Pensamientos

For years, people - students and adults alike - have been sold on the idea that one learns a foreign language in much the same way as one learns his/her native or first language.  Perhaps under the most ideal conditions, this would be true. But, since most learning doesn't occur in the most ideal of situations, the approach used should be designed in order to best navigate the conditions which are present.

Thus the reason why I think that the Fluenz language learning system may have tapped into something that most language scholars have wanted to ignore: One doesn't learn a foreign language in the same way as one learns his first language.  First, one learns a foreign language; one acquires his/her native language.  Second, to say/suggest/imply that one learns a foreign language the way one learns his/her native language sounds...well...far more interesting and intriguing.  In my almost-two decades of teaching Spanish to middle and high school students, I can honestly say that the process which one undergoes to learn a foreign language versus the native language is not the same.  In fact, they're not even similar.  

Fluenz bears closer examination by foreign language teachers, especially secondary-level foreign language teachers in the United States. The approach, given the conditions under which students learn and teachers teach a foreign language in the United States, makes greater curricular sense.