Am I the only language student who finds modern teaching methods unsatisfactory? The endless promises of “instant” learning and the implicit – if not explicit – message that grammar is for old bores both irritate and depress me. I’m thankful that at least one language school agrees with me More on this later.

Back in the Eighties, when I was at school, we used to conjugate our French verbs out loud, we knew why the word for ‘beautiful’ is sometimes ‘beau’ and sometimes ‘belle’; we were able to use the language because we understood how it works.

The traditional methods were not ideal, of course, and they were mistaken in their emphasis on writing and reading over oral communication. However, the thoroughness of the approach made it much more effective, in my opinion, than the lightweight courses available today.

The strength of modern methods is the concentration on speaking and listening. The weakness is the sloppy attitude to grammar. Yes, making yourself understood is what matters but if you don’t learn the correct forms in the early stages, it will be almost impossible for you to speak the language smoothly later on.

The current obsession with instant satisfaction clashes uncomfortably with study. Even the most experienced linguist, working with the best teacher, would struggle to learn Italian a day, or even a week. Courses that suggest you can achieve this would be better off promising less and delivering more. Yes, you can ‘get by’ in Italy with a handful of set phrases that you’ve learnt in a couple of hours, but this is not my idea of ’speaking’ Italian. I want to be able to have a real conversation.

The unpalatable truth is that it takes some hard work to learn Italian well. Getting to grips with all the articles, distinguishing formal from informal “you”, memorising verbs, getting used to omitting the subject pronouns It’s a sweat to get over the introductory hurdles, but I can tell you it’s worth it.

Grammar is like a map: once you know how to use it, you’ll rarely go wrong. However, if you don’t know how to read it, it can’t help you. The first phase of your language learning needs to be understanding the ’symbols’ and getting to know where they take you. When you know this, you can branch out accurately, with confidence.

Teaching materials, then, should provide clear explanations of how the language works, as well as lots of practice exercises, so we can check we have understood as we go along.

Browsing the internet one day, I came across an ebook, Italian for Beginners, which is exactly what I was looking for. Three and a half months on, I like to think I speak Italian quite well!

Tags: Self Improvement

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