How should we teach languages

acquiring vocabulary and grammar is key, the medium does not realy matter
- the medium of learning does not matter
- after we familiarize ourselves with the language through one medium we can focus on the other media
- teaching altogether reading, writing, speaking, listenning language is a mistake for teachers, as students should focus on one skill (one that bear most results) and when some fluency is acquired in one of those media, we should focus on reenforcing the “mapping” skills of the learners: map written language to spoken one or vise versa.
Which medium start teaching with:
- the goal is to achieve vocabulary acquisition the fastest as possible, the most familiar system should hence be favorised:
  - written when the writing system is similar, Welsh or French for English speakers:
    - of course it is impossible to avoid trying to pronounce the words or sounds when learning them, but little exercises of oral comprehension will make the learners specialize in one domain and learn vocabulary faster, then the “mapping” can be worked on when a critical level is reached
  - oral when the writting system is too different (different alphabet), Chineese, Arabic or Greek for English speakers
- A language like Irish does not fit clearly in a category of either “easier to write” or “easier to speak”, as both aspect are hard and somewhat familiar for an English speaker, in this sort of cases, it makes sense to theach using both media. But the testing should still be either oral or written, no need for the two at a lower level