The Chronicle of Higher Education – Lucy Ferriss
“Here’s the issue, I think, in a nutshell. On one side, you have language teachers and learners who point out that babies don’t learn their mother tongues by learning grammar first. They acquire the language by being immersed in it, and the grammar follows naturally; later on, perhaps, they can learn to make sense of why they use several different forms of past tense or when fewer is preferable to less. On the other side, you have those who point out, like one Swedish blogger, that “we, as adults, do not learn foreign languages the way babies learn their native language. And hence, speaking without any grammatical backbone whatsoever can only get us so far.” I’ve experienced this frustration myself, in trying to learn Italian via phone app.” (more)