I am with some 4th-year secondary school students in a classroom. Due to an organisational failure I am not teaching this period, but the students can't leave the classroom either. Time for a chat. And as a language teacher I would like to know: have you chosen a language for your final exams? 

One of the students says to regret her choice for German. "I thought: German is like Dutch and therefore not so hard. But all that grammar!" she sighs.

I think back to my secondary school German lessons, over 30 years ago. Thanks to a German television series that I liked and had recorded (on video tape ...) and watched almost every afternoon after school, I already had developed some sense of the German language. 

But I also remember the extra blank sheet of paper we got during German exams in which I always wrote down the table of the German cases; with that table I was able to complete the exercises and get good grades.  

But I also remember my oral exam in the final year: I had decided to speak so fast so that my teacher would not hear the difference between  'den' and 'dem' and 'der'. Because despite 5 years of German class in school, I was not able to correctly use the cases in a spontaneous conversation. 

Back to today and these 4th year students. "How can I have a conversation with a German speaking person like this?" the student continues. "What do you think you need to learn German?" I ask her. She quickly responds: "Well, for starters a teacher who speaks German with us in class". 

I cannot blame her. I explain to the students that our brain needs input of the language in order to acquire language. Input like conversations and stories. Of course there is grammar. But grammar should not be leading. Grammar can absolutely help the language production at some point. But grammar is not very useful when a students can hardly have a simple conversation. 

I cannot help her any further: I only teach Spanish during 5 or 6 weeks at her school and then the students pick another subject of choice or study independently. But I hope her German teacher reads this and will consider to communicate more in the classroom.