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PaperclipPerfector  20hr ago (text post)   822 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 22, 2026

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Why is second language education so routinely terrible in the United States? (not sure if it is like this in other countries as well, but speaking to what I know). Not only do students almost never achieve fluency after nearly two decades in the system (grade school through college), but the entire academic structure seems completely in denial about what actually is effective at generating fluency. Research on second language acquisition has consistently shown that immersion based approaches with a small amount of grammar at early levels is much more effective than the grammar/translation method. Yet every language class I've been in, from middle school on has been laser focused on verb conjugations, and direct translations. I can excuse this at the high school level because teachers aren't exposed to the latest pedagogical research. But at universities where part of the job of many of these instructors is pedagogical research, this approach is frankly embarrassing and a huge waste of student's time.

I have two theories on why this might be the case. Firstly, immersion learning doesn't really lend itself to test-taking, which is a necessary part of the academic system. Secondly, there is no incentive to actually teach language effectively at scale: Americans don't need to understand foreign languages, and the ones that do want to become diplomats or do business in other countries eventually seek out immersion approaches on their own.

I think this applies in a lesser sense to the entire educational structure in the US, baring maybe doctorate level education. There's so much useless crap in the system that doesn't help with the learning or retention of relevant information. Bryan Caplan makes a compelling case in The Case Against Education that this is by design because the point of education is signaling. I think he's mainly correct, which is why the lib bandying of education as a panacea to society's problems makes me want to tear my hair out.

Imo, most people's grasp of grammar and structure in their native language is not great. One advantage of the grammatical approach is that it forces people to finally confront the structure of language in general and thus also their own.

Imo, most people's grasp of grammar and structure in their native language is not great.

They might not know any grammatical terms, but native speakers speak grammatically in their dialects.

If only that were true. Native speakers have incorrect grammar all the time. For example, people who say "him and I went to the store together". Not all the rules are something you pick up naturally, and a decent number of people simply do not care about using the language correctly.

It's not intrinsically incorrect to say "him and I went to the store together," though it's not standard American English. It's also not intrinsically incorrect to say "I and Bob went to the store" - even though grammar textbooks will tell you that "Bob and I" is correct, even SAE speakers usually don't find anything wrong with "I and Bob" and will use it.

Not all the rules are something you pick up naturally

Language is an emergent phenomenon and there is no central authority controlling what is acceptable and what isn't, especially in English. What's grammatical is defined by what is accepted as grammatical speech by native speakers of that dialect.

It's not intrinsically incorrect to say "him and I went to the store together," though it's not standard American English.

What's grammatical is defined by what is accepted as grammatical speech by native speakers of that dialect.

We are going to have to agree to disagree here. You seem to be a descriptivist, and I am very much a prescriptivist. So I think that "him and I went to the store together" is intrinsically incorrect, no matter how many people say it that way. They are using an object in place of a subject, which is incorrect grammar.

They are using an object in place of a subject, which is incorrect grammar.

Hopefully ye are always careful to use "ye" when you mean the second person singular subject, and reserve "you" for the second person singular object - as was intended by our forefathers. "You" as second person singular subject is a sixteenth century corruption of English grammar.

In that case we can also say beginner-level students don't make mistakes, they just speak in beginner dialect.

It's not a real dialect because there are no native speakers.

Now, if you had, say, generations of people brought up speaking in ""beginner dialect""...

What even is a native speaker? Children have to learn their language too.

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