I have been learning Italian for about 10 years, but I read Italian novels on skype with an Italian friend because I would miss so much without her explanations. I could, of course, read on my own and use a dictionary, but it's time-consuming looking up a lot of words and I want to know the sense of what's written, not the meaning of every word.

Great post.

I love how you mention how students have to have an active role in the language learning process.

It's true, as students we get impatient during the learning process. Often we don't know if we are improving, it's so hard to tell.

That's why, students really have to keep some kind of progress log. We document our skills, recording our lessons, writing notes,  so we can look back and then, see and appreciate the progress.

Very good suggest， I always have this kind of status，I want it can be fluent urgently without any improvement。 thanks！

Thank you for the article! It gave me some inspiration and support for my teaching activity. I have recently found myself thinking about the same things as I get enourmous quantity of ads in the FB and other social nets attracting people with 3 months results in learning English, where the focus is on the speed rather than on the process. I am glad to find a co-thinker :)

Yay!  Great article, important message, IMHO.  A few people recently have said they want to slow done and learn one thing thoroughly -- even it takes a few weeks or a month.  It's nice to have the time to immerse yourself in one theme / one area of grammar and feel comfortable / confident with it.