Language Learning Through Immersion, The Dyslexic way

Anna Schaap, another SteadyHealth author as well as non-traditional learner, grew up in a world very different from the one she finds herself in today — a world without audio books, without spell check, without Google. A struggling reader as a small child, her mother dutifully read with her every night, a process she hated every minute of because no matter how much exposure she got, it didn't get any easier for her. 

One thing her world did contain was a (black and white!) television. One small problem: Anna is Dutch, and the most exciting programs were in German. Bored by what the local networks had on offer, she watched that anyway. Now, German and Dutch have a fair bit in common, so perhaps it isn't that strange that gibberish gradually turned to sense, but it happened. Solely thanks to hours upon hours upon hours of watching German television, Anna — who couldn't memorize declension lists when she was later "subjected" to formal German lessons in school — later had no trouble communicating with actual Germans in Germany.

She also took English lessons in school, but didn't get much from them:

"I was unable to read and write well in my native tongue, and the textbook model of learning certainly never worked for me at all! I left school with nothing but a very basic understanding of English, grades made worse by a consistent inability to make any sense of the English phonetic system."

After she left school, however, with a diploma from a non-university tertiary school for agriculture, she set off backpacking, with the hope to eventually get into development work in third-world countries. On her adventures, she met countless English speakers, both native and non-native, and soon acquired very good English. Once she learned to speak English — much like she had German, except through face-to-face interactions rather than TV — she was ready to give books a try as well.

"I'd read thrillers and crime novels. Only the most exciting books, ones that kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time, were worth reading. I can indeed read, it's just difficult for me, so of course I pick and choose carefully. Whenever I came across a word I didn't know, I did look it up in the dictionary. The goal was reading the novel, though, not learning English. I firmly believe that nobody is ever done 'mastering' a language, including their native tongue. There's always more to add, and reading was one way in which I did that, but being a dyslexic, not a primary way."

Anna strongly disagrees with the notion that dyslexics are not as good as others at learning languages. "Take the written word out of the process, and you take the problem out," she says. "My linguistic abilities are fine. It's the reading that's the challenge."

READ Health Benefits Of Learning Languages

Anna is now able to write articles in a language that isn't her native tongue by making abundant use of the spell check function on her computer. The language was never the problem however; the dyslexia was.

Language Learning: Is There Such A Thing As 'Immersion vs Rote Memorization'?

Our language learners mastered their target languages in three radically different ways, ways that can ultimately perhaps best be summed up as long-haul learning, learning primarily through rote memorization, and learning primarily through immersion.

They each have strong views on the process of language learning, but if you are hoping to learn a new language to the point of fluency, it's going to be much more productive to look at what they have in common:

• All used television to solidify their comprehension (The Korean mentions block-watching programs including the Simpsons)
• All used the written word to build their vocabulary
• All improved their abilities by practicing their language skills on people who already spoke their target languages fluently
• For all, memorization was part of the learning process — whether formally or informally
• All had a strong commitment to learning their target languages

An interesting picture emerges: no matter what views they have and what methods work for them, these successful language learners actually helped themselves to very similar underlying techniques. If you're hoping to replicate their achievements, there's a lot to learn from them.