My 'educational' experience learning German

By educational I mean, what the HELL do I have to go through to learn this language, ''Gott verdammt!''😱

To be honest, my journey of learning the German language has been quite challenging. From not having a proper teacher with improper teaching methods to not having proper guidance to learn on our own, it was a HUGE struggle to reach the fluent level. It took me over 5 years to gain a solid understanding of the language.

Here's how my 'amazing' experience learning the language went:

Right after graduating from high school, I started to learn German from a local education institute. It was a dream sold that when you learn the German language, you are able to pursue an engineering course and secure a better life with a job in Germany. Though there are some who are able to acquire such life after learning German starting from that education institute, I was one of the unlucky ones who had to wither through the hardships of learning aimlessly, speaking with broken German with natives and with less confidence, and lastly struggling to understand the words and grammar for months and years!

So, what felt short in terms learning German properly in the beginning and speaking fluently sooner?

1. Unfair Level of Teaching

Starting to learn the language in a class, I was unable to follow what the teachers were saying, as they just started to ramble off fluently in German right from the beginning. I mean, would you train with Lionel Messi right away when you are just learning about football? How about training with Michael Jordan right away as your beginner's practice for basketball? Hypothetically it sounds amazing, but in reality, how easy (or even fair) do you think it'll be if they just played the same level of football or basketball against someone with zero knowledge for the sake of just ''training''?

And the teacher won't even give any single goddamn explanation in English; the explanation in German doesn't make any difference to understand. And just when I thought that that's just for the beginning exposure, it didn't get any better. She just kept speaking German for all of the lessons with zero English!

Purposefully trying to chase people away from learning German? Or is she a bad teacher!?

2. Less Exposure to German Language

The period from when I learned the German language in the beginning to when I was enrolled in the institute was just at that particular time of the lesson period, and after those lesson periods, it's back to speaking English and Malay out there. There are just no further tips and guidance given to practice or learn more German language outside of the lesson periods. Whether having someone to practice German with or providing additional application-based conversation lessons...

I'm saying this is the issue because if you are not constantly taking the effort to learn or even to come across a couple of German words, you are not going to progress further despite the language classes attended. Sure, they gave a couple of homework assignments, but they all felt like just learning everything in theory. Sometimes there'll be some memorizing homework, which is just an inhuman way to learn. I mean, we haven't reached the future where we have implemented computer chips in your brain yet, have we?

3. Wait, wait... I know this, and I have learned it before, but I forgot!

   
   

Going to each class or lesson and learning something new every time really sounds great, but what use are these 'theories' of a language that you have learned if they are not used in daily practices? I'll be going to each class learning something new, but after couple of lessons, I have forgotten what I have learned 5 or 4 class back. that when the teacher ask me back on any of the stuff again, all I can say at that time was 'Wie Bitte?!' (Come again?!)

This is just to show how unstructured the lessons taught can be, even though you are following the usual Goethe or Telc structure, which I was following through as well at that time. All these classes that Ied at the end of the day were really effective when it comes to using them for daily practices. I mean, aside from learning German to pass an exam or an interview, wouldn't it be much more useful if we used them to speak in the first place? Learn a lot just not to speak them. Wow, how nice! Wie Schön!!!

And this is the biggest hurdle I had to face while learning German from unorganized and "please-get-out-now" classes:

4. ''I go to class to teach a couple of students; they learn something new every Friday, and I get paid for it. Whether they truly learned the language or not, Scheiß Egal!''

It feels like the teacher who taught me German had this sort of mentality. She'll teach you a lot, and later, by the end of the day, you might be wondering, Was there anything helpful or meaningful or useful that I learned that day? She helped me if I had any doubts or clarifications, but honestly speaking, it wasn't enough in terms of the additional help received after such a bad lesson period. I mean, I just wished for once that they taught the German language with some basis in English so that it was easy to follow through a single class of hers. I really wished it quite badly.

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Though I wished I knew there was another way to learn German at that time, I was really a naive young kid back then who was pretty lost in lots of things in life, including the proper ways of learning German.

Although I have heard that the educational institute from which I obtained an awful German level back then has changed a lot with more students graduating well, still the 'regular' lessons they are teaching (as well as other institutes from which I have met the students learning German) don't really help the students to converse fluently since the focus of teaching German is still based on theories only, as in knowing the grammar and memorizing new words.

I can say this with confidence simply because some of the students that I have taught throughout my experience as a tutor have told me that they have issues speaking and conversing in German simply because they didn't train to speak the German language during or outside their lesson periods with such institutions.

If you are interested to know how to develop the German language in much more modern and effective ways, you can check out this blog here ⬇️

Modern Way of Learning German