Immersion Learning
At Hometown USA, our immersion approach to English language teaching provides villagers with a culturally authentic setting—similar to what might be found in a foreign country—but filled with carefully designed opportunities and well trained language teachers who help villagers understand what they hear, learn how to respond and converse, and practice their new skills all day, every day.
How do villagers learn the language when counselors speak only in English?
Speaking English to villagers is a hallmark of immersion language learning. Counselors help villagers understand English in many ways: gestures, pictures, pointing, facial expressions, actual objects, mime, repetition, examples, demonstrations, use of themselves or villagers as models—to name a few!
Although providing a translation is one way to support understanding of another language, it’s not one we use very often. This follows immersion philosophy, current beliefs about the best language teaching, and our own experiences since 1961.
Context is important! Everything is grounded in daily life in Hometown USA, which helps English language learners understand: If the meal is finished, it’s logical to clear the table, so that’s what the counselor must be talking about. If counselors and villagers gather for a certain activity, villagers will hear vocabulary and instructions related to that activity and begin to understand their meanings.