Formalizing means establishing a framework and procedures. Formalizing informal learning would therefore imply regulating informal channels and everybody knows what happens when you impose rules on individuals: they immediately find ways to circumvent them.

So formalizing the way people learn informally will just force individuals to find new ways of learning informally, outside the regulated channels and therefore this is and endless loop doomed to failure.

Rather than trying to formalize informal learning we should seek to support it by providing time and opportunities to do share and exchange. We should act on the environment, not on the process itself.