Thats how we learned English in school and for me I can say I never learned the vocabulary and I was not great in English examens either. The reason I am a C2 English speaker by now is that school gave me a good foundation (but did not bring me to fluency) and then mostly by using the language on the web due to my interests and the availability of information. I learned a lot just of English as a side product of some other productive or recreational activity.