>>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.
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>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.
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>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?".


I know exactly what you mean. I resisted this method vigorously when I was first exposed to it. Once I was speaking, of course, I would start teaching myself grammar and memorizing vocabulary lists, just because that's what I like. It is definitely part of the package, but it is the part you self-teach.

But I think the audio-aural method is indeed the best way to be introduced to the spoken language - it is how I learned English <g> You listen, you repeat what you think you are hearing and eventually you begin to understand and people begin to understand you. When I speak French or Spanish I still subconsciously think the French or Spanish word "means" some English word. But in Turkish or Thai or whatever the word is the thing it represents. ( which is good because the word order and grammar - especially in Turkish - is so different from English you pretty much have to think in the language to speak it. )

For me, spoken fluency has a lot to do with first exposure. As to getting up to speed quickly on a spoken language there is no doubt it is the most effective way to teach it. My initial language training in Thai was only three months ( albeit 12 hours a day ) and I was then sent to a place where I never spoke English and was expected to pick up Lao, Cambodian, and Hmong on my own. After three months of college French I could just about order dinner without getting laughter along with the sneer <s> ( conjugation rarely came up in conversation )