Immersion: The Best Way to Learn a Language?

 Galliot, Lorena. “Language Acquisition Is a Matter of Exposure.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 26 Apr. 2007, https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/style/26iht-alang.1.5454742.html. 

Claim: Immersion is the best and most efficient way to learn a language.

Arguments	Counter Arguments
A child only needs to be exposed to a different language for at least 30 percent of their time awake to acquire it. Everybody learns their first language through immersion and exposure.	Later in life, immersion itself is not enough for an adult to learn a language. Because neural pathways involving the language learning process start to “close” the older someone gets, simply listening to a language is not enough to learn it.
Consistent exposure can allow up to 3 languages to be learned at a time, provided that a child is young enough to still be able to “absorb” languages.	Adult brains are capable of learning and distinguishing between grammatical structures, which is regarded as the most important part of understanding a new language. Grammatical structures are often emphasized in language classes and textbooks.
Languages are learned easier the younger somebody is, and it is also easier to distinguish between different phonemes the younger you are. Since children can (mostly) only learn through immersion, they have an easier time learning languages at home (when spoken consistently) than they would in a language class at school (which helps, but is not consistent enough to provide fluency).	Consistent exposure to a language the older you get can have as little to no effects at all. There are many accounts of older people moving to different countries and being unable to speak the language even after many years of living there. This mainly happens with adults who are considered “middle aged”.

(Not part of the assignment, but my personal conclusion on all of this) 

While immersion is the best way to learn a language at one point in life, because it quickly turns from the sole learning method to just an important part of the learning process (and not the most important part), it would be incorrect to say that it is the overall best way to learn a new language. Immersion is dependent on timing too heavily for it to be a consistent "best" way of learning a new language.