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Michel Thomas 2009 Edition | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5458 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes  Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 9 of 27 22 June 2009 at 5:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
I had the same thoughts when I listened to "Michel Thomas" Russian. The instructor came across more as a teacher rather than the magician that Michel Thomas was. I didn't feel the same "connection" with her. Having said that, it is also true that Michel Thomas covered the "easy" languages for English speakers. The same "tricks" he employs (based on the relatedness of the language) simply cannot apply as well with some of the later languages. That does not mean the later languages are without merit. I found, for example, the two "Michel Thomas" Mandarin Chinese courses (by Harold Goodman of this very forum!) to be very good in their focus on tones and accents, and they were an excellent foundation for moving on to other material. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5800 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 10 of 27 22 June 2009 at 8:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
It's not the same method, although it looks deceptively lke it. It's not a matter of Thomas being a magician, but I think Splog's use of the word "tricks" is more relevant than even he realises. I suggest that Thomas had a core method, and that he augments that with a couple of tricks, most notably mnemonics and cognates. Sadly, the subsequent teachers (and therefore most likely Thomas himself, given that he explicitly taught Goodman how to teach) appear to have mistaken the tricks for the method. For one thing, in the Russian, Japanese and Polish courses, you'll hear more mnemonics in the first CD or 2 than you will hear in any of Thomas's own courses. It's not their fault -- Thomas did speak about mnemonics as being a core part of his method on the TV documentary The Language Master. The particular mnemonic he used there was for the French faire: to make or to do. "It's a fair thing to do," he said. But it is easily demonstrated that this was demonstrably unnecessary: I don't recall ever hearing him use an equivalent mnemonic in any of his other courses, but he still managed to teach tun, fare and hacer without problems. Also, the new teachers seem to focus purely on explicitly phonetic mnemonics, whereas the most use mnemonic in the Spanish course is "Whenever you're in the woulds, don't step out of the river bed," and by saying that, Thomas gives no phonetic clue to the expected response. In fact, I wouldn't even say that's necessarily a mnemonic -- to me it seems more like a mental "cue" for Thomas himself to use in order to get inside the students' brains and quickly set them right without actively correcting them. In the German course, the only mnemonic I can remember hearing is "rauchen"->"brauchen", which given that I didn't know either word before barely counts. So as I said, the other big "trick" is cognates, and the new teachers have whole-heartedly gone for them too. Now all of MT's own courses used these, but if you compare the German course vs the courses in the Romance languages, you'll see that he used them in two very different ways. Pretty much all the vocabulary in the German course is what you'd call "core vocabulary" -- stuff off the list of the most common words in the language -- and the vast majority of it is cognate with English. By contrast, Michel taught pretty much the same core vocabulary in the Romance languages, and virtually none of it is cognate with English. If he could teach the same words in the same time with and without the benefit of cognates, did the cognates really help? I'd say that Thomas's goal with the cognates in German was purely a demonstration of the phonetic changes -- those "strings" he talked about: I couldn't tell you what they were, but sometimes when I see a German word I get a feel for how it should be in English. What he was doing in the Romance languages was something completely different. The cognates he taught weren't core vocabulary and on their own merit had no place in an absolute beginners' course. The words he taught as cognates were really bonus material. But most importantly, they were productive rules. The samurai say "From one thing, know ten thousand things" -- the cognates in the Romance languages were patterns that could be taught in minutes and open up a vocabulary of thousands of words. By contrast, the cognates taught in Japanese and Arabic were highly unproductive. First of all, it was just words (book, sandwich, coffee) that didn't demonstrate any systematic underlying principles that could be apply to produce, understand or internalise new words. Secondly, each was very limited in terms of the vocabulary it could be combined with, so there was less scope for using the words learnt in different contexts (you read a book, eat a sandwich and drink a coffee; you can't drink a book, read a sanwich and eat a coffee). The Russian course infuriatingly fell into that trap, giving us newspapers, magazines, luggage etc while there was a perfectly good stock of bonus pattern transformations, many of them the same as the ones Thomas taught in the Romance languages that she really only mentioned in passing. An important detail that really raises a question over the value of these new courses is how they were recorded. Thomas's courses were done straight through in the course of a weekend, and next to no material was edited out. Hodder have said that the new courses were reecorded over a week or two, and that various sections were edited out where the students were struggling with pronunciation etc. The original courses worked because they were 100% running at the pace of the student, and student errors were taken as feedback by Thomas that he was going too fast. If the students were making errors that were edited out, then that means the course was too difficult -- they've forgotten Thomas's motto: there's no such thing as a bad student, only a bad teacher. But why are these courses so difficult for the students? I'd say it's because they ignored two very important principles identified by Jonathan Solity in his book about the method: teach one thing at a time, and teach things that are easily confused separately. Thomas teaches ser and estar separately. He leaves a gap between teaches esto and eso (and aquel). But the Japanese course gives the equivalent this that and the other at the same time... and I can't remember them. The Russian course introduces everyone and everything at the same time... and I can't remember them. In both cases they've stated publically that it is because they form "a pattern", but teaching one thing a once means teaching either a word or a pattern, and they're teaching both at once, and the items in a group are very easily confused so shouldn't be taught together. You might not see how this is against the real Michel Thomas method, so consider this: the present tense conjugation of a regular -ar verb in Spanish is a pattern. Thomas explicitly could have told us the whole conjugation when he gave us our first regular -ar verb. He chose not to. He had us using cenar exclusively in the infinitive for a bit. almost 3 full CDs later, we get to start conjugating in the first person singular... and he doesn't bother to make a distinction between -ar, -er and -ir, because it's not relevant to the first person singular present. After 2 tracks of that, he introduces the 3rd/formal 2nd singular. Two tracks may not seem long, but the Japanese and Russian courses were squeezing a full pattern in ten seconds. It then takes almost a whole other CD before he throws in the positive imperative 3rd sing (which is a freebie with the present simple 3rd sing) and the 1st person plural. Thomas spreads his patterns, they don't. Thomas uses a limited vocabulary, they don't. Thomas uses a structured vocabulary, they don't. The only thing most of them have in common with the Thomas course is that it's 100% aural, they use mnemonics and they use cognates... and these are not things unique to the MT method. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6228 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 11 of 27 23 June 2009 at 12:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Excellent summary, Cainntear.
There are a number of similarities and differences you didn't mention (ie, the horrible way at least one of the new courses prompts students word by word by word, rather than actually having them build up and use the grammar patterns, destroying what I see as the best part of the method), but you hit several nails on the head. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5800 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 12 of 27 23 June 2009 at 2:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
You wouldn't happen to be talking about the Japanese, would you? That's absolutely atrocious for this.... Yes, I skipped a few things, but the more you include the longer the message... and the less likely people are to read it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6228 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 13 of 27 23 June 2009 at 2:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I was talking about the Chinese course, which is the only "new" MT course I've spent any time with. I wanted to see the approach to tones - which I do somewhat like - but, unlike some, I did NOT end up with a particularly comprehensible accent from it, and my tones certainly aren't great, much less "crystal clear".
As you know, I don't particularly like even the "old" MT tapes, but I really can't stomach the new ones at all. I didn't finish the Chinese tapes, and don't intend to. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| TheBiscuit Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 5712 days ago 532 posts - 619 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Italian Studies: German, Croatian | Message 14 of 27 27 June 2009 at 12:13am | IP Logged | |||||
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Interesting. I find the new ones to be much slower than the ones done by MT himself. They also lack the intensity which in turn doesn't help the material to stick as well. I found the Russian one annoying and actually got tired of it. It retains the principal of deconstructing the language but in a seemingly random way. MT built up the core components of the language whereas these new courses seem to just teach you various bits of things. I think he ultimately took his methodology to the grave with him - the new ones just don't seem 'complete'. Edited by TheBiscuit on 02 July 2009 at 5:24am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| zorglub Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 6789 days ago 441 posts - 504 votes 1 sounds Speaks: French*, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (Written), Turkish, Mandarin | Message 15 of 27 01 July 2009 at 1:27am | IP Logged | |||||
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That's an interesting analysis.
One main difference maybe the new teachers used to teach one way before they were requested to do these Thomas like courses, and contrary to Thomas they had not done "Michel Thomas like" courses with real pupils hundreds of times before they attempted a recording. Still, I found the arabic and mandarin very well done. But (big disclaimer here) I have never tried an "old " MT course . I did not know they existed and went through the Pisleur then assimil route, and MT is of o great use to me after that. But it would probably have been very useful to me before Assimil.
Edited by zorglub on 01 July 2009 at 1:30am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kugel Senior Member United States Joined 6327 days ago 497 posts - 555 votes Speaks: English* | Message 16 of 27 01 July 2009 at 2:06am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm still ambivalent about the Michel Thomas line of language programs. Every now and then I get a feeling of satisfaction from the courses, but I'm always left with an aftertaste of being fooled by a snake oil peddler.
Right now I'm really digging the Uzbek and Lithuanian courses with the challenge response style like MT's; and both are better than the Michel Thomas courses. No annoying pause buttons, strange pronunciations, and listening to other learners' mistakes. The courses are located at http://www.ikindalikelanguages.com/blog/ Try comparing the transcripts of MT to the Lithuanian and Uzbek courses. Edited by Kugel on 01 July 2009 at 4:17am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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