Why Language Immersion?

Why Immersion?

Immersion works. Immersion is the most effective way to learn a language, especially when done at a young age in a nurturing environment. Young children have an innate ability to learn languages. From their first day at Heartwood Grove School, students experience their target language naturally, in context, through picture stories, activities, and circle time conversations. Learning a language is second nature to a five-year-old, if given the exposure. Consider giving your children the great advantage in life of being bilingual. And languages build on each other making learning a third language easier.

“To have another language is to possess a second soul.” - Charlemagne

Here are 7 reasons why learning a new language can be invaluable in your child's success and development:

1. Learning a second language helps students improve their understanding of English and of their own cultures by building a larger vocabulary through cognates and common root words, and by subconsciously analyzing and comparing language structure, even at an early age and even when the target language is taught through immersion with no translation or active comparison.

2. Students who are bi- or multi-lingual score higher on standardized tests such as the SAT. As a matter of fact, immersion students outperform their non-immersion peers in math and English standardized subtests by the fifth grade.

3. Learning a foreign language opens doors to scholarships and future higher-paying career opportunities in a global workforce.

4. Being bilingual or multilingual is good for your brain throughout your life and in older age, can help speed recovery from stroke, and delay the onset of dementia.

5. Language proficiency opens up a world of literature, music, film, and cuisine that can be better appreciated in the original language. Of course, you can watch dubbed or subtitled foreign films and read translations of Les Misérables, Dr. Zhivago, or Don Quixote, but …

6. Language proficiency offers students a world of adventure and positive travel experiences free of translators, or English only tours,

7. Being multilingual expands one’s social network, being able to connect to a wider selection of friends, who share interests and hobbies.

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” - Nelson Mandela

¿Why Spanish?

Spanish is a beautiful language spoken by over 450 million people in 20 countries, and by 16% of the US population. It is a phonetic language, easy to read and spell.

According to a Monster.com article “88 percent of executive recruiters say that the ability to speak more than one language is critical to international business success. Seventy-nine percent of North American recruiters cited Spanish as the additional language most in demand by employers. French was next at 43 percent.

Why French?

There are currently over 300 million French speakers worldwide. French is spoken on all continents and ranked the fifth most widely spoken language, and the official language of 29 countries. Only 36% of French speakers live in Europe. In neighboring Canada, the mother tongue of 21.3% of the population is French. French is the official language of the Red Cross and one of six official languages of the United Nations along with Spanish, English, Russian, Arabic, and Mandarin.

Why German?

English is a Germanic language with many common cognates and shared core vocabulary. It is an easy to pronounce, phonetic language. With 100 million native speakers it is the most widely spoken language in Europe and Germans form the largest single heritage group in the U.S.

Germany has the strongest economy in Europe and is one of the top export nations in the world, thus there are many opportunities for scholarships and jobs for students who speak German. Germany offers free university tuition to US citizens and sponsors over 60,000 international exchanges per year. There are approximately 700,000 jobs in the US in German companies and US companies account for nearly the same number of jobs in Germany.

German literature is prolific, with 10% of all books in the world published in the German language, the third most produced language of literature More books are published in Munich than any city in the world, except for New York City.