The purpose of this study is to investigate the historical and theoretical background of immersion education and examinate classes for the effectiveness of immersion education.
First of all, To realize this purpose, the researcher reviewed the features immersion education as a method of foreign language teaching.
Second, This study deals with the immersion programs of Canada, Finland, Japan, Hong kong, Singapore as foreign cases and also deals with the immersion programs of Young-hoon elementary school, Ji-do elementary school, and Minjoksagwan High school in Korea.
Third, The researcher reviewed the current the plan for English education in Korea, which is called the seventh procedure of education. It is necessary to think about making a good method of English education by immersion programs.
Forth, the researcher designed immersion lessons for elementary school students in Busan. Then the researcher tested the immersion lessons on the students. In the first week, the researcher tested the students to analyse their English ability and their thoughts.
Based on the theory of the immersion program, the students took English classes. After six months, the researcher tested how much the students changed with respect to the cognitive domain and affective domain of English. The results of this study were as follow.
First, the students changed with respect to the cognitive domain. But junior students got more confident and curious than the senior students. The researcher expected that the cause of that is the fearfulness of the foreign language. Senior students become bored if they are not interested and confident.
Second, the students changed with respect to the affective domain. Almost all the students improved with respect to speaking, listening, and writing. The researcher expected that the cause of that is the exposure to English. In immersion education, students need to use English to learn. That is why the students improved the English ability.
In conclusion, this study made it clear that the immersion education as a teaching method in Korean elementary school provides students with more opportunities to motivate them to study for themselves and improve their English ability.
Based on the conclusions, the following suggestions arose.
First, it is necessary for the Ministry of Education to provide pedagogy including teaching and learning methods regarding immersion programs to local English teachers.
Second, students should participate in their class voluntarily. Even though there may be a good lesson p0lan, it is not helpful for students who do not want to study.
Third, it is necessary for teachers to improve their skills with respect to teaching methods, and teachers should prepare a lecture for their students.