A few years ago, I watched a documentary about nature schools. It showed how kids are taught with real-life examples. For example, it depicted a teacher asking a child, "how many chickens do we have?" The children answered: Five, and he explaining that there were originally seven, but a fox had eaten two of them, now we have five chickens. Amazing! he learned mathematics without the need for a textbook, through real-life experiences. I think it does NOT matter what we want to learn, in any situations real sources are much effective. For learning English I used authentic sources, Today I read an advice column in the Washington Post(https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/advice/). I transcribed the entire text into my notebook and I attempted to guess the meaning of difficult words. Then I listen to a very short conversation for listening that was real too. Real sources are valuable in some aspects. That advice was NOT only a English content, I used counselling also. @MyPathToEnglish