INTRODUCTION
IMMERSE is a one-of-a-kind platform that offers live immersive language training with highly trained teachers in authentic virtual settings so learners can quickly gain the skills they need to use English, Spanish, or French for real communication.
As explained in our white paper Why IMMERSE Works, Immerse offers a completely different language training approach from other apps. Developed according to the research on language learning, Immerse focuses on spoken fluency and authentic communication skills right from the start, building learners’ ability to participate confidently in conversations in the workplace even when those conversations go in unpredicted directions.
This article will explain how Immerse’s award-winning platform and teaching methodology work to turn language learners into language speakers faster and more effectively than other language apps or classes, making it the most efficient language training platform available.
IMMERSE: A WORLD OF LANGUAGE LEARNING
At IMMERSE, language training is about more than just drilling vocabulary and memorizing scripts. Our virtual world for immersive language learning has what learners need to build the skills and develop the flexibility and fluency to speak a language with confidence, at work and beyond.
Lessons
IMMERSE lessons provide the opportunity to acquire the structural elements of a language, such as grammar and vocabulary. Lessons emphasize teaching learners to apply these structural elements to their own thoughts and ideas.
Each 40-minute IMMERSE lesson is led by one of our qualified and experienced language trainers in one of our 40+ highly interactive immersive environments. Each class helps learners master or accomplish a single communicative task within one of our nine broad communication categories.
During the lesson, activities are gradually scaffolded to guide learners from an initial introduction to the skill to independent production. The learners are also invited to stay in the scene for 10 minutes after class to engage in an optional post-class task to continue practicing and applying the skills.
For instance, an intermediate-level class on giving advice might take place in a virtual doctor’s office. The instructor begins by reviewing the vocabulary for ailments such as headache, fever, and sore throat, as well as ways of requesting and giving advice like, “What should I do?” and “You ought to see a doctor.”
The first activities are simple, like doing a card-matching activity together where ailment sentences like “I think I have a fever” are matched with advice sentences such as “You need to take your temperature.” Pairs then get prompt cards with phrases, e.g. “cut my finger / put pressure on it,” and practice having their own dialogue.
Finally, learners receive a simple prompt like “backache” and act out a conversation between a doctor and a patient, creating an interaction extemporaneously based on the earlier activities. The teacher is present to offer encouragement, answer questions, and help out with any new vocabulary that emerges during these role plays.
Community
IMMERSE recognizes that both language and learning are deeply social in nature. To become a truly confident speaker, a learner must have ample opportunities for genuine conversation and social interaction. For this reason, we provide numerous ways for language learners to meet up for practice in our platform.
Meetups
IMMERSE encourages learners to meet up for language practice, games, or just to hang out. With game nights, conversation groups, and more, there’s always something social going on.
Remember to check out our rotating weekly schedule of events, and join the IMMERSE Facebook group so you never miss an announcement!
Language Exchange
The public Commons is a place where IMMERSE members of all languages and proficiency levels can gather. The Commons is stocked with games for learning and practicing English, Spanish, and French while you hang out, and there’s a café corner as well if you just want to hang out and chat.
Private Practice Scenes
IMMERSE learners also have the option to create a room of their own and invite friends via a code. This is perfect for hosting private events like birthday parties or if you want to hang with your IMMERSE friends but aren’t in the mood to meet new people.
Practice
IMMERSE provides practice activities tied to each of the same communicative learning outcomes as our lessons. These practice activities provide learners with opportunities to focus on vocabulary, pronunciation, and speaking skills that support the outcomes.
Practice activities are available 24/7 and can be used to prepare for a particular lesson, review after the lesson has been completed, or simply for additional skill building independent of the lesson.
Guided Conversation
At IMMERSE, we've harnessed AI not to replace, but to augment human interaction. Learners have 24/7 access to Guided Conversation practice scenes where they can practice with AI avatars that provide them with personalized conversations and instant feedback.
This conversation practice ensures continuous learning and improvement and provides unlimited conversation practice to build fluency and confidence. It also provides extra support for concepts a student may be struggling with and encourages independent, self-directed learning.
Each Guided Conversation features an AI avatar that speaks at the learner’s level. This ensures the IMMERSE avatars provide comprehensible input in a communicative context, the essential ingredients of effective learning.
The AI avatar guides the learner through a conversation related to a particular communicative task, correcting errors and providing other feedback.
These conversations are not scripted. Powered by ChatGPT-4, the IMMERSE AI avatars respond to whatever the learner says, giving learners the freedom to respond however they see fit and resulting in a customized conversational experience. This has the added advantage that a learner can engage with any given Guided Conversation repeatedly and have a different conversation each time.
At the end of each Guided Conversation, the learner sees how they scored on the conversation in terms of unique words, grammar, and relevance so they know how well they performed and what skills they might still want to work on improving.
Pronunciation Practice
Pronunciation practice exercises are also provided for each communicative task. As with the Guided Conversations, feedback is provided on several aspects of the learners’ performance so they know how they did and what to focus on practicing.
Vocabulary Activities
There are two types of vocabulary activity for each communicative task. The first consists of simple flashcards that let learners learn and review words associated with each communicative task. The second is a fill-in-the-blank activity that helps check for vocabulary comprehension.
Play
At IMMERSE, fun is always front and center. We know research shows that playfulness boosts language learning. Our Commons scene is a public space for learners to meet language learners while playing fun language games that reinforce vocabulary development. Having access to our games 24/7 allows learners to practice and experiment with the language they are learning in their IMMERSE classes and beyond.
Some of the games, such as vocabulary archery, can be played alone or with others. Other games, like pictionary, are intended for group play. Practicing together through games and play not only builds language skills but also helps learners participate in the IMMERSE language learning community. As a community, IMMERSE learners share tips and resources, practice together, and stress-free opportunities for social interaction in their new language.
IMMERSE also has a regular schedule of language meetups including game nights. Learners can find out more by checking under their Community tab or by joining the IMMERSE Facebook group.
IMMERSE’S OUTCOME-ORIENTED CURRICULUM
The IMMERSE curriculum is outcome-oriented and designed to develop specific communicative abilities. Our lessons, features, and learning tools are all just means to an end: upskilling employees’ language skills.
Our learning units are organized around clearly defined communication outcomes. Every activity an IMMERSE learner engages in is directly connected to one of nine language functions, which cover communication categories ranging from Opinions and Ideas to Health and Safety.
At every level, the topics of lessons, connect sessions, and AI conversation are related to these nine language functions. By the end of each language experience, a learner is able to say that they can do something new. These “can-do” statements are at the core of everything that learners do in IMMERSE.
Each IMMERSE proficiency level includes lessons addressing all nine language functions, and each lesson focuses on a single “can-do” statement.
At Level 1, for instance, there are a number of lessons related to Engaging in Community, including one about shopping (by the end, the learner can ask about prices) and one about jobs (by the end, the learner can state what they do and ask others about their jobs).
Every lesson includes the vocabulary and grammar needed to achieve the communication outcomes, and instructors carefully scaffold the activities so that by the end of the lesson the learners have the language skills to engage in a freestyle role play together in the virtual setting, strengthening their confidence and ability to communicate independently.
IMMERSE uses a spiral curriculum so as learners progress through the levels, the degree of depth and complexity at which they can perform these nine language functions gradually increases. The “can-do” statements associated with a particular language function require increasingly complex grammar and vocabulary as a learner progresses through the levels.
For example, Level 1 lessons focused on Getting Things Done have simple “can-do” outcomes, like “give and understand basic instructions” and “make simple requests.” An employee can learn to achieve these outcomes by learning relatively simple vocabulary and grammar. Level 5 lessons on Getting Things Done, on the other hand, have more complex “can-do” outcomes, such as "negotiate a solution,” which require learning more advanced grammar and sophisticated vocabulary.
Thus, as learners progress through the levels, they add new outcomes or things they “can do” within each language function, becoming able to express themselves with increasing nuance and complexity.
Individual learners have unique needs, skill sets, native languages, backgrounds, and other variables that influence their language learning pace. Some will progress from level to level more slowly and others a little bit faster. After they complete 80% of the available learning experiences at their level, we let them take a test to assess what they currently “can do” with the language. If they pass, we give them the choice to move up to the next level if they feel ready.
This personalizes the learning pace, letting them move on at the time that is right for them. If they want to be challenged more, or if there are some lessons that just aren’t relevant or personally interesting to them, they are not trapped in their current level. On the other hand, they can choose to stay and complete more lessons if they feel they need more practice before they’re ready for the next level.
Ultimately, each opportunity offered by IMMERSE - Lessons, Community, Practice, and Play - is a vehicle for increasing the things that a learner can do in the language and thus progressing them to a higher level of fluency. As employees progress through the platform, they are able to perform a range of important language functions with skill and confidence.
WHY IMMERSE LEARNERS DEVELOP FLUENCY FASTER
Studies by independent academic researchers show that learners develop fluency faster in Immerse. The reason is the way we approach language instruction.
There’s a systemic problem with the way that classes, tutoring, and language apps have students learn. Traditionally, language classes, tutors, and apps focus on reading as the primary skill. While this can feel comfortable to students who associate studying with books and worksheets, learning a language this way actually slows them down.
Vocabulary lists, grammar charts, and reading passages all get learners into two bad habits: translating and processing slowly. They also limit students’ exposure to language as it’s used naturally in real life.
When people are struggling to understand what they hear or read in a new language, they generally ask themselves, “How do I say this in my own language,” and the translation habit is born. Traditional learning methods support the habit of translating by providing students with vocabulary lists with translated definitions, sentences to translate, and reading texts to answer questions about.
Why is translating a bad habit? Because it robs learners of the opportunity to learn to think directly in the new language, which is a necessary skill for fluency. When someone learns a language primarily through writing, they often find it dishearteningly difficult to develop listening and speaking skills even after years of language study.
This is partly because the translation habit slows them down. Translating at the speed of a normal conversation is impossible for anyone except an interpreter. If a learner wants to choose the right words and the right grammar without bringing the conversation to a halt while they think, they need to communicate directly in the language without translating.
The other problem is that learners often have had too little exposure to what the language sounds like when used for authentic communication. Spoken language also tends to be less structured and consistent than written language, and regional accents can vary significantly. A person may learn the spelling and meaning of a word from an app or textbook and still pronounce it incorrectly or fail to recognize it when it’s spoken.
Many language courses and apps provide pre-recorded sentences or lectures, but these are insufficient for teaching authentic communication. There’s a big difference between replaying a recording and asking a real person to repeat what they just said. A tutor can provide live practice, but learners won’t get much exposure to other accents or practice in the context of activities like showing someone around a new office or presenting their tickets and passports while checking in for a flight.
Focusing on live, authentic communication leads to faster fluency growth because students learn to speak and think directly in the language. They also develop much faster language processing and recall speeds than students who learn primarily through written language.
For someone used to viewing language as a school subject like math or science, learning through interaction might seem difficult or scary, especially for beginners. This is why curriculum design is crucial. IMMERSE focuses on live communication in every activity, but learners get all the support they need to speak and understand.
Our highly interactive virtual environments provide context for everything that happens, and IMMERSE's friendly, skilled teachers are experts at guiding learners as they interact with one another. Learners get written notes, but always as support for the primary activity - spoken communication.
Through extensive speaking practice, our learners develop faster recall and language processing speed, and they learn to think directly in the language instead of translating. This is why learners become fluent faster in IMMERSE.
BUILT-IN TOOLS THAT FACILITATE LEARNING
The IMMERSE platform has been designed specifically to support language learning. Each feature has been rigorously researched and tested to ensure that it helps students reach their learning goals.
Student Tools
Student Tutorials – Both the IMMERSE VR and desktop platforms have several built in asynchronous tutorials that help new users familiarize themselves with moving around, interacting with objects, and utilizing the student tools. Tutorials can be completed by learners as many times as they want.
Backpack Tools – Each learner has a backpack which can be used to store grabbable objects and a camera that can take pictures which are then stored on the learner’s device. In addition, learners have access to a 3D pen, notepad that can be typed on or written on, and a vocabulary scanner that they can use to learn the words for objects in each environment.
Class Notes – Learners have access to class notes that are generated by instructors. These notes can be accessed during and after class. In addition, they have a help request button that can be used at any point in the lesson to quietly call an instructor’s attention.
Teacher Tools
IMMERSE’s instructors also have several tools that they can implement throughout lessons to better guide students through the learning experience.
These include:
- Instructor Script: This allows an instructor to have a script to read in order to prep the learners for an activity. This script is only visible to the instructor during a lesson.
- Instructions: This is the instructional content that can be sent to a learner during a class so that they understand how to partake in the current activity. We are currently building an AI tool that will allow learners to translate part or all of the instructions into their L1.
- Notes: This is the learning content (i.e., new words, phrases) that can be sent to the learners so they can reference it during class and/or save for review later. We are currently building an AI tool that will allow learners to translate part or all of the notes into their L1.
- Lecture: Content can be activated by an instructor and show up on a lecture screen in a scene during a lesson. Text, slides, or videos (via a Youtube link) can be used.
- Graphic Organizer. The Graphic Organizer is a large screen with movable tiles. The Graphic Organizer can be populated with up to 4 headings and 12 tiles. Learners can then move the tiles into whatever order they want on the screen and they can also stick objects onto the screen. This is great for warm up activities and introducing students to new vocabulary at the beginning of lessons.
- Prompts. Prompts can be populated with text or images. The text and images can be revealed in one of two ways - through individual cards that learners can grab and hold or through a pop-up text that learners in a group can read together. Prompts are great for scaffolding activities by supporting students with key language and structures.
- Nested Prompt. Nested Prompts provide up to 8 inputs and outputs so that when a learner pushes on an input, a specific output is generated. Similar to prompts, these are used to provide students with key language and structures.
- Polls. A Poll question with or without an image can be added to a poll interface. Up to 6 possible answers can be provided. The instructor can see the percentage of responses for each answer and use the poll to judge how well students mastered the learning objective of a given lesson.
IMMERSE: LANGUAGE TRAINING THAT WORKS
In a world where “knowing a language” means far more than the ability to complete grammar and vocabulary exercises, IMMERSE offers real language training that works. Our program is designed specifically to turn language learners into self-assured, fluent speakers with the skills and confidence they need to communicate effectively in any situation. For more information about how Immerse can work with your organization to achieve real language training results, try IMMERSE classes and other learning features for free with a 14-day trial.
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