Providing students with opportunities to practice conversation in their target language in an immersive setting can be a challenge, especially with less commonly spoken languages. While encouraging students to explore language and culture outside of the classroom by pursuing their own interests and forming relationships in their target languages does work for some students, the vast majority find themselves simply too busy or intimidated to even make a single step in that direction on their own. One solution we have found to be particularly effective is to bring micro-immersive opportunities directly to the students, especially by bringing in student peers fluent in the target language (especially international students from target-language speaking countries) to lead students in a micro-immersion conversation-group experience that focuses on relaxed, friendly chatting with the goal of comfortable, fluent communication and cultural exchange in the target language, providing students with practice, inspiration, and motivation for improved conversational skills and cultural exchange. Presenter Jessica Wood is an Associate Teaching Professor of German at Northern Arizona University with over 20 years’ experience in the language classroom.
