English Immersion For Work | English Conversations for Global Professionals
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This is the Real English Conversations podcast, where we help you to communicate clearly and confidently in the conversations that matter most in the workplace and your professional life. Hi, everybody. It's Amy and Curtis from realenglishconversations.com. And we're going to do something a little bit different for this podcast. What it is, is it's going to be kind of like how we used to give the Real English tip in our conversation podcast.

but in more depth, more explanations with advice on really important things that you need to do and need to work on during your English studying and English learning journeys. So what are we going to focus on in this first episode, Amy?

Today, we're going to be talking about learning a language in an immersion situation. And I'm going to say so-called immersion because I don't think that the majority of cases are true immersion. So in your opinion, Curtis, what does immersion mean? Immersion means...

That you're working, you're living in your target language, you're exposed to the language like you guys English. It's going to be an English immersion situation if you're working in it, if you're interacting, having conversations.

Your house cold, you have somebody in English. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So immersion is 100%. You work in English, you're at home. There's probably a native speaker there that's interacting with you. And of course, when you're sleeping, you're not studying, but this is what immersion actually is. And first,

For most of us, we don't really hit this point. I have a few different categories of people, and I'm going to talk a little bit about the typical situations that they face so that we can look at the reality of immersion and how much immersion they're actually getting. Okay? Okay, great. So for people that are already living abroad, this is really, really going to depend on whether they're working or not, right? Uh-huh.

So, for example, can you talk about a really common situation that you see with the students that you teach, for example, in the private lessons? Right. Yeah. About 25 or 30 percent of my students are living in an English speaking country now or have immigrated to it. The common thing is, is one of the people in the relationship is.

is immersed in English. During the day when they're working. When they're working, they come back home, right back into their native language. And there's a good reason for that. A lot of times they're trying to raise bilingual kids and also them, for example, husband and wife, the husband has a much higher level if he's out working or the wife, it's vice versa.

And the person who's at home looking after the kids, they don't have as much contact with the language and therefore their level is not as high. Exactly. So it's a really difficult communication gap. And even if the one partner wants to help the other partner, it's really, really difficult for them to communicate in a natural way and talk about the things. But if the kids are there and they're trying to do the bilingual household thing, then it's not a choice. Right.

they have to communicate in their native language. So let's call that half immersion for the person who's actually working. Okay. For the person who's not working and they're at home, maybe they have to do outdoor responsibilities like buying groceries, for example. Yeah. How much contact does that person have with the English language?

Not very much. Not very much at all. If they're just going to the grocery store, that's about it. It's like a bubble in their native language. Exactly. And I feel like we have this situation. What is happening for us in our living circumstance? Well...

I am probably the person who is not exposed enough to the language. I'm not exposed any more than you. What's in a living situation? Our living situation is a complete English bubble for the most part. Yeah. What do we do for work? We teach English. Okay. Which means we talk English all day. We work in English. We read emails in English, English, English, English, talk all day to students. Okay. Okay.

And where do we work? We work in our English home. Okay, so we have no Spanish speakers in the house here with us. No, I mean, we could probably speak in Spanish with each other, but...

majority of the time it's all in English. Yeah. I mean, sometimes we do if we're really motivated, but most of the time we're speaking in English to each other. And when we go outside, what are the types of transactions that we know how to do very well? Uh, order food at a restaurant. Uh,

Um, sometimes if I have to take an Uber somewhere, I can have a small conversation with an Uber driver. That's like the highlight. Yeah. Ooh, I get to sit in an Uber for 20 minutes and talk to the guy that doesn't know any English. I can go to the meat store and get chicken.

Exactly. But they're very, very simple transactions that you can really master in a very short period of time. They're super repetitive, simple vocabulary. We're not getting into deep discussions with the butcher. You know, it's like, I need some chicken. How much do you want? You know, what kind of chicken do you want?

Yeah. So this is a very, very common situation for people living abroad. Just because they live in Canada, they live in the United States, they live in some other English-speaking country, this immersion concept that they have in their head is...

It's very disappointing. I live here. What's wrong with me? Why am I not fluent yet? It's because you're not exposed to the language enough. You're not immersed. You're there. You have some contact, maybe more than you did in your native country. But, you know, obviously there's something lacking. So let's just talk really, really quickly about people who are planning on studying abroad and

For example, our friend Gilberto from Mexico, when he came to Canada and we met him for the first time, he was studying in a school and in a homestay, right? Right. Yeah, that's correct. Do you remember the type of experience he had or how he felt about his decision to do that English course for six months? He thought it would be helpful, but...

You know, he did learn some things, but I think it was all, you know, based around grammatical things and grammar. It was really a typical classroom environment. I remember he had words he had to memorize from a textbook that they were going through. And the big goal was to improve your level to get to the next level within the English schools. So going from level five to level six, for example. Right.

And, you know, it was more of a test preparation. To me, it seemed like more of a test preparation rather than, I mean, the people that are coming to Canada to study English, what is their goal? Their goal is to be fluent and speak it.

Maybe not fluent. Like, let's start with communication. Well, yeah, being able to have a conversation or do things that are responsibilities. To communicate without a problem by the end of their stay. Yeah. You know, and this is

the thing with fluency. I feel like this word is thrown around a lot. So I'm a little bit defensive about it when I hear, I want to be fluent. It's like, well, that's a really, really high level and that's great. But let's start with being functional. Highly functional in the language should definitely be your goal. That's like step number one. If you come to Canada and you spend six months and you already had some level when you arrived,

I mean, come on, by the end of it, you should be able to have a conversation about whatever and

not a scientific topic or anything really deep, but you know, you should be able to hang out with friends, laugh, have some conversations and feel fairly confident about your ability to communicate with native speakers, for example. Everyday stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, that's lacking a little bit. Maybe it was just his school, but no, I have quite a few students that have felt the same way. So yeah.

Anyway, no comment on that. Just beware. If you're planning on moving abroad to study and your goal is to become fluent, you're going to have a few obstacles. I would say probably maybe a part-time study schedule with the rest of the effort being on you to try to get out, talk to people, find groups you can join to get contact with the native speakers, and then

that might be a little bit more productive if communication is your goal. Okay.

So people who have future plans to move abroad, maybe to immigrate to another country, sometimes, I mean, English is important and it's important to know it before you go, but there's a little bit of a way to arrive, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's a big wake-up call when they get there and they...

encounter their first situation. Sometimes I had a student tell me that his first encounter with English with a native speaker when he went and when he came to Canada was at the airport with the security guy or the customs guy. Oh, yeah. It's just like this blast of real life English with a bunch of vocabulary that you're like,

what what do you want do you remember that time when we were in columbia i mean our level wasn't very good but the woman was trying to tell us to take off our jacket oh yeah and we're like what i just stood there with my mouth hanging open going oh i don't know what you want i do

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