>>1558
The Finnish school system makes grades optional for students up to the 8th grade and in general tries not to put too much pressure on them, and yet we see that it consistently comes on top, or near the top, in every international ranking. So maybe they're doing something right.
>And do adults really learn like children? Isn't he conflating language acquisition and language learning a bit here?
Some people make a distinction between learning a language and studying a language. The idea is to treat language as a skill to be developed rather than as a subject to be known. From this point of view, learning and acquiring a language are essentially the same thing.
I'm not sure if adults learn exactly like children, but since all children manage to learn a language, I think it makes sense to look at how they do it and then base our models on that. Perhaps the most obvious difference between children and adults is that adults already know a language, but is that a disadvantage or an advantage?