The daughter of a friend of mine at age about nine I think was outstandingly good at French so much so that she was sent to a senior school for advanced French classes.
Having been told this, and being able to speak French pretty fluently, I tried speaking to her in French. A look of panic appeared on her face, and she shouted to her mother “mum, Paul’s talking funny!”
I subsequently learnt to my utter horror, that at the school she attended, only written French was taught not spoken French. She was learning a foreign language, but she had absolutely no idea whatsoever what it sounded like.
To me, that is complete insanity. What on earth is the point of teaching a foreign language as an academic written subject when what the pupils will be needing to do is to express themselves verbally in that language and to understand what people are saying to them in that language.
The British educational system is even worse than I thought it was!