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Michel Thomas | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| zorglub Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 7001 days ago 441 posts - 504 votes  1 sounds Speaks: French*, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (Written), Turkish, Mandarin | Message 81 of 185 19 July 2008 at 5:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well , thank you, Daristani and Cainntear, for these interesting posts.
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| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7145 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 82 of 185 19 July 2008 at 10:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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Don't worry, Zorglub: I understood "rant" in the sense you meant it, and wasn't at all offended by it. I realize my posting was quite long, and focused perhaps unduly on the negative. I truly did find your earlier comments on the MT Arabic and Chinese programs intriguing, and was in fact very grateful that you wrote them, as indeed I'm grateful to all those forum members who provide detailed descriptions of various language programs that I haven't yet used myself. Even if I don't always agree with (or even understand) some of the descriptions and recommendations people provide, I find them useful to read and consider.
One of the interesting things about the forum is the way various programs (FSI, Assimil, Pimsleur, and now Michel Thomas) seem to go through waves of popularity/enthusiasm; to what degree this represents real relative strengths of the approaches in question, and to what degree it simply reflects the enthusiasm or volubility of their devotees, I can't say, but it's an interesting phenomenon, and seems to bring forth some very interesting discussions. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 83 of 185 20 July 2008 at 5:17am | IP Logged | ||
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This conversation has become very productive (such a rare thing on the internet these days!) and is helping me immensely. (I'm trying to work out how to be a better teacher after a previous foray into TEFL.)
Thomas was probably too focused on verbs. I certainly agree that it's a great way to start and (in Spanish at least) 12 CDs is pretty much the right length to deal with this. One of the key strengths of the course is (as I previously said) that it uses so-called "function words" a lot. I've been known to say "it uses a lot of function words", but this would be untrue -- there are plenty more function words out there, and they rely on different structures. To get to these, and to learn and practise their use, you need more nouns. Thomas does mention some of these -- such as articles ("a" and "the") -- briefly, and the students seem to get it without much problem, but there are various little function words that go around nouns that need to be sorted out. In the Spanish he mentions "some", and probably does in other courses too. "This" comes up, but I only recall it doing so as a demonstrative. So eg "I want this" but not "I want this cake" which are different. Then there's the very important "my","mine" etc. Nowhere to be seen. Don't get me wrong -- I don't think they should be in the original course: Michel paced the courses exceptionally well and there is nothing in his courses I'd have preferred left out. Instead the weakness is that these courses are essentially courses on the verb system of the language and that there is no additional course following the same method to teach the noun system. This leaves the learner in the awkward position of having to go to another course with a significant overlap in content in order to learn a relatively small amount of material. I personally chose to address this initially through drill books. I got Dorothy Richmond´s Practise Makes Perfect, and I only did the exercises that were "translate this sentence into Spanish" -- I didn't translate the long passages because it took too long, and I didn't read the true or false because when I did I translated them into English, which I didn't want to do. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| !LH@N Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6822 days ago 487 posts - 531 votes Speaks: German, Turkish*, English Studies: Serbo-Croatian, Spanish | Message 84 of 185 20 July 2008 at 5:30am | IP Logged | ||
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This conversation has really become very interesting!
I think one reason why Thomas leaves out so many nouns is because of the vocabulary similarities between Spanish and English. I mean, I can read a Spanish newspaper fairly well and understand what it's about because of my English skills, even though I don't know that many Spanish words. I don't know how true this is though since I've been working with MT Spanish only. Regards, Ilhan 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| pentatonic Senior Member United States Joined 7248 days ago 221 posts - 245 votes | Message 85 of 185 20 July 2008 at 8:20am | IP Logged | ||
He he, indeed! Not to mention the various fads and techniques. The Michel Thomas courses are great for what they are: beginner courses that give you within a short time a good overview of grammar and allow you to construct some basic sentences. Noone seems to care, however, that it focuses completely on spoken output. Not only is pronunciation given little time, the writing system is completely ignored. Reading and listening comprehension are not developed. I can't believe that someone could go through a MT course and then be able to hold a conversation because they won't be able to understand anything. Am I wrong? Has anyone done this? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 86 of 185 20 July 2008 at 8:28am | IP Logged | ||
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Pentatonic
I have done this. Before MT, I strugelled to talk to a Spanish friend of mine, now, I speak to him all the time. Well, now he's gone back to Spain, but I still speak with him. MT gives you the grammar, the verbs, the structures etc. BUT It is true that you cannot learn a language by doing SOLELY MT. Imposssible. Just ecause he teaches very little vocabulary. TEL 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 87 of 185 20 July 2008 at 9:13am | IP Logged | ||
It's not just that -- it's because any given noun only occurs in certain situations. When teaching English, every lesson in the textbooks I was given focussed on a "situation", so we'd have to learn new vocabulary that the student wouldn't need. Just like in my school French: I can remember how to say "guinea pig" and "hamster" (or was it "gerbil"?) in French, but I have never in my life ever used these words in conversation outside of class. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 88 of 185 20 July 2008 at 9:20am | IP Logged | ||
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Pentatonic:
Me too. I was sat at a table with a bunch of Spaniards and understood a fair amount. I even understood enough to chip in and try to assert the distinction between "terrorist" and "guerilla" when the conversation moved to El Che. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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