Significant difference

I've touched on this before, but I want to expand on it here: What's the main difference between what I do, and what goes on at school?

As I've pointed out, you spend class usually an hour at a time focusing on some grammar point and a couple of dozen items of new vocabulary. That's what teachers get you to do.

So they select which grammar and the words (uncommon ones, usually so that they are 'new' for most of the students). They select what they believe their class needs at that time. (Or worse, they blindly follow some textbook or curriculum - in line with some philosophy of teaching - that they themselves have had no part in choosing.)

That's wrong already on several fronts.  It isn't student-centred or student-directed. There's no guarantee that the material is that which the student is ready to improve with, or is ready to learn. It's totally arbitrary.

Is it possible to master some such grammar point forever, and the day's vocab too? I'd say that that's a wild cry from reality. And yet, each year the same grammar drills are dragged out, and you are lucky if even a handful of the words stay with you.

I go about things differently. I feed myself with authentic text as early as possible. I allow thousands of words per hour (6000) to glide by my eyes. In so doing, the common words repeat. There's inbuilt revision and consolidation. My brain is free to forget items and structures that occur infrequently, but recognizes as important - and therefore begins to assimilate - the most common and useful structures and building blocks as they naturally occur.

I work very rapidly. I admit that much of the language doesn't stick. But it is starting to become sticky, in the same sense that you churn milk into butter, and curdle the cream. (Is that what people do? You know what I mean.) I don't waste time trying force in that which don't fit.

I'm happy to improve my understanding and knowledge a percentage point or two each time per item or rule. I make progress on every front. 1% of 6000 comes out as 60 new words (plus an equivalent 'exposure dividend' for grammar). That is much more than a couple of dozen (even assuming that I had absolute classroom retention).

Now then, this approach requires patience and trust. You don't necessarily notice an improvement along the way. It's all happening below the surface, as it were.

Yes, it is much more gratifying to go along with the illusion that you gain some expertise in a limited area (how to order a meal in a restaurant, for example) and be able to demonstrate a measurable result. Just this is artificial. It's an illusion. To be able to trot out a few sentences at will without an across-the-board development is very little use at all. It is hollow.

Progress in a language

The young learn their language through listening. I don't think there's any argument about that. For me as an adult, though, I feel that reading is the way - at least to begin with.

I want input first, and I want it in the written form. I want to be able to look it over at my own pace, going over it as often as I like, and on my own. Maybe it's different for other people, but I doubt it.

I want, first off to understand the written word, and second the spoken word. In that order. (As an aside, I ought to say that I don't consider the study of grammar to be necessary. It's optional. I may take a quick look now and again after I've learned the language, but just as grammar wasn't necessary to learn my first language, I don't feel that it is crucial for any other.)

Speaking arises out of the abilities to read and listen with understanding. Too many people believe that by mastering a few phrases they this makes them fluent. It doesn't. They may be able to speak those phrases without a discernible accent, but that wouldn't help them respond to utterances that lie outside of their ken.

Finally writing. Good writing takes years to develop. Most users of a language never get there. Being able to write well doesn't require additional vocabulary or extra grammar. It is rather a matter of style (as in Strunk). It requires practice, and the refining of one's ability to organize and express one's thinking. Writing makes you smarter, says Krashen, and I go along with that.