Immersion, Input, and Output

There are a few key terms that need to be defined before we jump into learning English with the ETB method. I'm going to be using these words a lot throughout the rest of this roadmap, so it's important to have a clear understanding of their meanings.

Let's start by defining Immersion first.

What is Immersion?

"Immersion" is a difficult word for English learners. It's not very common, so you might not have come across it before.

The base word, Immerse, has two definitions:

1. To put something into a liquid. "Immerse the potatoes in boiling water for twenty minutes."

2. To involve someone completely in an activity. "She immersed herself in her work."

When we're talking about immersion in the context of learning languages, what we mean is to surround ourselves with the language.

If you're learning English, "immersion" means listening to TV shows in English, listening to English music, reading English articles, or changing the language on your phone to English. It includes any activity that allows you to experience the English language.

You don't have to do ALL of these things to be immersed, but the more, the better.

You also don't have to do these things all the time. Again, the more, the better, but immersion is pretty exhausting. Especially for beginners, immersing in a new language requires a lot of concentration. You might only be able to do it for short periods of time.

That's okay!

As you continue to immerse yourself in a new language, your brain will start to understand more and more. Immersion becomes less exhausting as you become better with English. Later in the roadmap, we'll talk about strategies you can use to make immersion more enjoyable and effective.

In the last article, I talked about Matt vs Japan and AJATT using immersion methods for learning Japanese. That means they watched a LOT of anime in Japanese and read manga in Japanese. For Khatzumoto, the owner of All Japanese All The Time, immersion was an obsession. He immersed in the language as well as the culture and tried to minimize the amount of English language and American culture that he was exposed to. I heard he ate even his birthday cake with chopsticks!

I don't think there's any need to ignore your native language and culture. If you're learning to ride a bike, occasionally walking isn't going to make your biking progress slower.

In summary: Immersion is when you surround yourself with English.

This is absolutely crucial for learning any language. This is how you learned your native language!

And just like when you learned your native language, you need a LOT of immersion. Thousands and thousands of hours are required.

What is Input and What is Output?

Basically, Inputs are things that get added to your brain, and Outputs are things that come out of your brain.

You absorb Inputs. You consume Inputs.
You create Outputs. You produce Outputs.

So yes, when you are immersing in English, that means you are giving your brain input. Immersion and Input are a little bit synonymous (they mean similar things).

Here's a metaphor:

Flour, eggs, oil, and butter are Inputs (these things go in). A cake is the Output (this comes out).

And another business-related metaphor:

In the business world, imagine we're creating a cell phone. What kind of materials do we need? Glass for the screen, maybe a metal piece for the back and sides. We'll need a battery, camera lenses, a circuit board, various sensors, a microphone, speakers, a processor, etc.

All of those things are Inputs.

The Output is a completed cell phone!

The terms "input" and "output" are used frequently in American business. We would also consider things like time, labor, and money to be inputs. But in language learning, we're not talking about those things.

In the context of language learning, inputs are things that we "take in" from our surroundings. We absorb them with our eyes and ears.

Similar to business, when we output, we are creating something. We use all of the knowledge that we gain from our inputs and use it to send something back out into the world.

The 4 Language Skills

In language, there are four primary skills that you need to learn. We can divide those skills in a couple of different ways.

Two skills are text-based, and two are sound-based.
Two skills are inputs, and two are outputs.

The skills are:

• Reading - Text-based, Input
• Writing - Text-based, Output
• Listening - Sound-based, Input
• Speaking - Sound-based, Output

The matrix below shows the relationship between the four skills:

Multiple Ways to Learn

At English Tea Break we understand that people learn in different ways and have different preferences. A method that is really efficient is not going to be effective if you hate it and stop trying.

Immersion is the most efficient way to learn a language, but it's not the only way. It's also a very fun method in my opinion because it allows you to consume the content that you enjoy. But maybe you don't enjoy watching TV, YouTube, or listening to podcasts.

No method is perfect, they each have their downsides. This roadmap is no exception and has the following downsides:

• Solo-Learning - Some students want to be held accountable for their learning. They find it hard to make progress when nobody is forcing them to learn.
• Guidance - I'm providing all of the information, but your situation is unique. Maybe you don't have access to some of the study tools. Maybe you don't have time to immerse for hours every day. What should you do?
• Motivation - We'll talk about goals more later, but motivation is something that comes and goes even if you have a great goal.
• Personalization - You can customize The ETB method as much as you want, but sometimes it's hard to know which parts need to be customized. Which areas should you focus on? How do you overcome your individual struggles?

I solve these issues with my paid language consulting service.

The roadmap is free, but if you'd like some 1-on-1 help, we can jump on a call and I'll give you individualized coaching. I'll answer any questions that you have and set you on the right track to learn as fast as possible.

(Almost) Anything Will Teach You English

I don't want to be dogmatic (meaning: arguing that my way is the only way) about language-learning methods. I'm creating this website because I love learning languages, not to try to make millions of dollars from consulting. I believe the ETB method is great because I used it and saw great success, but there are lots of ways to learn English!

Kató Lomb is a famous Hungarian polyglot who used some pretty unusual methods to teach herself 16 different languages! She began learning languages in her 30s, which was around the year 1940. There was no internet, no YouTube, no Netflix, no Anki. How did she learn languages?

She taught herself Russian by studying a Russian-to-Hungarian dictionary that she found in a bookstore one day. She learned Japanese by studying technical manuals for Japanese vacuums!

However, she admitted in interviews that her pronunciation was pretty poor in many languages. The reason was that her immersion was mostly from reading.

Remember the table from above? Input consists of Reading as well as Listening. Your brain doesn't learn the sounds of a language from reading.

Different learning methodologies focus on different things. I define "fluency" as being competent in the four language skills. If a method teaches you Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking, you'll eventually become fluent even if the method is inefficient.

Yes, you can get fluent from Duolingo. Yes, you can get fluent from English classes.

...it just might take 100 years.

Games and Traditional Methods are Inefficient

Duolingo is a good way to get started learning a language because it exposes you to a tiny bit of many aspects of the language. When I started playing around with Japanese and Korean, Duolingo was the first thing that I picked up.

Duolingo gives us mostly listening practice, some reading practice, almost zero speaking practice, and no writing practice.

It's good for getting a little taste of a new language, but just doesn't provide enough value for your time when you've progressed beyond Level 0.

I use it for a week to learn a little about the language, and then delete the app. It's just for getting started.

Other games are similar. They give the impression that you're making progress because they show stars and flashing graphics to indicate progress. But I promise, if you use only language games for years, your four language skills will be severely lacking.

Traditional Methods for language learning like school or online courses that mimic a school style are just not very useful at all for many reasons:

1. They focus on the wrong things. Schools emphasize grammar over everything else. A little grammar is useful in the same way that Duolingo is useful—just for getting started. But spending years focused on grammar is a massive waste of time.
2. American schools use a lot of group work which isn't very helpful for language learning.
3. The classes are too infrequent; we might have a 1-hour class two or three times per week.
4. Much of the class is spent using our native language rather than the target language.
5. There's too much focus on memorizing specific phrases like, "Where is the bathroom?"
6. Emphasis on translating individual words rather than understanding the overall meaning of a sentence.

I could continue, but there's no need. It's no wonder why students who have "studied" a foreign language for 5 years in school still can't communicate in that language.

So if these methods are inefficient, what makes the English Tea Break method efficient? Now that you understand immersion, input, and output, let’s look at the key principles of the ETB method. That’s what the next article is all about.