In early September, right after super typhoon Jebi had hit Japan, it was still raining heavily in Osaka when Fabian, an Osaka University student from Switzerland, introduced himself in Japanese and talked about his relationship with languages and his experiences as a foreign student in Japan. In front of the podium, an audience of five students from Taiwan were eagerly taking notes while asking questions and making comments in Japanese.

It is hard to imagine that just one week ago, one of the students could not even read the 50 sounds of the two Japanese syllable alphabets.

During the discussions, a bespectacled young man in shorts freely joined in to confirm what the listeners had grasped as well as to explain where they failed to understand. At the same time, he told them how to make sense of what they were hearing.

Meet 33-year-old Terry Hsieh, founder of language learning platform polyglot.tw. It was the fourth time that Hsieh accompanied a group for an “immersive language learning” camp in Osaka.

Hsieh, a graduate of the Department of Foreign Languages at National Taiwan University, has mastered 25 languages. He wants to prove that immersive learning is the best way of acquiring a foreign language.

Building an All-Foreign Language Tutoring Environment

Hsieh was motivated to try a new approach to language learning after a disappointing language course experience. Upon graduation in 2008, he won a scholarship for a two-month intensive course in Germany.

At the time, Hsieh’s German had already reached the level required for admission to German universities. During the course, he attended four hours of German classes every day.

He emerged utterly disappointed because “all classmates were foreigners. And while their German level wasn’t bad, it had its limitations.” Yet after the language course, Hsieh lived with the family of a German friend for ten days.

Since his friend’s mother only spoke German, he learned much more during the home stay than in the language school. (Read: The Native Speaker: A Category in Need of Rupture)

He concluded that language schools were an ineffective and costly way of learning foreign languages. He believes one can only make progress if interacting with native speakers and communicating with them in everyday life.

So he came up with a new approach of acquiring new languages in real-life situations rather than in a classroom setting.

He created an all foreign language environment that also offers adequate support where needed. Taking the Osaka immersive Japanese learning camp as an example, Hsieh invited friends from different walks of life and professions to give lectures and engage in discussions with the students at the guesthouse where they were staying.

This allowed the participants to experience different facets of Japanese society and to chat with local people.

In the mornings, they engaged in discussions, but in the afternoons, the participants were asked to independently complete certain missions, similar to geocaching activities, which forced them to use Japanese in real-life situations.

Poppy, a 40-year-old office worker, participated in an immersive Japanese camp earlier this year. The task that most deeply impressed her was buying ice cream from a Turkish vendor.

After getting her ice cream, she began to chat with the vendor, asking him what had brought him to Japan, how long he had lived there and what his impressions were. “While chatting with him I virtually forgot that my Japanese is poor,” Poppy recalls.

When people have the desire to communicate, they find it easier to open their mouths. “Even people who don’t speak Japanese at all can come [to the camps],” says Hsieh. Most important when learning a language is the right attitude, Hsieh says.

 “Many people feel you must master a language before you can dare to open your mouth and communicate with other people. Because they are always afraid, they don’t dare speak. However, in that case, the day when you fully master a language will never come,” says Hsieh.

Asian people need to overcome particularly high psychological hurdles because their exam-centered school education instills a strong fear of making mistakes. Hsieh realized during studies in the United States that those who dare to ask silly questions learn the most.

Change in Attitude Takes Away Fear of Making Mistakes

Learning skills is easy, but changing one’s attitude is a different story. Hsieh often finds himself in the role of psychological counselor. This April, he organized a two-week immersive camp in Phoenix, Arizona.

A 30-year-old office worker was very frustrated because he couldn’t understand a word in the United States although he had studied English in the classroom in Taiwan for more than ten years. Hsieh told the participants to pretend they were starting from zero.

When Hsieh learned Quechua, the language of the Inca Empire, in Ecuador he tackled the task like a little baby who learns his mother tongue “from zero.” After two months, he was able to chat freely with the local people.

Poppy feels that the most obvious change after her seven-day camp was not a dramatic improvement of her language skills but the fact that she no longer feared making mistakes, that she had overcome her shyness and was able to talk with strangers.

Source: Chien-Ying Chiu

With his unorthodox teaching method, Hsieh has even persuaded some university professors. (Read: Speaking More Than One Language Can Boost Economic Growth)

Chao Chin-chi, associate professor at the Department of English of National Chengchi University, points out that Hsieh’s approach breaks the mold of top-down teaching typically seen in classrooms. Instead, Hsieh plays the role of a guide, enticing students to explore by themselves like travelers navigating an unknown terrain, and providing assistance only when necessary.

Chao, who researches innovative language teaching methods, recently joined one of Hsieh’s immersive Japanese camps at her own cost. After seven days, she had successfully revived her Japanese language skills, which had been laying dormant for some 20 years.

That’s exactly the myth that Hsieh hopes to debunk: You don’t necessarily need to go to language school to learn a language. He firmly believes that the right environment and motivation make language learning a breeze.

Presently, Hsieh’s startup is still in the investment stage and not yet profitable. However, the greatest value he has created with his platform is the ability to help more people overcome their shyness, get out of their comfort zone and speak in a foreign language.

Translated by Susanne Ganz
Edited by Tomas Lin