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Michel Thomas

 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
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TheElvenLord
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6081 days ago

915 posts - 927 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: Cornish, English*
Studies: Spanish, French, German
Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin

 
 Message 113 of 185
27 July 2008 at 6:43am | IP Logged 
Sorry Kugel - I said I dont know any German, but I was trying to relate it to something you would know.

A better example would probably be Le,La,Les in French.

TEL
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Kugel
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6539 days ago

497 posts - 555 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 114 of 185
03 August 2008 at 5:20pm | IP Logged 
Would it be possible to create a MT styled course by using a well made textbook as the outline?

An outline for Latin course with MT overtones:

1. Cover the 1st conjugation verbs amo, do, creo, equito, festino, interrogo, ministro, nuntio, porto, pugno

2. Cover et, nunc, semper, sed, hic(here)

One would then interweave these concepts into a 10-20 min course...probably much shorter considering how little is being taught.

One would then procede with the other 3(some would say 4) conjugations. It's basically turning a writing intensive course into an audio based course.
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thecatat
Newbie
Thailand
Joined 5952 days ago

26 posts - 40 votes
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 115 of 185
09 August 2008 at 2:00am | IP Logged 
Kugel wrote:
Would it be possible to create a MT styled course by using a well made textbook as the outline?

An outline for Latin course with MT overtones:

1. Cover the 1st conjugation verbs amo, do, creo, equito, festino, interrogo, ministro, nuntio, porto, pugno

2. Cover et, nunc, semper, sed, hic(here)

One would then interweave these concepts into a 10-20 min course...probably much shorter considering how little is being taught.

One would then procede with the other 3(some would say 4) conjugations. It's basically turning a writing intensive course into an audio based course.


I was wondering the same thing...

But, MT is patented -->> http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H ITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l =50&s1=6,565,358.PN.&OS=PN/6,565,358&RS=PN/6,565,358

1) Does anyone know what this means in real speak?

2) What method comes close?

(reason I'm asking is that MT does not have plans for creating one for the language I'd like to learn.


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hobbitofny
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6234 days ago

280 posts - 408 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 116 of 185
09 August 2008 at 5:22pm | IP Logged 
If you are interested in make a course using the MT method. I suggest reading Jonathan Solity's The Learning Revolution, 2008 Hodder Education isbn 978-0-340-92833-2
It is a new book on the MT method and using it in a school class room. The method is layout in detail.

Youtube has the bbc show on Michel Thomas.

The older cd courses are transcribe and can be found on UTerrent.

good luck
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Kugel
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6539 days ago

497 posts - 555 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 117 of 185
10 August 2008 at 10:05am | IP Logged 
hobbitofny wrote:
If you are interested in make a course using the MT method. I suggest reading Jonathan Solity's The Learning Revolution, 2008 Hodder Education isbn 978-0-340-92833-2
It is a new book on the MT method and using it in a school class room. The method is layout in detail.

Youtube has the bbc show on Michel Thomas.

The older cd courses are transcribe and can be found on UTerrent.

good luck


Solity's book is pretty good, but I think it needed to expand on the commentary for the Spanish, French, and German courses. And to prove his knowledge, Solity should've came up with a brief outline on a language not covered by Michel Thomas; this is because the book leaves many suspicions on whether or not Michel Thomas actually was doing something revolutionary. For instance, the explanations on the basic Spanish grammar points in Solity's book were not overtly different than a typical Spanish grammar text, yet Solity goes ga ga for its so called brilliance. The main thing that I found different from the traditional textbooks was with Solity noting the harm of doing multiple question/answer testing, as this leaves the student with the possibility of drilling in the wrong language structure patterns.

So, if a textbook were to eliminate multiple test like questions, provide immediate responses for questions, explained grammar using minimal differences(basically, just teaching grammar without skimming on anything), and used the audio medium so one can pause and think about the answer, then there would be very little differences between the said textbook and a MT course.

The other 2 students, by the way, are totally unnecessary, as it assumes the learner will do the same mistakes, which doesn't make any sense. What good does it do for the learner to hear about problems other people have in language learning, unless you want to become a language teacher? Whenever I got something wrong, I would simply rewind 15-20 seconds and hear the question again; and usually this was because of vocabulary, not grammar.      
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TheElvenLord
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6081 days ago

915 posts - 927 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: Cornish, English*
Studies: Spanish, French, German
Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin

 
 Message 118 of 185
10 August 2008 at 10:33am | IP Logged 
Currently, there are 3 Audio Homebrew MT courses out there:

Norwegian   Disc 1       Madass88
Japanese    Disc 1 - 2   Carl Kenner
Cornish     Draft         TheElvenLord

All 3 are made with a single presenter, without students.
The Cornish course, which is a draft, is one presenter, but it will be proffessionally recorded in a proper studio once:
a) My course is evaluated and refined to the finest point
b) I am comfortable teaching without a script.

I have several students lined up, and teaching some members of the general public for the first time at a festival in September. So, hopefully, a full, professional course will be available next year.

So, there are already 3.

I strongly urge those who are interested in the method to research the method, and if you want to start developing an MT style course, contact me via PM, and then we will go to email. I have some documents from Hodder and I am very willing to help you through every stage (although I am by no means an expert!).

Thanks
TEL
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sakaya
Pentaglot
Newbie
Japan
Joined 6646 days ago

8 posts - 8 votes
Speaks: English*, German, French, Japanese, Italian
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 119 of 185
24 September 2008 at 10:10am | IP Logged 
I have just had a very quick listen to Carl Kenner's Japanese course. The content seems fairly solid and probably gives a better grounding than the Michel Thomas course. On the other hand, while I don't want to be cruel, his Japanese accent and intonation is simply atrocious and is certainly not to be imitated.

Michel Thomas himself was no great example himself of correct pronunciation in most of the languages he taught, so maybe my criticism is misplaced but I still think the course could be made better with a native speaker.
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Cainntear
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Scotland
linguafrankly.blogsp
Joined 6012 days ago

4399 posts - 7687 votes 
Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh

 
 Message 120 of 185
25 September 2008 at 7:23am | IP Logged 
The thing with Michel Thomas's accent was that while it wasn't perfect, it was good enough in that he made the most important distinctions for the English-speaking learner. This is best seen by comparing his Spanish accent with Rose Lee Hayden's Spanish accent on the Vocabulary course.

Thomas never dropped an R. The same can't be said for RLH.
Thomas always used pure vowels (required in Spanish). RLH used English diphthongs (so the "se" "dormirse" would be pronounced like the English "say" -- or the Spanish "sei").
Thomas's vowel quality was invariant and independent of stress, so had only 5 vowels. RLH's vowels change under stress, most notably the East-USA stressed "A" sound. Her pronunciation of "Hablar" sounds like "ablaur" to UK ears.

While having a perfect accent isn't vital (and possibly isn't possible), these three things are among the most difficult for the English speaker and certainly can become a huge barrier to communication.

I don't speak Japanese so it's hard for me to judge Carl's accent objectively, but I don't trust it, because he still sounds like an Ozzie when he speaks it, making me worry he's more RLH than MT


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