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Michel Thomas | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| annierooney Groupie United States Joined 6702 days ago 48 posts - 48 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 49 of 185 01 July 2008 at 11:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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My husband bought me the advanced MT Spanish course which I didn't want and thought I wasn't ready for, as I'm still slogging along with Platiquemos. I was surprised by how effective it is in training someone to use different tenses quickly. And though his accent isn't native, I realized that my vowel pronunciation was not short and clipped, especially with the letter "e", something I'd somehow never absorbed before. The program throughout makes the student use direct and indirect objects til they become ingrained and he attacks the irregular verbs and gets them out of the way so you can begin to think in Spanish and not get all tangled up in the tense or object with every statement. His little tricks like "ria" - river bed- for "would" are slightly corny and often don't make sense (the diving board for perfect tense?) but they seem to work. The only problem I had was that he encourages his students, over and over again, to draw out the accented syllable, and that may be a hard habit to break. That, and the fact that he was very impatient with the woman student, and she was trying hard! Don't try!! Don't guess!! and overlooked the man's (admittedly few) errors even when he made the same ones. Well, everyone has their faults. Almost all of these programs have something to offer, I think, and for this price, how can you go wrong.
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| fsc Senior Member United States Joined 6330 days ago 100 posts - 117 votes  Studies: French | Message 50 of 185 08 July 2008 at 5:39am | IP Logged | |||||
Actually he teaches very little in the Advanced course. All he seems to do is ask the students how to say things. They are at a much more advanced level than anything he taught in the foundation course. They knew how to say "landing on water" yet he never covered that. He just rattled off about it and the two students knew what he was saying and I am sitting there thinking WTF? He seems to think you will speak like a moron. I am never going to say 5 run on sentences in a row like "If I had known you wouldn't be there, I wouldn't have come and told you that I wasn't going to tell you that I would be there if you had not seen that I wouldn't be there, and I wouldn't have seen it, so I would not have bought it". 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 51 of 185 08 July 2008 at 7:26am | IP Logged | |||||
That complaint is specific to the French course and is widely recognised by learners. Please don't assume that the other courses are similarly afflicted. (The advanced Spanish course follows on quite well from the foundation course.) In the tradition of accentuating the positives and eliminating the negatives, the failings of the advanced French course are good evidence that the success of the MT method isn't that he's an exceptionally good teacher -- he's not. He's a grumpy old man who doesn't have very much charisma -- as a teacher he's merely adequate, he has simply devised an exceptionally good methodology and designed an exceptionally good course. (Just imagine what he could have acheived if he'd trained a dozen good teachers to deliver his courses!) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6152 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 53 of 185 08 July 2008 at 10:29am | IP Logged | |||||
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I've just completed the Advanced French course, having previously completed the Spanish courses. I don't agree that it doesn't cover much new material. At the start of the course, there is some revision of the Foundation, and other material that was covered in the Language Builder. He then expands on what he taught, by covering the imparfait, the passé composé and finally the present and past subjunctive. He does a lot of drilling with the various auxiliary verbs, which he calls "diving boards".
The method he uses is extremely similar to that in the Spanish Foundation and Advanced, with much of the same terminology. In some of his other courses, such as the Italian, and to a degree the Spanish, he isn't that patient. However, I was surprised that he never seems to get frustrated in the French course. 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 54 of 185 08 July 2008 at 11:04am | IP Logged | |||||
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"However, I was surprised that he never seems to get frustrated in the French course. "
What about when the girl starts guessing at the beginning? :) "They are at a much more advanced level than anything he taught in the foundation course" Thats because there is a Language builder course inbetween! 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 55 of 185 08 July 2008 at 1:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
Ah. The language builder doesn't seem to be necessary in the Spanish course -- but you're saying it is in the French? Interesting... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| litlmike Newbie United States Joined 6548 days ago 9 posts - 11 votes | Message 56 of 185 09 July 2008 at 1:00am | IP Logged | |||||
I have completed Michel Thomas's advanced french course and have never went through the in-between language builder course. I did not have any trouble filling in the gaps between the two courses. There were a few words that the students apparently already knew that were not covered on the basic course, but I just learned them from the advanced course. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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