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Language Learning at the Villages

Doing Foreign Language: Bringing Concordia Language Villages into Language Classrooms click here for more info

How do villagers learn the language when counselors speak only that language and don’t explain in English?

Speaking the language to villagers, without using English, is a hallmark of immersion language learning. Counselors help villagers understand the Village language 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 an English translation is one way to support understanding of another language, it’s not the one we use (or use rarely). 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 the Villages, and that helps language learners to 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 in the cabin during the day, with brooms and garbage bags, then villagers understand that it’s time to clean and that they will hear directions. Another example of the usefulness of context is all the activities in which villagers participate, from karate to going to the bank to an ethnic art project, the counselor is talking about the activity in which they are participating.

We make deliberate use of routines. Villagers hear some of the same, exact language before every meal. During each meal, certain key phrases are used over and over. Announcements after a meal may follow a particular order. The waterfront manager uses similar phrases each day to announce open hours at the beach.

We have lots of counselors to assist understanding, about one staff member for every five villagers.

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