ElectricJozin

I have always thought of school language learning as total and utter bull***. Keep in mind I live in Slovakia so things will be different but I will try my best to explain my confusion. First let me present my arguments for the bold statement above: 1. You can "learn" a language in about a year but in normal schools a second language is taught about 10 yearssssss. With all this time you would expect that people get the language after the 10 year mark but they rarely do. Conversations with these 10 year language students are cumbersome, filled with many stutters and sometimes complete nonesencical mix of their first and second language. 2. You dont learn a language by getting to know the words and the grammar. You dont teach a kid the grammar of a language. Our brains are large for a reason - we can subconciusly comprehend a language through many clues. 3. Why the actuall duck should someone teach you a language? You have to learn it, the teacher is suppose to be more of a guide who provides you with learning material (which none of them do, instead they just leave you with the grammar before the exam and give you zero excercises) Learning something is fun you dont need to spoil it with a useless 3-party instructor. Better way: I "learned" English through watching a ton of youtube videos when I was little. Then I got to know google translate and by the age of 10 I could talk in English. Simple as that, no sleepless nights before exams or memorizing. If our school provided better support and for example showed me the power of the internet, the process would be much faster. You might say: well then you just prefer this method of learning, you are lucky cause its definetely faster - to that I say: We have the same brains, the same biology, the existence of learning styles has no significant evidence in support of it. The rage: My school system tho, thats another level. In our school you mandatorily learn British English. And whenever I use a American phrase/grammar rule/slang/spelling whatever really, I get a bad mark then get a very big speech from my teacher about how I am a slacker and know jack shit. In a very formal email to my boss, yes I am going to use present perfect, but in a normal conversation or text I have no clue on why I should use present perfect. Thats just one example. What I have come to realise tho is that we have been learning languages like this for a long time and there doesnt seem to be anyone so frustrated at this as me. How come? Do the exams, teachers, grammar learning really have something more to them? What are the benefits of the more systematic language learning that I cant see? *Learn means to get to a stage where you can read a entire book in the language with only minor problems