Many years ago, we made friends with a family that spoke French at home. The father was from the Philippines and grew up in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. The mother was Hispanic and grew up in the United States. Filipino, French, Spanish, and English intermingled seamlessly through their everyday lives.
Living in Europe, I saw this often, but when I first met this family, I had never seen such polyglotism. The father had no noticeable accent and rarely had to search for a word in conversation. He was fluent before he ever stepped foot in the United States. The fact that astonished me the most: he learned to speak English entirely from watching movies in English.
It reminded me Sarah of A Little Princess, growing up in India, living in London, and fluent in French! Or something out of War and Peace or The Scarlet Pimpernel. I always loved Charlotte Mason’s picture she painted of a family sitting on a picnic blanket, the mother sprinkling French phrases into her child’s world. I take a much more practical approach—and sporadic, to be honest. These are old fashioned examples of a current modern practice: language media immersion.
The media immersion language learning approach is something Europeans employ almost without thinking. From a practical side, there are a great many movies produced in the English language, and European access to this resource is sought after and nearly unlimited. Watching movies in English is just what teen and young adult Europeans do.
This is an approach every nationality can borrow. We do not have to go to a foreign country to participate in a language immersive experience. Additionally, we don’t need a huge variety of films or podcasts or other recordings to embrace the benefits of media immersion. In fact, for beginners it is best to have simple subjects and a lot of repetition. My daughter has found multiple podcasts geared for media immersion at multiple levels. We can continue to study key words alongside our immersive listening. The more proactive we can be with our minds, the better.
I am not suggesting this as a blanket approach. Missionaries at the MTC have several weeks of focused, guided learning. They continue to participate in daily focused study. Building the vocabulary base with spaced review continues to be an essential practice. But constantly seeking for the next most important work to master can be aided when we participate in limited immersive sessions, which can be as simple as watching our favorite movie in foreign language.
It goes without saying that media immersion needs the same balance we give to any non-real source of education. We had friends in Germany who had movies playing in French in their home all day long. Their children were completely fluent in French. But we were a little dismayed at their lack of sensitivity in their media choices. We try to put character building first in our educational choices, so that’s something each family should consider and prioritize.
We can consider sources that are consistent with our families’ media choices. We like learning and listening to songs in foreign languages. Living in Germany, prayer, hymns, and religious media in German was useful, as they helped support our interactions at church on the stake-level (multi-congregational). I have a copy of Beauty and the Beast that has English along with the French, so I can look things up as I go along.
Watching or listening to sources we are already familiar with is something that is highly recommended. We build connections more fully when we have an idea of what’s going on. It’s really not cheating.
Many DVDs and streamed videos we have access to may already be available in our target language. One of our favorite sources for free media immersion is this collection of videos of German fairy tales, which gives us deep seated folk cultural immersion along with our language immersion. Win-win!
Whatever our approach, language becomes ours when we take ownership of the resources available to us in that language. Owning a piece of French or German in our hearts brings it into our families in full color. As we do this, our ability and confidence in navigating the world grows. Praises to modern technology, that the world can be such a smaller place!
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