Why You Can’t Learn A Language In School

The chances of being taught a language at school is very high. However, the chances of us leaving school being able to speak that language are exceptionally low. So what is going on here, why are we all failing to learn at school?

Unfortunately schools are just not set up for language learning success and I will go through why that is below.

Children Should Be Able To Learn A Language Easily

There are endless studies to show that children can learn a language faster and easier than adults. Their minds are like sponges so really they should all be leaving school fluent in languages, but we all know that doesn’t happen.

Languages Are Acquired, Not Learned

One of the biggest problems is that the school system is set up to “teach” you a language, but this not how langue learning works. You don’t actually “learn” a language, you acquire it.

The problem with school is that they do not facility acquisition and they treat it like any other subject they are teaching, which basically means that it doesn’t matter how hard you try, you will never learn a language at school.

School Use Ineffective Methods To Teach Languages

As I’ve already touched on, schools are set up to “teach” languages, which is just not an effective way to learn a language.

For a start the lessons are usually quite passive. The teacher stands at the front and explains things while the kids listen. This isn’t always a bad thing, some concepts do need explained in this way.

However, the issue is that there is not enough active use of the language. You are usually sat listening to someone explaining how a part of the language works, such a grammar rule, which is also usually done in English.

This is like me trying to talk to through how to change the gear of a car. It may be slightly helpful, but really you need to actually be in the car and feel the resistance on the clutch pedal to really understand how it’s done.  

The classroom needs to actually use the language, which just doesn’t happen.

You do get some practice exercises, but they are always the worst kind. Yes, I’m talking about the dreaded verb tables or vocabulary lists.

This is an awful way to practice a language and all you are doing is memorising words with no context or meaning, they do not help with your ability to communicate.

Of course these can be important, but they should not be the bulk of the classes, which unfortunately in schools, they are. 

(You can read more about – Methods that Are A Waste Of Time)   

There Is No Immersion In Schools

Basically there is no immersion in school. You rarely get to hear the language being used properly and you really do not get any time to just absorb it and acquire it. 

Language learning is a long slow process and trying to squeeze it into a small class is not effective. However, I still think if they made you immerse for that time every day you would see a lot more progress that just aimlessly doing grammar tables.

(You can read more about – Should Language Immersion Be Taught In Schools?)

Schools End Goal Is Exams, Not Language Skills

The end goal of the language class is to get you to pass the test. There is zero emphasis on acquiring the language and this is all wrong. 

Remembering some vocabulary and how to conjugate a verb correctly is of course useful, but when they are only remembered in a certain order, only to be able to be repeated for a test, it is a waste of time. There is no real world context when you are learning words like this.

You also quickly forget anything you have crammed into your brain at the last minute to just repeat it on a test. The second you leave the exam and the stress is gone, so is all the information you remembered the night before.

Language learning should be about slowly acquiring words, so that they stick in your long term memory and can be used in context, at any time when you need them.

Schools Do Not Focus On Being Conversational

The over use of grammar and verbs also means there is no real focus on real communication between students.

I remember looking at the verb to eat and writing out all the various conjugations, but I never learned how to turn to a classmate and ask them about what they are eating.

Eating is an easy and common topic for people to talk about, all I could do was write down “I eat, you eat, she/he eats, we eat, you eat, they eat” in this exact order. I wasn’t able to turn to a class mate, in class, or even better …at lunch time, and talk about the meal we were having.

Maybe I could have said “I eat” and the word “sandwich” but it wasn’t exactly a conversation, which is kind of the whole point of knowing a language.

You want to be able to talk with someone, which school does not prepare you for in anyway. 

Learning A Language In School Is Not Fun

Another major issue with classroom learning is it is not fun.

The text books are usually outdated and full of boring concepts that could drive you to tears. There is not enough listening and speaking practice and when there is it is so dull. When all of this is combined it just makes it hard for the kids to be interested in it.

The lessons just becomes a chore, another class to do just the minimum amount or remembering to pass a test. This is the attitude that a lot of the students have.

The way it is set up, it is too easy to fail. There are so many ways a student can lose interest very quickly, and then once that happens, they will never learn anything.

Schools Have A Lack Of Choice In Languages You Can Learn

There are so many languages you can learn, and schools really do not facilitate this. Most schools can only offer a few languages, usually the most popular ones, that are not too distant from their own, like Spanish or French.

If you want to study something a bit less common, like Norwegian, it’s probably not going to be an option. The same is usually true for more distant languages, like Korean or Japanese.

This is obviously frustrating for students, who have no real choice in what they can learn, but we have to look at it from the schools point of view, they can’t hire a teacher for every language and hope some students want to take a harder or more obscure language class. They have limited resources so need to spread the language learning choices accordingly.    

Sometimes there is zero choice for the student. My school taught French and German. At age 11 I was told I would be learning French. I was then told if I performed well in French class I would then be put into a German class the following year.    

Guess what, I wasn’t good at French, so I never got to experience German. How can my performance in one language dictate how well I might do in another?

You Don’t Know Why You Are Learning A Language In School

As I said, I was told at 11 I would be studying French. At this point I knew where France was on a map that and was it.

I had no interest in France and more importantly no understanding of why I needed to learn their language.

It was never explained to me why I was learning this language, so it was immediately pointless to me.

Obviously now I am older it is so clear to me the benefits of learning any language and I also have more interest in different cultures, but at that young age, a little explanation might have helped me show more interest.

School language Classes Are “One Size Fits All”

If we look at how the school classes work, they are not set up for success. You end up with a teacher who has a lesson plan for the year. Every week they need to stick to it so that they cover everything in time.

This is never a good idea. Nobody can learn in that rigid fashion. Some topics may need a longer time, or may need repeated. Of course the lessons may be structured in way that some topics are given more time, since it is usually the same areas that people routinely struggle with, however this isn’t always the case. 

You then have the problem of the class size. You might have 30 kids in a room, all at different levels, and all getting stuck on different things at different times. No one learns in the same way and understanding concepts can happen at different times. To teach a lesson to 30 kids and hope it all clicks for them that one time is going to be almost impossible.

It’s impossible for the kids and it’s impossible for the teacher.  This “one lesson fits all, then let’s move on” technique is really not effective.  

There Is A Lack Of Consistency In Schools Language Classes

Language classes do not happen regularly enough. Maybe one or two times a week, for half an hour.

It’s just not enough, especially since most of this time is spent passively listening to new concepts. There is no time to stop and practice and really drill down what has been taught. You will also find that many of these concepts are taught in English, so really the exposure to the actual language is extremely low.

This problem is made worse by the fact that there is never any exposure to the language outside of the classroom. But why would there be? You have no real interest in the language you are being told to learn, so why would you try and go home and watch movies or TV in this language?

You need a lot of exposure to a language. You just don’t get this with the school system. There is just a complete lack of consistency when it comes to exposure.    

Conclusion

The school classroom is set up for failure and the chances of any one getting to a decent level in a language is almost impossible.

There is not enough of the right type of studying and what is studied is usually just to pass a test, there is no real world transfer with the knowledge.

I think the system is awful, but with a few additions, it could actually be quite powerful.

Until that day, we will keep seeing the same results, where people study for 5 years and can barely say hello.

(You can read more about – It Is Possible To Learn A Language As A Adult)