Taking the Global Plunge: Using in-Country Language Immersion As a Holistic Professional Development Tool

This article explores the use of in-country language immersion as a holistic approach to producing culturally competent communicators of non-native languages. It begins by summarizing a study of the experiences of twelve working professionals who viewed foreign language competency as important to their effectiveness at work. The study's findings demonstrate how in-country language immersion can facilitate language and cross-cultural learning among motivated, focused adult learners. From the study emerged six factors of such programs that increase their potential effectiveness as forms of professional development and second language acquisition. Effective programs are those designed to utilize the six factors and permit adult language learners to move through three distinct and interrelated learning phases of isolation, interaction, and integration. The author concludes by prescribing a list of guidelines for optimizing the factors and the learning phases of in-country immersion in order to create language and cross-cultural competency in working professionals. Adapted from the source document