“No one learns foreign languages by studying the equivanlent of phonics.”
That is just not true. Indeed, when I studied French 55 years ago was when I was first exposed to the systematic use of phonics, including the learning of the phonic alphabet and symbols. Moreover, you then go on to contradict yourself by saying that one “learn(s) foreign languages by using said languages in the classroom...” Seems to me, that means speaking the language, and listening to it being spoken, n’est pas? If that is not phonics, what is it?
I was taught to read in school by the Sight-word method (”Look-See” it was called then), but I learned to read at my parents’ knees, as they read out loud to me while I followed the letters and words on the pages in front of me. Due to my formal (lack of) education, I am to this day a poor speller, and have difficulty pronouncing words I have not seen before. But I started to learn to read phonetically when I studied Latin in High School, and French in college. I was further trained in phonics when I was training to be a tutor (my speciality was Math, but all of us who worked for the tutoring service had to teach English, and other subjects as well).
The theory is that different persons have different learning modes. Visual learners, who think in images, can learn to read very well and quickly by the Sight-word method; I did. Auditory learners, who think in the spoken word, do not learn to read well by Sight-word, nor do other modes of learners. Sometimes the disconnect is so great that the education establishment labels the students ‘dyslexics’, when it is the teaching method that is lacking, not the students.
Well there's your problem. Just look up the definition of phonics.
Hint: it ain't what you think.
So far as I have studied them, foreign languages are always taught by using them: not learning how the words are constructed. Perhaps things were different 55 years ago, but my experience tells me that method has been universally abandoned by language teachers.