>Depends a lot on the teaching method. For spoken language pattern drilling requires virtually no teaching skills, just knowledge of the method and a native speaker pronunciation. Learning grammar etc is a whole different thing and requires both teaching and linquistics knowledge. That's how I learned French in college and the reason I couldn't speak it when I got out even though I half of my research in French my senior year.
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>The pattern drilling method is based on the way we learned our mother tongue, not teaching the grammar rules or even reading and writing until you can speak and understand without translating. Really wish I'd learned French or Spanish that way.

Not sure it would ever work with me. In every language I tried to learn its internal logic, the "why do you say this that way", so I could guess my way through a sentence when I need to say something. My progress in learning is measured by how many errors I make this way - but these errors are also lessons.

Trying to speak it without understanding... may work only a few days in the beginning, while tongue breaks. The very next thing I want to know is "what was it that I just said?".