Once a teacher, always a teacher!!

In spite of being on holidays, I can’t leave aside my “professional call”.

I was watching television yesterday when I saw two “teachers?” advertising an English teaching programme which enabled anyone to speak English fluently in four months.

I really couldn’t believe my eyes. I don’t think anyone well acquainted with teaching and learning processes can assert such a thing. That’s why I HAD to include this entry in my blog.

People who know much more than I do about teaching and learning, assert that we need quite a lot of exposure and interaction in order to internalize the language we learn.

These two women (I can't go on calling them "teachers") compared learning a second language with learning our first language. If the two learning processes were the same, how many hours of exposure do we have in order to start uttering some scattered words when we learn our mother tongue?

They also asserted that learners could schedule their learning. With no systematic organization of the teaching/learning meetings I don’t think whatever we do at any time with no planning will be stored in our long term memory (which is essential to enable us to use the language freely and automatically afterwards). Swan, in his blog, was commenting upon activities we do in class which are enjoyable but teach little or no language. Could this be the case in this programme?

I think the general public should be warned about these practices which swindle them of huge sums of money without providing them with the results they promise.

What can we do about it?

Suggestions are welcomed.