Member-only story
A language learning story that is far too common: you learn a language for some time, months or years, but you struggle to say the simplest thing in it. But when you consider how the average language lesson looks, this result is not a surprise.
Most of the language classes I had at school were heavily focused on:
- reading articles about random topics-rarely about something I was remotely interested in
- learning the theoretical part of the grammar
- doing exercises where you ‘practice’ in the most artificial way possible
If there were any talking involved, it was mostly with other students-who were as incompetent as me with the target language.
Most private classes were just more of the same thing-still a waste of time, but at least going there increases your exposure to the language.
My language learning journey
I started learning language in a typical way-learning English at a public school, with a bit of help at home, and later on with additional classes in a language school. My results in school were good, but I was hardly able to speak it.
It all changed when I switched from a normal language school to a school using a direct method-an approach focused on…
