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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6152 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 57 of 185 09 July 2008 at 4:20am | IP Logged | ||
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I should add I didn't do the language builder either, but I did check the contents. With the exception of a very small amount of vocabulary, all on the advanced course is based on the foundation.
TEL (Bleydh), I forgot about the beginning of the course. :-) Though in the French it's so much tamer then Mr.Puedo get's in the Spanish. I think his, "no guessing, please" is actually part of the method. I wonder on the original Michel Thomas Advanced courses, did they edit out a lot of repetition. The Advanced Russian course could be improved, by removing some of the repeated mistakes the students make. 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 58 of 185 09 July 2008 at 11:44am | IP Logged | ||
That's not a problem in the editing -- the students are getting it wrong because they're learning it wrong. Editing would be ignoring the problem, not fixing it. In my mind it's pretty stupid to say "That's right!" when the student has just said something perceptibly incorrect. EG (excuse the crude phonetics -- bold caps = stress) Student: ya dumAyoo shto umInya grIp NB: That's right! ya dUmayoo shto uminyA grIp MT went out of his way to make sure that they got the intonation right every time, presumably because he understood what most teachers fail to accept: the ear doesn't discriminate foreign sound systems well. Natasha Bershadski appears to be operating under the standard (naive) assumption that if learners hear the correct form enough they will discriminate and internalise it. They will not! Particularly not if they've already been told that the wrong form is right. Furthermore, Natasha just throws too many unlinked words in -- there's no opportunity to generalise. (Or at least to generalise correctly -- the students do try to generalise the stress patterns and vowel endings in verbs, but the example verbs used differ vastly -- does the a stay? is it taken away? is it stressed or unstressed?) The course isn't bad per se, but it misses the point of the method by quite a considerable margin. IMHO. EDIT: I've just done another half hour of the course. When I did the Spanish course, I got fairly sick of the overemphasisis he insisted was put on the stressed syllable. However, given that the Russian students keep saying anA wrong -- either with the stress on the first syllable, both syllables or neither syllable -- I'm now convinced it's the only way to teach pronunciation. You're just less likely to make slips when you're overpronouncing, so you're less likely to end up with fossilised mistakes. And if you overpronounce, your teacher will hear when you say it wrong. Edited by Cainntear on 09 July 2008 at 1:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| shyopstv Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6721 days ago 86 posts - 91 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: German, Esperanto | Message 59 of 185 11 July 2008 at 2:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am also doing the Russian course.
I agree that too many unlinked nouns are taught. Also, they are used far too often in comparison to pronouns. I am far more likely to ask "Where is it?" or "Where are they?" than "Where are the documents?" so if they are making a course short enough to fit on 8CDs, why fill it with examples such as the latter? I like the fact that she doesn't constantly correct pronounciation. Of course, it isn't helpful for the two people on the course who finish the beginner's course unable to pronounce the simplest of words but I am not either of those two students, I do not make the same mistakes as them so hearing them being corrected will often provide no value. I feel that anyone listening will be able to learn the correct pronounciation as long as they focus on mimicing teacher's pronounciation. Anyway, if the course stopped for 30 seconds everytime one of the students pronounced "zdyess" incorrectly, it would certainly no longer be an 8 hour course :D Another aspect that I like is that in the advanced course Natasha mentions the proper formal terms for some of the grammar aspects. I feel I fit the type of person the course is aimed at in that I have yet to learn a foreign language to fluency and I have no idea what many of the grammar terms mean. At first, I appreciated Michel Thomas' references to "diving boards" and "weil situations" in the German course but after some time, the diving analogies became very convoluted (you dive from a different diving board with this verb????) which just confused the grammar more. As soon I started using other materials, I had to learn the proper names anyway. More than anything, I appreciate the use of a native speaker in this course. That alone is a big improvement on the four original courses. Also, on a asthetic note, I find Natasha's voice much more pleasant to listen to than Michel's. Edited by shyopstv on 11 July 2008 at 2:28pm 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 60 of 185 11 July 2008 at 3:16pm | IP Logged | ||
If they'd been taught correctly, they wouldn't have kept making the mistake. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jamesharris Diglot Newbie Germany myspace.com/james_b_ Joined 5980 days ago 22 posts - 25 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2 Studies: French, Russian, Dutch | Message 61 of 185 12 July 2008 at 7:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Would you recommend the Russian course, though, for a native speaker of English who is now fluent in one language (German) and improving in another (French)?
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 62 of 185 13 July 2008 at 8:13am | IP Logged | ||
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JamesHarris,
Yes. It may not be as good as Michel's own courses, but I'm still progressing faster than I would with Pimsleur, Teach Yourself, Linguaphone or any of the usual suspects.... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| chelovek Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6088 days ago 413 posts - 461 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Russian | Message 63 of 185 15 July 2008 at 7:43am | IP Logged | ||
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I did Level I of Pimsleur Italian about a month ago, and yesterday I started doing MT's Italian course. I'd say doing Pimsleur first was a great choice, as my knowledge of pronunciation has carried over. I like the course, but I'm baffled as to why MT would have students learning from someone with such a non-native accent in an all-audio course.
I also hate hearing the students stumble over phrases with such an English accent...I think it might be better to have native-speakers answering the questions. Anyways...great course. I'm on Lesson 13 of Italian, and it's quite cool how easily I'm able to rattle off phrases like "Vuole dirmi dov'e, perche non posso trovarlo". (Will you tell me where it is, because I can't find it) As people have said before, these types of constructions are common in everyday speech, but often learners aren't prepared for quickly forming such phrases. 2 persons have 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 64 of 185 15 July 2008 at 7:50am | IP Logged | ||
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In the MT courses (Spanish, French, German, Italian), it is presented by Michel Thomas ONLY.
In the MTM/Post-MT courses (Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Arabic (and the soon to come out:) Dutch, Portuguese, Japanese, Polish, Greek), they have an MT teacher, AND a native speaker, who speaks good English, who repeat the phrase after each question and present the words. They also answer any questions the teacher cannot answer. TEL 1 person has voted this message useful |
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