North Central College sought a way to strengthen the speaking capability of students in its Spanish program. Faculty wanted students to have more consistent opportunities to practice in ways that felt authentic, structured, and supportive. They also wanted students to receive immediate feedback as they spoke, helping them build confidence and apply skills in real interactions. Furthermore, faculty explored AI integration to resonate more effectively with today’s students, meeting them at their point of need within an increasingly AI-driven world to foster deeper student motivation and academic success. These goals aligned with IMMERSE’s Fall 2025 pilot program, which offered select higher education institutions access to the platform’s new self-paced learning experience. 

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The pilot program

The Fall 2025 pilot introduced universities to IMMERSE’s self-paced AI program, giving them a flexible and scalable model for strengthening communication capability, increasing engagement, and tracking progress across a full academic term. The program features more than 400 expert-designed micro-lessons aligned with CEFR, each built around a consistent four-part flow guided by Adaptive AI and set in realistic 3D scenes such as meeting rooms, doctor’s offices, or airports. This structure gives learners repeated opportunities to apply new language in context while faculty gain clear visibility into performance through built-in analytics.

Participation at North Central College

Ten second-year Spanish students enrolled in Dr. Sanchez's Intermediate I course participated in the 12-week pilot. Students were expected to complete at least one self-paced 30 minute lesson each week.

Across the term, students completed:
• 98 self-paced lessons
• 394 AI-powered vocabulary and pronunciation activities
• 4 social events where they practiced with Spanish learners around the world in real time

Before starting the program, students shared their goals via a pre-survey. They hoped to strengthen speaking confidence (21.9%), vocabulary knowledge (17%), pronunciation and listening comprehension (14.6%), and overall speaking ability (12.2%). They also indicated interest in building enjoyment and cultural knowledge. Importantly, 80% said they were excited to try an AI-powered immersive learning experience in their Spanish coursework

Key results 

At the end of the 12-week period, students completed a post-survey that asked how IMMERSE had supported their progress.

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Self-reported skill development

Students rated how much IMMERSE helped them improve various skills on a 4-point scale ranging from “not at all” to “a lot.” Results are shown in Table 1.

Overall, students reported improvement across all skill areas, with listening comprehension, grammatical knowledge, vocabulary knowledge, and reading skills having particularly strong concentrations of students reporting high levels of improvement. Pronunciation, writing skills, pragmatic language use, and speaking also demonstrated meaningful perceived gains, with the majority of students indicating progress. Cultural understanding showed more distributed responses, consistent with the pilot’s emphasis on language use and communication practice rather than explicit cultural instruction.

Learner experience and confidence

Students also reflected on how IMMERSE influenced their confidence, motivation, and overall experience.

• 89% said IMMERSE helped them feel more confident speaking Spanish and 78% said it reduced their anxiety related to speaking.
• 78% said it motivated them to continue learning Spanish.
• 100% said IMMERSE was easy to use and engaging.
• 91% found the experience enjoyable.
• 78% reported spending 1–2 hours per week, more than the required amount.
• 78% would recommend it to another student at their school learning Spanish. 
• 91% also said they would be disappointed if they could not continue using IMMERSE.

Student reflections

Students described IMMERSE as interactive, structured, and supportive. They highlighted the value of real conversations with the AI tutor and noted how immediate and targeted feedback strengthened their accuracy and confidence.

• “I liked how the AI suggested better ways of phrasing things to sound more like a native speaker, and how the AI asked you to come up with your own sentences, and responded to them in Spanish, continuing the conversation like it was real.”
• “I liked how interactive it is, like it listens carefully to what I say so I don't have to type and I also really liked that it gave me tips on how to correct my mistakes when I said something wrong.”
• “I loved how it gave me feedback if I gave a wrong answer. The instructions were all very detailed so I knew exactly what to do.”
• “I really liked the routine-ness of the lessons. It was very easy to understand.”

Next steps for IMMERSE + North Central College

Given the strong engagement results and clear gains in confidence and perceived capability, the Spanish program is exploring how IMMERSE can be integrated into additional beginner and intermediate level courses. The goal is to create a scalable path to support students as they strengthen their communication skills, with the potential for full implementation beginning in Fall 2026.