|
 |
I Hate Michel Thomas | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5452 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 41 of 61 01 May 2010 at 11:32am | IP Logged | |||||
I think you just have to accept the fact that these courses are made with English-speakers in mind. Italians are simply not the intended users. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| kmart Senior Member Australia Joined 6123 days ago 194 posts - 400 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 42 of 61 01 May 2010 at 12:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's why I think Pimsleur is a better starting point - it gives you a nice accent, then Michel Thomas fills in the grammar holes. He makes you feel that you're making big strides in the language, which is good for motivation. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6010 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 43 of 61 01 May 2010 at 4:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
And have you tried it out live with real people in front of you? A grammar book technical covers a "firmer foundation of grammar" than an equivalent size of course book, but it doesn't teach a firmer foundation of grammar -- you can't learn a language by reading a grammar book. When I first went through your page on IKLL, I found myself looking back up the page -- it goes too quick. You lose control in that course in that I can just scroll back up and look up the word, and it allows me to finish the tasks without having actually learned the material. That's what I mean about teacher control. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6010 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 44 of 61 01 May 2010 at 4:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
Language courses can't be neutral -- they have to be designed to take advantage of what the student already knows or they waste everyone's time. Imagine if the course had to explain the nominative-accusative model to speakers of ergative-transitive languages; the SVO ordering for speakers of languages with other orderings; the idea that tone is used only for emphasis or as a grammatical question marker, and is non-phonemic; the concept of definite and indefinite articles for speakers of languages lacking one or both of them; the concept of plurality for speakers of languages that don't mark nouns for number; and in fact the concept of numbers for speakers of languages that don't have any numbers at all! That would be the wrong way to approach things. Thomas wrote a course for English speakers which is very effective for English speakers. That course was not intended for Italians. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| irmar Bilingual Tetraglot Newbie Greece Joined 5353 days ago 5 posts - 7 votes Speaks: Italian*, Greek*, French, EnglishC2 Studies: Spanish | Message 45 of 61 02 May 2010 at 8:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
Italians are simply not the intended users.[/QUOTE] Please read my message in its entirety before replying. I have very clearly stated that I do not expect a program to be geared towards non-English people. I just said that other programs, and I made a very clear and specific example, Linguaphone AllTalk, while still made for English people, still does not bother you with English mistakes of English students! So don't put words in my mouth that I didn't say. My post was much more nuanced than what you make it. You made it sound as a rant of a spoiled child who wants everything suited to him/her whims and needs. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5394 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 46 of 61 02 May 2010 at 8:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
I think that is part of the ingenuity behind Michel Thomas. His accent is *awful* but he teaches grammar well. The reason his method works is because the mistakes are made and corrected. For English speakers, it helps us learn from those mistakes and takes a (big) step of the learning process and turns it into something positive.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kugel Senior Member United States Joined 6537 days ago 497 posts - 555 votes Speaks: English* | Message 47 of 61 02 May 2010 at 8:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
No, I haven't tried it out live with real people. You said that it goes too quick, well, I guess the layout needs some tweeking. But it's really no more complicated than MT or Pimsleur. I don't have the transcripts for Pimsleur, but as for MT, his course jumps around quite a bit, thus it taxes the memory more than my little experimental project. I see now what you mean by teacher control and student control. To this I guess all I can say is that the student must have self discipline to know whether or not he or she knows the material. Audio playback after each prompt/answer, really is, I'm beginning to realize, essential to language learning. Luckily, German is fairly simple to pronounce for the English speaker, as only a few rules are needed. It's not like Lithuanian or any other eastern european language which is very demanding in pronunciation for an English speaker. Back to the lessons I posted, take for instance questions on an exam, just any exam in higher education. If the student was really engaged in the test and material, taking the test was itself a learning experience, as the important and engaging material made it stick to memory. Among other things, I'm hoping to recreate this experience, although nothing can imitate an actual exam, to achieve similar results. Edited by Kugel on 02 May 2010 at 8:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6010 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 48 of 61 02 May 2010 at 8:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
Please read my message in its entirety before replying. I have very clearly stated that I do not expect a program to be geared towards non-English people. I just said that other programs, and I made a very clear and specific example, Linguaphone AllTalk, while still made for English people, still does not bother you with English mistakes of English students! So don't put words in my mouth that I didn't say. My post was much more nuanced than what you make it. You made it sound as a rant of a spoiled child who wants everything suited to him/her whims and needs. [/QUOTE] Calm down -- tractor did not make you sound like a spoilt child. No, the good thing about the Thomas course is that it is designed for English speakers and addresses the needs of English speakers. As an English speaker, that's exactly what I need. Something that doesn't specifically address my needs is by definition less useful to me. That's what I want to buy, so that's what they sell me. If they brought out something in English that wasn't designed for English speakers, what exactly would their market be? 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
