"from the point of view of the student who has to learn all this stuff in order to get his/her licence in the first place"
The student doesn't have to learn it. The student needs only to pass the exam. As has been amply demonstrated here, the questions are often rubbish. The subject matter is rapidly forgotten. A working ATP will have a table of Vrefs versus loading and will look up the Vref to fly. He needs to know zilch about how the wing works. Just as well, since the exact way the wing of a modern jet transport works is pretty nontrivial.
The whole basis here is that the candidate is expected to have "grown up" in the same little universe in which the exam paper writers live, in which the standard textbook writers live, in which the FAA FAQ writers live.
Aviation is an incestuous little game where you queue up for a burger at the Fly show at Earls Court and in that queue you meet three people: one is a prolific aviation magazine journalist, another is a prolific aviation book publisher, one is the owner of an aviation magazine.
When you sit the exams you are expected to have lived among all this. Then and only then you will speak with the "correct terminology, young man"
If somebody who knew everything about everything came to Earth and sat the JAA exams, he would fail them all
Incidentally, lift comes from redirection of the airflow (downwards). This brings about the pressure difference between top and bottom. The pressure difference can't be created without changing the direction of the airflow. Chicken and egg. Both physical processes are the same thing! Can't have one without the other. Aerofoils etc are irrelevant (unless you want efficiency) - a barn door will work just fine.