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Collins Paul Noble Language series | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| 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 17 of 51 22 September 2010 at 10:01am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I don't really remember the name Paul Noble from the MT forums (I was TEFL Dropout)... but you might be right. What sort of stuff did he say?
Oh... just found this: http://www.mirror.co.uk/advice/jobs/2007/08/23/find-your-lan guage-115875-19675520/
Fair enough, he's toning it down now as at the time of the article, he was teaching in China and didn't have his own school. 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 18 of 51 22 September 2010 at 10:07am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Actually, the more I think about it, the more the name Paul Noble looks right in my head in that font and colourscheme. I think you may be right.
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| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5566 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 19 of 51 22 September 2010 at 6:24pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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OK I have had a listen to the French edition of Paul Noble's course for a bit today and here's the format:
Paul Noble teaches in manner quite similar to Michel Thomas. He goes at a slow pace, he tells you not to remember, to relax etc. His method is explaining a word, grammatical unit, grammatical rule or sentence structure, etc. He then asks a question. There are no students but there is a gap that is more generous than, say, Pimsleur. The answer to the question is then said by a native speaking French female assistant. There are 10 learning CDs and the following grammatical tenses are covered: present, passe compose, futur proche, futur. The imparfait, conditionel, subjonctif etc, tenses are not covered. He also teaches the three French question forms, ne...pas negatives, tu and vous, y and en and basic pronoun construction In addition the topics are based on practical scenarios - booking a room, ordering a meal, etc. Vocabulary is about the same as MT but cognate transformation rules are given in a manner similar (but more basic) to the MT Vocab Courses. Numbers are also taught. In addition there are 2 review CDs that go at much quicker pace containing no explanations by Paul Noble asking questions, a short gap and then the French assistant giving the answer. Not being near a DVD player I haven't seen the DVD. In all it is good - to my mind it takes a lot from Michel Thomas, covers about the same ground as the MT Foundation course, but adds things and gets rid of things that people often complain about (such adding numbers, 'useful' situations, including a native speaker, and getting rid of dumb students - in my view a shame). So all in all I think the Paul Noble course is good for a beginner before moving onto a serious beginners course like LL Ultimate, Hugo, Assimil or Linguaphone - its just a shame that Mr Noble has chosen to denigrate the worth of his competitors and predecessors, especially Michel Thomas, who he has clearly taken so much from. Its also a shame that there is no German course, always an acid test for this type of method (and one that would be helpful to me at the moment!) 6 persons have 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 20 of 51 22 September 2010 at 7:06pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I'd say "situational" language is a better term (or even your later term "thematic"). "Functional" is a bit overloaded. In particular, linguists call things like pronouns and auxiliary verbs "functional words" (ones that don't have a concrete meaning and only get their meaning from context. For example, "I did it" -- that's three function words, because outside of the context, without knowing who said it, you don't know what any of those words mean) and by that token, MT is more "functional" than PN -- so the word can be quite confusing.
To be expected -- he has to avoid infringing the patent.
Except that it's half again as long as the MT Foundation -- in fact, it's as long as the Foundation and Advanced courses put together. They're not currently marketing it as "part 1", so it seems a bit of a shame it doesn't cover imperfect or conditional tense, or the subjunctive mood. One of the biggest complaints about MT German was that it doesn't cover the noun case system, so it feels unfinished. This sounds like a potential problem here. Missing the subjunctive out is dangerous. It either means missing conjunctions out altogether or risking letting learners get into bad habits by leaving them to incorrectly start using the indicative in subjunctive phrases.
The question is, how much of this is method and how much marketing? The native speaker... well, from the video of his classroom, Paul's Spanish accent is on a par with Rose Lee Hayden's, so that's needed. But in that case, why is Paul speaking at all? MT Russian was pretty poor, but at least I was listening to one person. Trying out the Arabic and Mandarin ones, it was kind of disorientating having the native speaker appear out of nowhere. Paul's own presence is marketing, not method. Does he really believe in situational language, or is it just what people expect? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Romanist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5283 days ago 261 posts - 366 votes Studies: Italian | Message 21 of 51 22 September 2010 at 7:56pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
The period in time that I'm thinking of is about three (or maybe even four) years ago. Back then I'm sure that I can remember seeing posts from a "Paul Noble" on the MT Forum. Given the amount of time which has since passed I can't remember exactly what he used to say - but I think he was basically a supporter of the MT method... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5566 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 22 of 51 22 September 2010 at 8:21pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Just to point out from my mini review that I realise the subjunctive is a mood and not a tense - the dangers of cutting and pasting afterthoughts :)
As to 'useful' language - I did use 'inverted commas' because I have been a long time opponent of the cult of 'relevance' from the days when I studied electronics and learned how to solder but was taught none of the theory as to why circuits actually work. I also would invite anyone who has learned 'relevant' language to go to a Parisian market and try to get by with set phrases - a rude shock awaits.... I also agree that there is a massive amount of marketing in Paul Noble's current output - and I am not too keen on the content of that marketing given that it seems to be overtly negative of competitors. However, from my short listen today, I got the impression that I could get something out of the Noble course. I think if I was starting a language in the Noble range, I would probably do MT Foundation first, then Noble, then MT Advanced - I think that would give a good beginning structure. Now, why do these people never do a Latin course in this style? ;) Edited by Elexi on 22 September 2010 at 8:34pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Kugel Senior Member United States Joined 6539 days ago 497 posts - 555 votes Speaks: English* | Message 23 of 51 22 September 2010 at 9:26pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Is there a target to reach at the end of the course? How does the student know if he or she has achieved the target at the end of the course? If the target is given (I gathered so far that no target is given), then naturally the question is whether or not the target is worthwhile in the first place. These are basic questions that a potential consumer would like to know, yet no such info is given, except vague promises of success and the like. Wouldn't it be great if there were 10 or so different "exams" to take after completing the course to determine just how much info was learned? They could even be PDFs in order to reduce the material cost.
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| TerryW Senior Member United States Joined 6358 days ago 370 posts - 783 votes Speaks: English* | Message 24 of 51 23 September 2010 at 1:51am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I had a cassette course in the 90's called "Accelerated Learning" that put some of the FSI dialogue over baroque music. There was a thread about it here: Lazanov method thread 1 person has voted this message useful |
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