Hello, I am Sara. I have to say I disagree with the statement What is taught, is what is learned’

Hello, I am Sara. I have to say I disagree with the statement “What is taught, is what is learned’.

Throughout middle school, along with English, I also learned Italian. Even before having it as a subject, I understood quite a lot of Italian because as a family, we used to watch a lot of Italian movies and shows but when it came to communicating in Italian, I only could form simple sentences that didn’t give a lot of information. So when I started learning it at school, I had hopes that from then on, I would be able to learn how to speak Italian fluently. It didn’t turn out to be that way though.

The teacher loved to make us remember verb conjugations and other grammar properties, so that’s where I focused on. As for reading and speaking, all we did was read the short dialogues that the textbook provided us and retell them from a third point of view. It was no surprise that at the end of that four-year period, I couldn’t speak anymore Italian than I could before. The teacher is not the only one to be blamed. Personally, I did not use my Italian skills anywhere but in my classroom in comparison to how I used to speak in English any chance I could.

So shortly, because of my experience with Italian and a few other school subjects as well, I believe the statement to be wrong, at least in most cases. Language learning can’t just be about memorizing vocabulary and verbs in certain tenses, it needs thorough practice AND a lot of motivation and desire to acquire the skills needed.