6 years of language.

Currently, I'm on ebay looking for AS French language books. I figure AS level to be the equivalent of the Scottish Higher level of which I have a Grade B but AS level goes into a bit more detail than higher. I'm really disappointed with how SQA [Scottish Qualifications Authority] deals with teaching foreign languages. We start learning a foreign language in primary 6, when student are around 9-10 years old. In my school it was compulsary to learn a language at Standard Grade [GCSE]. After 6 years of studying French at school, I have friends who would not have a clue how to order in a French cafe or how to construct a sentence such as 'I have long hair' or answer 'Oú habites tu?'. Yet in other countries there are children who are at an advanced level after 6 years of studying at school. I'll admit that I never studied for my Higher French. I had a native French teacher during Standard Grade level who taught us verb tenses such as the future tense and the conditional tense which you are not supposed to learn until Higher level. I became very unmotivated to learn French after going into my first higher French lesson and learning basic grammar such as 'de + le = du'. An education system which takes 6 years to teach such a basic grammar rule is clearly one in need of reform.