The Secret To Learning Any Foreign Language: Spanish, Chinese, you name it

Study abroad programs appear to have the learning system down. They provide the classes and the living arrangements and, of course, the country where you want to study. It’s all there.

So why do the majority of students that travel overseas to learn Spanish or other languages come back with little or no improvement?

Well, here’s a clue…it’s not the program in most cases. Study abroad programs fulfill their responsibility. They offer the students all they need to be comfortable and engaged. 

In the end, study abroad programs fail because the students don’t get out and speak with natives. They travel in packs with other Americans or other English speakers and rarely venture out into the wild terrain of the natives.

Why waste all that money and time? Simply put, getting into the flow with the natives requires you to make mistakes, make an occasional fool of yourself, and basically become a role player in all conversations.

Suddenly, you’re not the leader, the one making the plans, the one telling the jokes, the one in charge. You’re a statue, someone who looks and tries to keep up but in the end has little idea of what’s going on.

For most students, this is too much to take. They may find moments to mix it up with natives (it’s almost impossible not to) but overall, they spend way too much time with other English speakers.

What’s the solution? If you haven’t already figured it out, it’s to get off your tail and start making friends. I’ll talk about how to do that tomorrow.

In the meantime, don’t blame the study abroad programs. They are doing all they can.

Popularity: 52% [?]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2007 at 7:55 am and is filed under Study Abroad. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.