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Unofficial Michel Thomas courses project | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Neil_UK Tetraglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5263 days ago 50 posts - 64 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto, Welsh Studies: Polish, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Scottish Gaelic, French | Message 17 of 97 02 September 2011 at 8:52pm | IP Logged | ||
No, I'm not simply an entrepreneur. I actively study numerous languages and have a passion for foreign languages myself. And no, I'm not looking to make money out of this - reread my earlier posts. This will be a voluntary, not for profit project. I won't respond to hateful comments. If you can't contribute something constructive or positive to my thread, don't post here. Edited by Neil_UK on 03 September 2011 at 12:19am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 18 of 97 02 September 2011 at 9:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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Neil, I don't mean any disrespect, but what you propose is much more difficult than you imagine. There's no point in trying to bulldoze your way through it even though I and others can sense a certain stubborness in your tone as is typical in entrepreneurs. Anyway even you would know that a lot of ventures fail (and sometimes leave the originating entrepreneurs out of pocket by a lot) no matter what the fanfare, good intentions or promise inherent in the idea. Here it seems that the downside is low (at least for you) but like anything you have to ask yourself why do it? Are there also enough enthusiasts of MT's method who would come along? I find it interesting that Cainntear hasn't said anything in this thread yet; and he is one of the most vocal supporters of MT on this board. Moreover he's also fluent in a few languages, and would at least outwardly be someone with the right background to help out.
I've already summarized my experience in trying to create a Slovak course with the collaboration of volunteers even though we weren't trying to make something according to MT. Since the people involved are volunteers, you can't breathe down their necks or turn the screws on them in order to get them to see things your way. No volunteer appreciates that. You may also find it instructive to read the initial thread for making our own Assimil and the subsequent thread of our own Assimil - work here!. As they say, those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Neil_UK Tetraglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5263 days ago 50 posts - 64 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto, Welsh Studies: Polish, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Scottish Gaelic, French | Message 19 of 97 02 September 2011 at 10:24pm | IP Logged | ||
Thanks for your reply. I'll have a read of those Assimil threads when I get some spare time soon. Yes, it would great to have Cainntear contributing to this thread, so hopefully he will. I'll look out for his reply. Edited by Neil_UK on 02 September 2011 at 10:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5023 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 20 of 97 02 September 2011 at 11:00pm | IP Logged | ||
I dont like this. This is a public forum, and as such I find it unaceptable for someone to tell people they are not allowed to disagree with anything here. Nonsense. I actually think you have a good idea here, but you need to be aware that when you are working with volunteers , you cant talk to them as you did to us in your first post. I dont think people have been saying "this wont work blah blah blah" , I think the majority of people have objected to your tone, and the rest have offered constructive criticism of your idea. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4910 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 21 of 97 02 September 2011 at 11:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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The real question is, will the volunteers have to wear dodgy hair pieces?
5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5784 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 22 of 97 02 September 2011 at 11:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Look, it is indeed a public forum and nobody has the right to stop people posting, but
there is a massive difference between constructive, reasoned criticism (e.g. Chung) and the incredibly negative, mocking comments of some other posters, I think that the OP's exasperation can be forgiven, even if I do agree that he doesn't "own" the thread. I think some of Chung's points are valid, but equally we should also be looking at the history of succesful voluntary projects. EDIT: @ Jeffers, I just got your joke about the dodgy hairpieces (only took me 2 hours!), nice one! Edited by Random review on 03 September 2011 at 3:03am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 23 of 97 03 September 2011 at 3:49am | IP Logged | ||
There are plenty of organizations that have put out successful volunteer projects (e.g. American Red Cross, Doctors without Borders), but to keep the focus we should stick to projects about creating coherent programs for learning a foreign language at no charge to the target users. Comparison to the FSI project isn't quite that applicable (successful as that project has been) since at its essentials, the key requirements were to digitalize FSI material that was clearly in the public domain rather than from a reseller. Contributors didn't have to create new material from scratch, but rather provide existing material in an electronic format. There was minimal coordination beyond making sure that one wasn't duplicating someone else's digitalization effort while neither gdfellows nor VagabondPilgrim dictated much to potential contributors apart from being clear about respect for copyright laws; they gladly accepted contributions for any FSI language course as long as it was clearly in the public domain. Anyway, the technical requirements were the same for everyone since the formats were always in .pdf and .mp3 regardless of the language of the materials. Demipuppet alone contributed material for about a dozen languages even if he couldn't make heads or tails of the target languages as presented in the books. The only successful project of a language course designed by volunteers that I can think of is Esperanto's "lernu!". The approach of "lernu!" is done so as to faciliate teaching of Esperanto primarily to newcomers. It's not motivated by teaching language in accordance to a certain way and this flexibility gives enough reassurance to contributors that their work won't necessarily be dismissed for not following a certain teaching approach. I can see that some of the problems that hobbled the Assimil project could recur in one for creating HTLAL's Michel Thomas courses, noble as the attempts are. Again, this is not meant to discourage Neil or anyone else from desigining a language course with help from people on this board, but the obstacles are not to be taken lightly (notwithstanding any perceptions of unwarranted criticism). I've already gone over my experiences and the threads about HTLAL's attempt at courses in Assimil's style provide another point of reference. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6380 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 24 of 97 03 September 2011 at 3:54am | IP Logged | ||
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At the end of the day, I, like many others I'm sure, would love to even see just a few of these courses completed. Any criticism here is really just a reality check on your ambitions. Harold Goodman, a member of this forum and the creator of the Michel Thomas Mandarin course said it took something like a couple of years to write that course. Who can or would want to commit that amount of time without payment?
By the way it took Harold Goodman a long time to write that course and that was after having already spent years studying under Michel Thomas himself. Edited by newyorkeric on 03 September 2011 at 3:56am 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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