>spending a couple hours per day listening [...] to the language for 2 years, at the end the first person won’t speak the language and the second person will.
It doesn’t work like that. For the student to make any progress he need to be able to understand most of the things in the speech (this is called comprehensible input, and the theory is both applicable to listening and reading). That’s why there are people living in foreign country for years yet cannot speak or understand the language at all.
Also it’s kinda stupid to say that language learning must be either grammar/voc learning or listening: it needs to be both. Classes are needed because they make portion of listening material comprehensible, which is impossible by listening only.
It doesn’t work like that. For the student to make any progress he need to be able to understand most of the things in the speech (this is called comprehensible input, and the theory is both applicable to listening and reading). That’s why there are people living in foreign country for years yet cannot speak or understand the language at all.
Also it’s kinda stupid to say that language learning must be either grammar/voc learning or listening: it needs to be both. Classes are needed because they make portion of listening material comprehensible, which is impossible by listening only.