It was reseached that students, who have studied French at high school for four years, have attended Paris and could not communicate with French people, because they could not develop necessary abilities and skills through the traditional methods of foreign language teaching. The students could not understand the language, because they were taught grammar rules and translated texts. With the appearance and common use of tape recorders in the 1960s, the audiolingual approach to teaching became popular. Students spent much time in language labs listening to taped conversations. The drawback of this method was the ability of students to reproduce only dialogs they had memorized. In the 1970s another communicative methods were used. There was no emphasis on grammar and mistakes were not corrected. The advantage of this method was the ability of students to lead a conversation and communicate with native speakers. The drawback was frequent different pronunciation and grammar errors that were not corrected.
Immersion has many advantages. If you learn a foreign language, you should be ready to spend much time on learning. Modern immersion approaches to teaching second languages increase much the time students spend for language practice, they do not need to spend time on translation of the phrasesthat they hear and speak. The main characteristic of immersion is the teaching of language, content, and culture in combination without the apply of the students' first language. Students talk at foreign language lessons about things taught in school. To explain the items that students do not understand, a teacher applies different context clues such as gestures, visual aides and objects. Other second language teaching methods demand more time for good mastering, it is usually from six to seven years.
Nowadays various types of Immersion Programs are available. There is a half-day partial immersion and full-day or total immersion received in the first two or three years. When students study a foreign language for little time outside of school, they should compensate it with more time spent on learning in school. It is effective when there is a dominance of two languages in the society. When little attention is paid to the practice of the language in the society, it should be practiced much at home and school. Such languages as English that are widely spoken in the community are learn for little time in school.
In partial immersion programs, the students can choose what language and for what period to practice. It can be one day or one week. If students practice one language in the morning and the other in the afternoon, one should practice the language that is learnt in the morning , because the concentration of attention is high at this period. It is recommended not to tell the students the same material in two different languages, because students know that they will hear the same material in the language they already know and ignore the material in language they have problems with.
Early immersion programs are widely used. According to these programs, students begin learning a second language in preschool, kindergarten or first grade; they frequently begin learning with total immersion. There are some effective programs known as late immersion and that is started at the middle or high school levels. Such programs are used mostly in Canada.
Such usual content subjects as math and science are taught via immersion in the primary grades, when manipulatives and hands-on activities are used. In higher grades teachers devote less time to second language immersion and more time is spent to social studies. The reason is problems with getting necessary textbooks for higher-level subjects.
Indigenous immersion and foreign language immersion have various commitment to culturally transformation of the student. Mother tongue indigenous immersion incorporates the children's indigenous culture, when second or foreign language immersion creates an understanding and appreciation of the culture of the new language. The Maori and Hawaiian indigenous programs are quite popular. There are immersion preschools, immersion public schools and five total-immersion high schools. Immersion programs are almost constantly voluntary and demand parent involvement. In the Hawaiian language immersion preschools, parents of children, who attend preschools, have immersion lessons that last eight hours per month.
Historically in the United States, immersion programs have a tendency to becoming one-way programs for teaching a second language. According to these programs, all the students in the classroom speak English as their home language and pay more attention to French or Japanese. Immersion programs are especially effective for children, who are descendants of immigrants. Such programs are called heritage language programs. Such programs as two-way or dual language programs are also popular. They demand equal amount of students who have two various home languages. In the United States the two languages are usually Spanish and English. The teacher choose the same language of instruction as in one-way immersion programs and the students get language models in both languages.
During the administration of President Ronald Regan the U.S. Department of Education defended and supported immersion education for non-English speaking immigrants to the United States. English-as-a-second (ESL) language teachers used many immersion teaching techniques, but they were not very effective, because they did not know the language of their students and could not support or help them. It was the same as submersion programs, where immigrant and indigenous children studied in classrooms where they did not understand the language of the classroom and suffered greatly from a language barrier.
Immersion programs are considered as additive programs, because they do not ask the student to forget their first language and because the teachers know two languages and can understand their students and assist them if it is required. They are good for very young students or students who have recently started learning a foreign language.
Foreign and heritage language programs incorporate children to the language and culture of another country. The languages learnt by students include many literary works and are spoken by many people all over the world. Immersion methods are very effective, because they provide learners with the possibility to learn a new language and communicate with a native speaker of that language.
| 
