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My student Doris, a successful inmersive experience

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Doris is an Austrian who has decided to spend a year in Colombia. For a happy circumstance we met and I started teaching her Spanish. Her case has helped me determine how someone can make the most of that immersion experience in a new language and culture. 
Of course, as a Spanish teacher I have had the opportunity to meet many students who come to "submerge", but Doris's case is different, because she has done the real process, I mean, she is actually forced to use Spanish language daily, unlike other people who come to do immersion but live in an area full of bilingual places, they eat at Archie's, meet other foreigners and, therefore, speak in their native language or in English almost all the time.

Doris lives in a neighborhood where 99% of the people are locals who barely know a few words of English and zero German. As she is a religious person (a strange thing these days) she does an educational work that involves all the inhabitants of her area, that means Doris must go from house to house sharing her knowledge of the bible with the locals. That is, without a doubt, a great challenge. She is obliged to prepare very well what she is going to say. She has to review the intonation, the pronunciation, check the accuracy of the words so as not to imply anything wrong. She attends a local school where she takes guitar lessons. Her teacher speaks very little English, her classmates no English at all.

In a few weeks, Doris made enormous progress in her Spanish. she went with greater confidence to buy at the supermarket and understood the greetings of her neighbors. little by little she was understanding more the discourses in her religious service and the culture as much of the members of her religion as of the common people of the city.

My advice to all those who want to have an immersion experience is to do like Doris. Do not live in a hostel. Do not live in the tourist area of ​​the city. Do not go to restaurants and bars with bilingual staff. Make friends among locals who can barely communicate in a language other than their native language. Then you will understand what it means to submerge: to feel that you drown at times in the sea of ​​unknown words that surround you, but emerge to take a breath of new air, to be born to a new language and life experience.







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