In my newly released book, YOU CAN LEARN SPANISH or Any Language No Matter Your Age or Disposition, I discuss how most, if not all, second language courses in the Free World are taught: Grammar First. Not only is this method frighteningly boring, but I also explain why it will notindeed cannotgive you what you want: A high degree of spoken fluency. I recall all too well walking into my first Spanish course at the University of Kansas. I was handed a huge textbook, a workbook, and was told I had to login so many hours each week in the language lab. Now, instead of a language lab, you just get some CD’s or tapes.
The reason this approach cannot teach you a high degree of spoken fluency is simple. It is so simple that all of you who raised children already know it. This approach is not the way humans acquire spoken fluency in any language, including their native one. The same way in which you, the parent, coached your child to say words, phrases, and sentences, is the way in which a second language is learned. The mechanisms your child used to learn his native tongue are the same ones you need to acquire a second language. It does not matter at what age you begin to...