The single reason why most language teaching in traditional schools is made wrong
It’s not you; it’s them
Many of us, not born in an English-speaking country, had the experience of taking English classes in school for years and years, only to find out later on that we didn’t actually speak nor understand spoken English. You were utterly unable to comprehend an English-spoken movie without subtitles. You struggled to give that little presentation in Engish.
What happened? Why have you failed despite your excellent grades in the English class? Are you not a “language skilled” person?
Fortunately for you –and me, and many others– the answer to this question is negative. We are not stupid (mostly). We just followed the rules of the game (I mean, the rules to pass the English course), but those rules were deeply flawed in the first place.
The one to blame is the traditional school language-learning system, in which students are asked to learn about the target language, not to learn to use the language. For instance, you learn some conjugation tables, some vocabulary, some prepositions, and then your learning is verified, naturally, using written tests. You don’t learn to speak; you don’t learn actually to understand: you learn to solve school exams.
Of course, the language teachers behind this profound teaching distortion are not (generally speaking) evil people, and their wrong-doing isn’t part of an international conspiracy to hinder actual language learning. They just follow their schools’ guidelines.
We get it, traditional schools are supposed to give printed certificates of “learning,” and those certificates need to be supported by written proof of learning, which means –you guessed it right– solving exams. Written exams are the easiest way to have written evidence of students’ performance, so they became the default way of assessment in schools. But to use written exams to assess actual use of the language is almost impossible, so they resort to asking formal questions about the language, like the correct conjugation of verbs or the right preposition to use, instead of the actual use of the language for expressing what you need to communicate. This is indeed the single reason why traditional schools fail at teaching the practical use of languages.
How to change that? Learn on your own. You can use the help of modern internet-based schools and mentors, like English Central, OpenEnglish, Lingoda, Language Mentoring, etc. You can use apps like ELSA, LingQ, Babbel, Memrise, Busuu, HelloTalk, FluentU, Avalinguo, Lingbe, etc. What matters is to develop the essential skills –speech and reading understanding, speaking, writing. Each method applies a different approach or style, but none of them focus on giving you a useless academic diploma; they aim to improve your actual use of the language. Whether they succeed or fail is up to you to judge.
