Language Immersion – The Key to Language Learning Language immersion has long been seen as an effective way to learn a foreign language but in recent years many people have started to see language immersion as the key way to learn a new language and to truly master it. In some cases, students who spent a month in a language immersion program such as Spanish immersion made more progress in one month than students who were enrolled in more typical language classes do in a year. These language immersion programs accelerate a student’s ability to talk, read and watch TV programs in their new language in ways not previously thought possible. These results do depend on the amount of work each student puts in every week. The more work that gets completed every week the more benefit to the child participating. The curriculum in a language immersion program usually includes fairy tales and culturally relevant stories that help students connect better with the language. Students also go about learning the language in-context because that yields the best results. In other words, they aren’t just immersed in the language but also the culture behind the language as well. When it comes to evaluating a student’s performance, authentic assessment is used rather than traditional testing. Authentic assessment is defined as a form of assessment in which students are tasked with performing real-world tasks that reveal meaningful application of important knowledge and skills. This provides a much truer picture of where a child stands with their learning and development. Language immersion will inevitably include some struggles for the students too. This is part of the process and will help with the practical application of a language further down the road. Figuring something out and learning the process and pattern behind a language is an important part of learning a language as a whole.