Actually the opposite has happened for me.
For the past three weeks (since July 25), I have been unable to give roses or post comments on anyone’s wall without the send button (i.e. post responses). Now I have just tested these functions and I can magically do both again.
Firefox has updated to a new version since then: 40 and just in the last few minutes 40.0.2, so that was probably the problem.
I do think it is good that you and others keep making this point. Up until a few years ago I did just assume that I needed to pay for classes to learn a language. I’m sure this is what most people assume - and I am always asked where I studied rather than how I learnt a language. There are a lot of great teachers, but there are big problems with the methodologies. I did a short English language teacher training course 3 years ago and I found what we were being taught quite worrying. Rather than language teaching being about training people to become independent learners, it was all about how to teach “grammar points” and “10 new words”. Teaching seemed to be reinforcing a teacher-student dependency that is inefficient, costly for the student and really quite tedious. Great teachers can bring these lessons to life, but most of the time you’re thinking: how many hours of language classes will I need at 10 new words or 1 grammar point every hour?
Unless a class is focused towards speaking practice or teaching students how to learn the language (rather than teaching the language) I would say that for many of us languages classes are in fact useless. And if they put us off continuing with a language, they can be worse than useless.
Wow, thank you for these great points. It is interesting because without the knowledge that I could do this independently I was constantly looking for the next best class or next best teacher. Realizing my power in all this has really empowered me to take responsibility for becoming fluent. Rather than depending on someone or some other course.
If classes are useful for me, it is because they are assisting me in my independence to learn a language. In my experience, that is not the case. Classes can help, but at what rate are they helping me, while at the same time slowing me down in efficient language learning? This is an important ratio to consider.