are more things to learn than can be learned in a book or through an artificial intelligence translator. There is also the culture. Learning a language well demands getting outside of your own cultural environment.  Language and culture are inextricably linked. The more the socio-cultural environment is known, the easier it is to get involved and to learn new words, expressions, and ways of speaking – what is academically called the pragmatics of language.  For this reason, most universities and institutes invest in study abroad programs for students to learn languages ​​in the right settings. For everyone else, if you are ready to come, regardless of your age, profession, or place in life, we will focus on awakening your curiosity, opening your mind and motivating you to learn. And, of course, we adapt to certain physical disabilities that might prevent you from coming. Do not let that stop you from coming, let us know how we can accommodate you!