The Wall Street Journal on DialoguE LanguageS

These are excerpts from an article by reporter Brandon Mitchener on intensive and full-immersion foreign language training. The article appeared in the Wall Street Journal Europe Edition, Friday-Saturday, June 27-28, 1997.

Look Before You Leap Into a Language
You May Have to Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

LESSON ONE: Look at language classes like any other investment.

Look at language classes like any other investment. After shopping around for a two-week crash course, David Ecklund, a 47-year-old American sales executive living in Brussels, thought he was lucky to get into a group course that a local school was running for another U.S. multinational. It was cheaper than places out of town and so, says Mr. Ecklund, "I figured I’d stay in Brussels."

He got what he paid for. Instead of building the little he had learned of the language at high school, Mr. Ecklund got an intensive exercise in frustration. "In a classroom environment with seven to 10 people," he says, "you learn at the pace of the slowest student." Even worse, he was so put off by the experience he gave up entirely on learning the language for three years.

Learn more (Criteria for a successful intensive or full-immersion experience)...