Dear Colleagues,

To speak or not to speak? Or better yet, how and what to speak? A question that is always prevalent in my class-plans, my program creation and my dreams of spreading the foreign language seed around the world, is what is the most effective way to approach children especially in a very early age? Full immersion or what I call fusion when teaching a foreign language. Why fusion? My Fusion method uses some of the sign language techniques combined with commonly known gestures to provoke an immediate response which is immediately followed by the language being taught. When both fail, since my primary goal is to communicate, I use the child’s native language, whatever that may be.

I  know some of my good colleagues will passionately defend the full immersion, leaving no room for negotiation and that is why I have decided to post this article here, to invite them to passionately discuss the topic, while giving other professionals their own view of it and sharing their experience.

I personally, don’t believe in full immersion as an efficient method, at least not taking in consideration my approach, which is to build the bridge, bring the foreign language to a  familiar territory, causing the child involved in the process, to have a positive effect beginning with the first class.

I am working on another post, explaining in detail my Fusion method. If you are interested in learning more about it, please join www.mybloglog.com and add me as a contact or join my blog’s community – you’ll receive a notice of my postings here on your bloglog homepage.  (See the brown box in the right column further down this page.) Alternatively you can sign up for the rss feed on my blog (look for the orange-brown squarish thing on your web browser’s toolbar.) I will also share my favorite web links for teaching foreign languages using the Internet. Some of you who had attended my brief presentation at the FLENJ conference had e-mailed me, but due to the lack of time, I have been unable to send you those links. So this is another upcoming post.

Please use this blog as a forum for posting and exchanging new ideas, as it was created for this purpose.

Abrasos, (Portuguese word to end a letter to a friend, literally means hugs, but is used in other contexts)

Claudia Krusch
Director-CK Translations LLC