Michel Thomas

There is a new book out about Michel Thomas and his language learning method. Read this article about him and the book. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/sep/02/languages.schools

His method is interesting. He essentially breaks down a language and then teaches how to construct sentences with its components. By using a lot of 'pattern recognition' the student quickly applies what is learned. He also uses a lot of cognates with English in order to help the student get into the language a bit.

His published audio method gets some flak for a few reasons. One, his audio course is just himself sitting down with two students and teaching them with his method as we listen in and participate as a third student. Some people criticize this technique as slowing things down (as we listen to the other student fumble on something we have no trouble with, for example) or wasting time better suited to focusing on the listener.

Another complaint is the fact that he himself is not a native speaker of any of the languages he teaches. Therefore, his accent (Polish, I believe) muddies up our pronunciation. We are learning a Polish accented French or Spanish!

I think that, like any other language method, I would recommend using a Michel Thomas course supplemented with another course (or two) that would nullify those problems. I think his course can be a very effective way to learn how to be functional in a language.

Michel Thomas himself only made courses for French, Spanish, Italian and German. Recently however, courses have been made using his techniques for Russian, Arabic and Chinese. I would hope that more languages would be coming. I would love to have Swedish or Dutch but I won't hold my breath!

See this BBC video on his fascinating life and teaching method. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ3xvL22hLE