Efficient Training Methods

[Niko]

Can the average person attain reasonable proficiency in a language through classroom courses?

From intensive language programs of the Foreign Service Institute, the Defense Language Institute and the Peace Corps where languages are taught under more ideal conditions than in academic institutions, it has been found that selected, capable, highly motivated learners under the best audiolingual training conditions devised, and concentrating full-time on language study alone, require (depending on the language and the student) from 800 to over 2000 "contact hours" of training to attain a level of proficiency adequate for normal use.

That amount of hours far exceeds the time available in 4 or 6 semesters of language classes meeting for 1 hour daily. Furthermore, it is recognised that the efficiency of learning in an environment of concentrated, full-time study is superior by far to that of the usual academic setting.

In the usual academic situation where language study is not nearly so concentrated or so extended in time and must compete for the learner's attention with many other pressures of the normal academic load (plus other pressures and interests in the life of a student), what amount of language learning can realistically be expected in one semester or in a year or two? Or to view that question in a different light: given the goal of training people up to a usable level of communicative competence in a language, what amount of training will do it? If that amount is unrealistically large - if the educational system is unwilling to afford students that much time, or students are unwilling to invest that much effort, what alternatives are there?

If our lives are continuously becoming busier, then we are left with the challenge of finding more efficient training methods that will accomplish more in less time.