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Michel Thomas | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Platiquemos Hexaglot Language Program Publisher Senior Member Panama platiquemos-letstalk Joined 7163 days ago 126 posts - 141 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish | Message 217 of 405 17 December 2007 at 1:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Zorglub wrote:
"It may be very important to actually SEE the person you're talking to when learning languages." This may very well be true--I think few would disagree that interaction with speakers of language x greatly facilitates its learning. But, and this goes for much more than language learning, if the person you SEE while learning pronunciation has poor pronunciation, wouldn´t you just be learning poor pronunciation better? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fsc Senior Member United States Joined 6330 days ago 100 posts - 117 votes Studies: French | Message 218 of 405 19 December 2007 at 4:44am | IP Logged | ||
To me it sounded like German. I didn't think his French sounded anything like a native speaker. Actually, it didn't even sound French to me. The two students sounded more French and I only listened to the one hour sample CD. Edited by fsc on 19 December 2007 at 4:49am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fsc Senior Member United States Joined 6330 days ago 100 posts - 117 votes Studies: French | Message 219 of 405 19 December 2007 at 5:34am | IP Logged | ||
Well if it's like Pimsleur, it's probably because they talk too fast, they think it is more important to impress the listener than to teach them, and they don't take time to pronounce things correctly. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kugel Senior Member United States Joined 6539 days ago 497 posts - 555 votes Speaks: English* | Message 220 of 405 19 December 2007 at 7:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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Why aren't the courses for Arabic and Russian, or any language that a has a complex grammar, longer than the Mandarin course which has a very basic grammar? I think it's unfair for the learner, and maybe the author of the program, to have each program sit on a Procrustean bed and have every course be nearly the same in length.
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| volapuk49 Tetraglot Groupie United States Joined 6268 days ago 73 posts - 86 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Yiddish, Modern Hebrew Studies: Esperanto | Message 221 of 405 19 December 2007 at 7:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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The length of the courses is set by the publisher.
For the Michel Thomas Advanced Mandarin course which was recorded last weekend, I was told that four CDs will be issued. They will each carry 80 minutes of recorded material. This comes out to 5 hours, 20 minutes. Every second must be accounted for. It was not only a lot of work to prepare and record the material but, for me, agonizing to decide what to include and omit. Luckily, I was told that I could include much of the omitted material in the Vocabulary course that will be recorded next. Commercial publishers operate this way. They have set paradigms which they use. This is considered a course within a larger series of courses. Everything conforms to set standards. I will not get into the question of how complicated Arabic and Russian grammar may be since I only know about Chinese. However, Chinese, as you know, presents issues for the learner that these languages don't ( tones, very different sounds, minimal cognates, etc.). So, actually, helping students really speak Chinese with confidence is, in my opinion, more difficult than these other two languages. 40% of US university students learning Chinese drop out after the first year of study. This is higher than any other major language. It was quite a challenge for me to make it work. Judging from the feedback to date from students who have completed the Foundation course I believe that we are on the right track. Why not visit the Michel Thomas Fan Forum where you will have free access to the postings of many other people with similar interest?. You may also address your questions directly to the publisher there. They will respond on the site. http://www.michelthomas.co.uk/FanClub.htm Take care. Harold 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| volapuk49 Tetraglot Groupie United States Joined 6268 days ago 73 posts - 86 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Yiddish, Modern Hebrew Studies: Esperanto | Message 222 of 405 24 December 2007 at 6:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have posted quite a bit about my personal experience with Michel Thomas on the thread ' Questions for Harold
Goodman' on the Michel Thomas UK site. I have also written on related topics on various other threads on the site, too. However, the ' Questions..' thread is the main place to look. www.michelthomas.co.uk/FanClub.htm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| volapuk49 Tetraglot Groupie United States Joined 6268 days ago 73 posts - 86 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Yiddish, Modern Hebrew Studies: Esperanto | Message 223 of 405 30 December 2007 at 8:55am | IP Logged | ||
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A lot of people have asked me what the Michel Thomas method boils down to.
I have recently posted on this on the thread ' Questions for Harold Goodman' at http://www.michelthomas.co.uk/FanClub.htm Here is a post in answer to a recent question. Hi,Paul: Thanks for writing. I know that you are a teacher with much practical experience and have given a lot of thought to these matters. I really am glad to hear from you. I also appreciate your posts! When I read your post I find several questions. I would like to comment on them one by one. They are all excellent points. You ask, after all that we have, do we " now really know what the essence of the method was?" The only one who can authoritatively answer that is Michel. It was his baby, his method. Having known him as I did, I would say that he might insist that he was the only one in the world qualified to authentically provide such teaching and course creation. Part of this was his ego, part his distrust of others, and part his belief that his work was so unique that only he could really understand and make it happen as he intended it to be. Even though the label Michel Thomas method is used for all of these courses, the man who made it all happen, Michel, is gone. I used to mention to him that this method of teaching was his real legacy to the world. He agreed. He absolutely understood that after he was gone, that if this method was to survive and thrive, others would have to carry on the work. He didn't care to directly address this since it hinted at his own mortality. This was definitely a very threatening subject for him. However, the entire premise of our working together was to address this reality. He was too emotionally caught up in it to objectively try to figure out what he was actually doing. Then there was the matter of communicating what he was doing to others. He never attempted this, to my knowledge. That became my job. I had to figure out what he was actually doing and how he made it all happen, from beginning to end. I believe that with the resources we have today we are doing a pretty good job in carrying on his work. It will never exactly be the way he would have done it. It is the way others interpret and make it come alive in new situations that he never attempted ( as far as we know). To quote an old Bulgarian saying, 'The proof is in the pudding.' The teachers are working independently of one another at this point. So I can't speak for the others. I can only talk about my own experience. The others may not agree with what I write here. This is all my opinion and attempt to address your very important questions. If I may again quote you, Paul, you write: "I personally think that the central underlying secret existed in two parts - 1. it was a system for breaking down information into its core essence, of understanding what something is and taking it apart and then slowly putting the key bits of it back together in front of your students in a way that could be understood by them. So the first part involved understanding the essence of the thing to be broken down, how to break it down and what to include when putting it back together. 2. The second bit therefore involved knowing how to put it together in front of your students in a way they would understand. And it seems to me that the essence of this second part involved using students' pre-existing knowledge - in the case of languages, this included such things as cognates and the way things are said in one's own language and even of diving board analogies etc" Michel used to tell me that he would dissect a language and then put it back together in a way that mirrored the patterns of the learner's native tongue. He told me that it took him several months to do this. The things that you mention are all elements of this. However, they, per se, are not the method. It is like I wrote in my last post ( above). In order to really understand the real reason why someone has come to me as a patient I must ignore their words ( the vehicle) and listen for the underlying pattern(s) or the essence of what's going on. It takes time but, in my experience,it is the quickest and most effective way to really support someone. Like anything else, the more you do it, the easier it gets. The mnemonics, cognates, analogies, etc. are all vehicles, not the method. They are vehicles to get the learner into a state of real learning, a state where they become a sponge. They soak up every molecule that you provide. In such a state, all defenses are gone and everything just flows in. And it stays there.....forever. Real learning is effortless. I could write on this for quite some time but that, in essence, is the method, according to my understanding. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kugel Senior Member United States Joined 6539 days ago 497 posts - 555 votes Speaks: English* | Message 224 of 405 30 December 2007 at 3:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think the Mandarin course is superior to the German and French, so you apparently did improve the method. However, I think it's a pity that this method is limited to what the Hodder publisher wants. More research and development needs to be done, particularly at foreign language departments, yet it's limited to brief 8 disc courses. What Paul wrote above is pretty much all there is to it. The main thing being taught in these courses revolves around logic, which is just a means of organization of thoughts. Obviously, the course has to take into account the learner's unfamiliarity with the logic of his own language, making the learner review his own language, thus taking away time that was designated for the target language. For the people who are aspiring to be polyglots, or who are just interested in languages, there should be a course covering all the rules in the English language and perhaps a course for grammar of certain language groups: Latin, Germanic, Semitic,...etc. You said you designed a course for some advanced medical course(I don't remember the subject.) Surely the MT method can do much more for languages. Edited by Kugel on 30 December 2007 at 3:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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