Unofficial Michel Thomas courses project (Language Programs, Books & Tapes) Language Learning Forum

Unofficial Michel Thomas courses project
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liddytime
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mainlymagyar.wordpre
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Message 9 of 97

02 September 2011 at 6:11pm | IP Logged

t123 wrote:

If you want to do this, create your template in English and allow anyone to copy it to another language and fill in
whichever parts they want. It may just gain momentum and be completed or maybe not.You can host a free Wiki
here if you want: http://www.wikia.com/Wikia

Neil, on further review of the posts, this seems like the best idea of all. Perhaps it would take off on its own
momentum like FSI courses.com . People could upload their own audio clips and the collection could grow over
time.
4 persons have voted this message useful

dezma
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Message 10 of 97

02 September 2011 at 6:14pm | IP Logged

unfortunately..
there is no Indonesian.
Good luck for you ;)
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Jeffers
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Message 11 of 97

02 September 2011 at 7:18pm | IP Logged

Neil_UK wrote:

We all know that Michel Thomas Method is one of the best and easiest language learning
methods in the world, but the problem is that not very many languages are available
with this method. MT method has no plans to make courses for any more languages.

A couple of people made some half-hearted attempts at home made Michel Thomas
courses...somebody did half a course for Japanese, and another guy did a couple of
Norwegian lesson, before giving up.

My idea is to get a team of people together and create 'unofficial' Michel Thomas
courses for the languages that aren't currently taught with MT Method. They will be
hosted on a website and will be free for everyone to download. My idea is to make
language learning more accessible to people by creating Michel Thomas type courses for
as many languages as possible.

Specifically, I'd like people to make courses for the following languages:-

Swedish
Hindi/Urdu
Tagalog
Indonesian
Javanese
Esperanto
Cantonese
Korean
Vietnamese
Thai
Norwegian
Danish
Finnish
Icelandic
Welsh
Scottish Gaelic
Irish Gaelic
Basque
Catalan
Modern Standard Arabic
Gulf Arabic
Moroccan Arabic
Persian/Farsi
Pashto
Czech
Slovak
Turkish
Romanian
Lithuanian
Bosnian/Serbian
Hebrew
Hungarian
Malay

(If you think I've missed any important languages out of this list, please feel free to
add more in).

Basically, I would be willing to lead and coordinate the project, but I will need
people who are native (or at least fluent) in each language to make the courses.

You will be required to make an 8 hour foundation course, as well as a 4 hour advanced
course. I will provide you with a template (in English) for the material you will need
to cover. You will then have to make the relevant translations into the target language
in order to design and teach the course. You'll also need to be creative and come up
with useful ways to teach the structure of the language, as well as use neat little
'memory hooks' to help people remember vocab etc. Anyone who is familiar with MT Method
courses will understand what I mean.

Also, you MUST be willing to complete the entire course. If you're someone who starts
things, but gives up and never completes them, then please don't get involved. We don't
want people like those who started creating the Michel Thomas Japanese and Norwegian
courses, who then gave up after a few lessons and left everybody disappointed.

Once each course has been completed, I will also edit the material from each
course into a 'review course', so that people can review the contents of the foundation
and advanced courses in around an hour or 2 at most. Maybe we'll even do vocab courses
for each of these languages too, if it goes well.

So if you're interested, please reply here and we'll discuss it further. Tell me which
language you wish to make a course for, and we'll hopefully get started on this soon.

Two problems:

You wont be allowed to use Michel Thomas' name for something like this. You've already shot your project down unless you rename it.
Are you a person "who starts things, but gives up and never completes them"? You are committing yourself to a massive undertaking. Yet I noticed that the website linked below your name is dead.

I hate to discourage you, but we're all being realistic. If you can face the criticism, and still press on, then you might have a chance. If you moan about the criticism, then you haven't a hope.

Edited by Jeffers on 02 September 2011 at 7:18pm
2 persons have voted this message useful

Neil_UK
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Message 12 of 97

02 September 2011 at 8:05pm | IP Logged

Thanks for your replies. I'll do my best to answer some of your replies below...

newyorkeric wrote:

Ever wonder why the other ones didn't get completed?

They didn't get completed because the publisher of MT Method courses, Hodder, didn't
want to invest the time and/or money to create courses for the languages I've
mentioned. It would be perfectly possible to create courses for the languages I've
mentioned, though, if I could get enough willing people.

dbag wrote:

You mention that you would be prepared to lead the project. I was wondering what kind
of background you have that would enable you to do this effectively?

I'm an entrepreneur who has successfully run several businesses, so I'm used to leading
a team of people and promoting projects as a whole. Additionally, I have a lot of
experience in SEO, so I could get the courses promoted easily enough.

I also have a passion for foreign languages and want to make foreign language learning
more accessible to people, hence my interest in making more languages available via the
Michel Thomas Method.

dbag wrote:

On your list, there are a lot of vastly different languages, would they all
need a different English tenplate, to reflect differences in the grammar?

You're correct about that. The template would need to be adapted to each language, as
different languages have different tenses, etc. For example English has several past
tenses, whereas something like Esperanto has just one. But we'd work all these things
out as we go.

Random review wrote:

the general consensus in this forum seems to be that
nobody would be willing to put in such a lot of effort into something creative,
interesting and genuinely worthwhile without monetary recompense is depressing in the
extreme! Some of the most worthwhile and helpful jobs are done by volunteers, at least
here in the UK, and even on this site there is a homemade Assimil project.

One of the reasons I want to keep this project as a voluntary thing is that I want to
attract people who have a genuine passion for languages, and not just those who are
looking to make some quick cash.

Random review wrote:

@ Neil_UK: if you are serious you will need to provide some sort
of training and also aid in the form of advice, access to necessary books etc.

Yes, absolutely!

liddytime wrote:

What a noble (but monstrous) undertaking! It would be fantastic if
this project could take off. The workload would be huge but
it could be worth it.

Thank you for these encouraging and kind comments, liddytime.

liddytime wrote:

I'd be happy to be one of the students that struggles
through the lecture with the native speaker though! :-)

Thanks, I'll keep you in mind when the time comes to find the students.

t123 wrote:

If you want to do this, create your template in English and allow anyone to copy it to
another language and fill in whichever parts they want. It may just
gain momentum and be completed or maybe not. But your original suggestion is definitely
going nowhere. You can host a free Wiki here if you want:
http://www.wikia.com/Wikia

That sounds like an interesting idea. I'll look into it and give it some more thought.

Edited by Neil_UK on 02 September 2011 at 9:21pm
1 person has voted this message useful

Neil_UK
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Message 13 of 97

02 September 2011 at 8:08pm | IP Logged

nway wrote:

likelihood of attracting a Javanese-literate registered user fluent
in English who's willing to compose a twelve-hour course for a language that has
practically zero foreign learners is essentially nil).

newyorkeric wrote:

Your requests are totally unrealistic. Ever wonder why the other
ones didn't get completed?

Random review wrote:

The courses would take an incredible
amount of time and effort if they were to be done properly, and the chances of Neil
getting all his languages would be essentially zero.

t123 wrote:

Sounds good in theory, in practice I doubt it'll take off for all the
reasons mentioned above.

With the greatest of respect to the above posters, I am someone who does not believe in
'cants' or 'not possibles' or any kind of 'limiting belief' type barriers.

Jeffers wrote:

If you can face the criticism, and still press on, then you might have a chance. If
you moan about the criticism, then you haven't a hope.

I don't mind constructive criticism, and I would never moan about that.

I don't like mindless negativity or people who say things like 'it's not going to work'
or 'it's impossible' etc. I have erased those phrases from my vocabulary.

So as long as all your criticism is constructive and useful, I don't mind at all.

Edited by Neil_UK on 02 September 2011 at 8:22pm
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Neil_UK
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Message 14 of 97

02 September 2011 at 8:18pm | IP Logged

Jeffers wrote:

Are you a person "who starts things, but gives up and never completes them"?
You are committing yourself to a massive undertaking. Yet I noticed that the website
linked below your name is dead.

That was a project I did about 2 years ago where I wrote an guitar tuition ebook about
how to master the guitar and create your own style as a musician, based on 16
principles I came up with. I created a website for the ebook, but I pulled the website
down and decided to sell the ebook on a well-known ebook website instead as I found
this to be more successful and profitable.

Unfortunately I hadn't been back here for a while and had forgotten about the link I
placed here. In retrospect, putting a link to a guitar tuition website here was a bad
idea (since this is a language site). I've removed that link now.

So, to answer your question, I am somebody who sees things through to completion, yes.
This, I believe, is one of my strongest qualities. I've noticed that the majority of
people are good at starting things, but not at finishing them. The key to success in
anything in life is to see things through to completion, no matter how tough the going
gets.

So I would absolutely be willing to see this project through to completion.

1 person has voted this message useful

Neil_UK
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Message 15 of 97

02 September 2011 at 8:41pm | IP Logged

Jeffers wrote:

You wont be allowed to use Michel Thomas' name for something like
this. You've already shot your project down unless you rename it.

liddytime wrote:

Also, have you looked into the
legality of duplicating the courses?

The Michel Thomas Method is patented. However, there used to be an official Michel
Thomas Method fan discussion forum. I looked into it and some of the posters on there
suggested this very same idea of making home made MT Method courses, and there was no
blocking or banning or objection from the moderators (who were all part of the MT
Method company).

Given that people from Hodder/MT Method had no objection to people making home made MT
Method courses on their own forum, I doubt there will be any issues with it.

For example, read the following posts from their forum. In the first post, Ginny, one
of the Hodder team was actively ENCOURAGING the creation of home made Michel Thomas
courses!...(unfortunately it didn't take off, hence why I want to lead the project
myself)....

http://pub8.bravenet.com/forum/static/show.php?
usernum=657257956&frmid=16&msgid=798780&cmd=show

http://pub8.bravenet.com/forum/static/show.php?
usernum=657257956&frmid=16&msgid=817496&cmd=show

We might have to call the courses by a different name, though, but I don't see how we
could be breaching any legal issues by making courses for different languages with the
MT Method, as long as we're not making a profit from them.

Edited by Neil_UK on 02 September 2011 at 8:41pm
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Hampie
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Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin

Message 16 of 97

02 September 2011 at 8:45pm | IP Logged

So basicly: you’re an enrepeneur that recently found this site full of language geeks and want to make money of us
by asking people to dedicate a lot of hard work on their spare time for free, so that you can organise and sell a
language course based on Michel Thoma’s model (a person who certainly did not work for free). Your contribution
to this would be SEO and.. leadership? Granted someone actually makes a language course for an obscure
language, you’re not really going to ned SEO (which basically is trying to fool Google’s algorithms anyway).

Saying that you want to keep it voluntary only to attract people who have a genuine interest and not people looking
for cash, well, that sounds cute — but if you’re really an entrepreneur would you do such a thing for free yourself?
Sprachprofi, who posts here a lot, seems, at least to me, have a very genuine interest in language yet of course in
some way monetize this and charge people for tutoring. Time is money and people must pay their bills, no? Were
someone to make a MTesque course for his or her native tongue that would force him to spend less time studying
languages other than his native to pursue your goal of a broader MTesque coverage for no other gain than the
greater good — or perhaps, your good?

Personally I’m a very alturistic person and I love to help people who are learning Swedish out. I can devote time,
hours of my precious life, to them just for the sake of being nice. For this I require nothing else than respect and
perhaps some gratitude. You have already told everyone that you are willing to give neither to people working for
you for free. For free. Free as in gratis.

As for «I am someone who does not believe in 'cants' or 'not possibles' or any kind of barriers.» Well, neither that
nor correct apostrophe usage. Nonetheless: don’t be delusional. Being realistic is not being a pessimist, it’s just
being a rational human being. Everything is not possible, it’s silly to say otherwise, and if one does not go into a
project with realistic expectations one will walk out therefrom with a broken leg and crush dreams.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo That is a very good and interesting speech with memorable
illustrations to go with it that explains why thinking positive and a belief in that the positive thoughts themselves
will solve the problem.

A sidenote: This is a discussion board, a forum, you do not own a thread once it’s posted and you’re not really in a
place where you can say: either praise me, or stay out. If you post about something you will have to deal with
people having different opinions and trying to forbid those with boldfaced warning labels ain’t gonna cut it. You
have yet to prove to people you have done anything but having the vision, yet you’ve only come up with that you’re
a good entrepreneur. That’s cute, however, a list of what should be covered, a tutorial regarding how you should
record on a computer, perhaps an example manuscript of a session anything? Nada, niet, nights. Forgive us, but,
we’re not being negative, we’re being realistic. It’s a part of life to take criticism and unless you can handle this —
how would you be able to cope with even more language geeks and their criticism?

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