An evening language class

Source A: an original contemporary non-fiction-style account.

“I joined a beginner's Italian class at the adult learning centre in September. We met on Wednesdays in room twelve. Our teacher asked us to practise ordering a drink before explaining every grammatical rule behind the sentence. I made three mistakes and still received the imaginary coffee. At home, I used a recording to repeat the phrases while washing dishes. My aim was to speak to relatives during a visit the following spring.

At first, every sentence stood behind a queue of corrections in my head. By the time I had checked them, the conversation had moved on. The teacher encouraged us to repair mistakes while speaking instead of waiting for perfection before beginning. This was not permission to stop learning the rules. It was permission to use what we already knew. A language became less like a locked cabinet of correct answers and more like a door I could open, awkwardly at first, towards another person.”

Source B: an original nineteenth-century-style letter or account, written for practice; this is not an archival document.

“My early study of French consisted chiefly of translating sentences about objects which no traveller would be likely to discuss. I could describe the possession of several pens but hesitated when asked whether I wished to sit down. Our master valued an accurate written exercise, and I do not dispute its usefulness. I regret only that conversation was postponed until an excellence which never appeared to arrive.

During a later stay abroad, my hostess insisted that I speak at supper. She corrected me kindly and continued the conversation, declining to treat each error as a catastrophe. I learned more readily when a sentence had somewhere to go. Accuracy remained desirable, but it became the servant of communication instead of the guard employed to prevent it.”

Refer to both sources. Infer the differences in the teaching and practice used to learn a language. Write a summary supported by details from both sources.