Is not too much emphasis on skills in our education nowadays than on learning knowledge?

Answer

That people now focus more on skills is without a doubt a fact. If we look soberly at the language skills of the previous generations and compare them with the current generation, then it is clear that we are not doing better now, on the contrary: the language skills (especially the active) have visibly deteriorated. But that can of course be due to many factors.

How a language is best learned depends on what kind of language use one intends (eg being able to speak, or especially written language proficiency) and also on the age of those who learn the language. In young children, learning an (oral) language goes without saying. At school there is still a lot of work in the field of written (but also oral) language proficiency, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, etc. After learning the mother tongue (more or less natural), learning a second language starts Not so natural anymore. And here the policy makers usually make a mistake; They usually assume that that second language can also be learned by immersion in a language bath. That is why it is important that when learning a second language, the various aspects of language are all widely covered and in a good relationship.

So you are right: learning grammatical rules, vocabulary, etc. is important because it offers structure. In addition, it is of course also important that language is treated actively. The main reason for the decline of the last decades is undoubtedly the ideological position of the policy makers that in language education should be focused almost exclusively on functional language use. This is very one -sided. But it is clear that if someone else had answered this question, you might have received a different answer.