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The "Michel Thomas Method"-whatever it is

 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post Reply
Poll Question: Are you interested in it?
Poll Choice Votes Poll Statistics
4 [17.39%]
4 [17.39%]
13 [56.52%]
2 [8.70%]
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37 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5  Next >>
Owen_Richardson
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Canada
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 Message 1 of 37
22 September 2012 at 1:50pm | IP Logged 
I just wanted to get a feel for the general level of interest in the mysterious "Michel Thomas Method", and people's thoughts and opinions on it.

Personally, I'm *extremely* interested in the whole subject. I'd say that, despite some systematic mistakes he made, there was something about his lessons that made them *uniquely* effective and efficient.

Actually, the fact that he managed to do that even while making such mistakes just highlights that.

Anyway yeah, I'm actually writing because I've managed to track down "the secret" that made MT's lessons work. As in, yeah, once you understand it, actually applying it yourself would be just a relatively simple matter of "doing the work".

At this point, though, all I have to offer by way of explanation is basically just to point you towards a rather extensive list of resources (some of which are *very* technically involved), and exhort you to keep reading until enlightenment starts to dawn.

I think I should probably write at least a *bit* more substantive an introduction before I do that, though.

So I just wanted to get a feel for my potential audience's level of interest, and pre-existing ideas. (And also, kinda to publicly announce my intention to write such an introduction, in order to increase the chance that I actually *will* get around to tackling the project some time soon...)

So, what do you think?

Edited by Owen_Richardson on 22 September 2012 at 1:52pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Peregrinus
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United States
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149 posts - 273 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 2 of 37
22 September 2012 at 4:41pm | IP Logged 
Owen_Richardson wrote:
I just wanted to get a feel for the general level of interest in the mysterious "Michel Thomas Method", and people's thoughts and opinions on it.


Search for past threads on this topic and you will find them.

Quote:

I've managed to track down "the secret" that made MT's lessons work.


Well that's something the authors of courses based on his and marketed in his name for languages other than he did himself never managed to find based on reviews of same.

Quote:
So, what do you think?


That your first post in this forum sounds kinda spammy. But please do enlighten us.
6 persons have voted this message useful



hrhenry
Octoglot
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United States
languagehopper.blogs
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Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese
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 Message 3 of 37
22 September 2012 at 7:22pm | IP Logged 
What does this mean:

"I’m actively interested in NOT hearing about it."

Seems leading to me.

R.
==
3 persons have voted this message useful



Peregrinus
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149 posts - 273 votes 
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 Message 4 of 37
22 September 2012 at 8:26pm | IP Logged 
His whole breathless "I've gotta secret do you wanta me tell you" spiel smacks of a setup for either of (or a combination):

1) a sales pitch to a commercial course based on MT but NEW AND IMPROVED! (notice the praise *and* the criticisms - criticisms that would less likely be given if the unknown "secret" is actually that since MT is based on it even if he didn't explain it);

2) a long-winded single/connected source pseudo-scientific exposition of a personal theory with anecdotal unverified testimonials.


When he could just have come here and given a succinct explanation of the "secret" with a short bulleted list of evidence he believes supports it.






















3 persons have voted this message useful



Peregrinus
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149 posts - 273 votes 
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 Message 5 of 37
22 September 2012 at 8:46pm | IP Logged 
Out of curiosity and with frankly little better to do with my time, I googled OP's name and "Michel Thomas".

What I found was his (long-winded gee whiz) comment on now-banned Cainntear's blog here. Apparently he is fascinated with Direct Instruction and went so far as to say in that blog comment:

Quote:

I mean, I’d give well better than 50% odds that a real “learning revolution” is actually possible. Like, it could actually be all that: dramatic and extensive.




2 persons have voted this message useful



Owen_Richardson
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 Message 6 of 37
22 September 2012 at 9:25pm | IP Logged 
Peregrinus wrote:
Owen_Richardson wrote:
I just wanted to get a feel for the general level of interest in the mysterious "Michel Thomas Method", and people's thoughts and opinions on it.


Search for past threads on this topic and you will find them.


I have, of course. Even though the search feature seemed to be a bit crippled as a non paying member, I found some interesting stuff. Cainntear's posts about it in particular stand out. (He's banned now, although for unrelated reasons.)

But I also wanted to directly ask people about it myself. I mean, it's not like I'm using up extremely limited resources by doing so.

Quote:
Quote:

I've managed to track down "the secret" that made MT's lessons work.


Well that's something the authors of courses based on his and marketed in his name for languages other than he did himself never managed to find based on reviews of same.



Yep. Actually in a lot of cases I think they managed to get what MT did right working pretty well ('logical deconstruction' being the core element), but also copied and *accentuated* the things he got wrong (certain elements of pacing, mostly making things too SLOW; They even draaag out their sentences a lot---It can get excruciating!).

Although just from skimming the Japanese transcripts you can tell they weren't thinking very clearly about logical deconstruction the whole time either; It's pretty obvious that you should *start* with the "casual form" to make things easier to understand later, rather than going for all that "desu/masu" junk right off the bat.

Well, that whole subject is more than one discussion in itself.

Quote:

Quote:
So, what do you think?


That your first post in this forum sounds kinda spammy. But please do enlighten us.


Don't you think that's a little unfair? Probably there are features of my post that pattern match to 'spammy', but I'm sure there are others that obviously show that it *isn't*.

I mean, yeah, my eventual intention *is* kinda to "sell" people on making the effort to read a bunch of stuff that may not be very obviously related at first, and gets pretty involved in places with ridiculously picky seeming logical dissection of the most basic concepts.

But I'm lazy about writing anything more in depth, so I figured I'd get a feel for the audience first before I make the effort. I mean, rather than just taking a big guess about how much pre-existing interest people would have to begin with, and exactly what might need and not need explaining, and so on.

I guess I'm just somewhat socially reclusive in the first place. I tend to second guess myself a lot and then just not bother trying to talk to people. So I'd appreciate a bit more friendliness. Things are funner if you can go with mutually assumed good will to start with.

Whatever, anyway. Usually you don't exactly have to twist arms to get people to share their opinions with you. What are your thoughts and feelings on the MT's eponymous "Method"?

Do you just have a vague academic interest in it? Or an intense personal obsession with reverse engineering it? Do you have any strong pre-existing opinions on what is necessary and sufficient to explain how it works in theory? Simple behavioral conditioning? Magic language fairies? Do you think it's basically bullshit and wish nobody would ever speak or it again? Or are you zealously obsessed with it, seeing it as a herald of the One True Way? Or what?

That's the kind of discussion I'm curious to see.
3 persons have voted this message useful



Owen_Richardson
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Canada
Joined 4323 days ago

14 posts - 19 votes
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 7 of 37
22 September 2012 at 9:31pm | IP Logged 
hrhenry wrote:
What does this mean:

"I’m actively interested in NOT hearing about it."

Seems leading to me.

R.
==


I wanted to know how many people are zealously fascinated by the subject, how many are vaguely interested, how many really don't give a damn, and how many actually wish people would just shut up about it altogether.

Is that so unreasonable?
1 person has voted this message useful



hrhenry
Octoglot
Senior Member
United States
languagehopper.blogs
Joined 4889 days ago

1871 posts - 3642 votes 
Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese
Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe

 
 Message 8 of 37
22 September 2012 at 9:39pm | IP Logged 
Owen_Richardson wrote:

I wanted to know how many people are zealously fascinated by the subject, how many are
vaguely interested, how many really don't give a damn, and how many actually wish people
would just shut up about it altogether.

Is that so unreasonable?

Not unreasonable. But the leading language probably doesn't help your cause any.

R.
==


2 persons have voted this message useful



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