Berlitz Language Schools

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Berlitz Language Schools, now known as Berlitz International, Inc, derive from an institution founded by Maximilian Berlitz in 1878, in Providence, Rhode Island. Maximilian Berlitz's grandson, Charles Berlitz was also intimately connected with the organization. He was a brilliant polyglot, and began working for The Berlitz School of Languages, during college breaks. The publishing house, of which he was vice president, sold, among other things, tourist phrase books and pocket dictionaries, several of which he authored. He also played a key role in developing record and tape language courses. He left the company in the late 1960s, not long after he sold the company to publishing firm Crowell, Collier & Macmillan. It has now expanded into an international organization with some 600 schools worldwide. It is headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey.

The Berlitz school teaches languages using what it claims to be its own "Berlitz Method of language instruction." This "method" is, in fact, a variation on the direct method and what later became popularised as the audio lingual method. The direct method, as opposed to the traditional [grammar-translation]] method, advocates teaching through the target language only - the rationale being that students will be able to work out or induct (see section on inductive and deductive teaching of grammar) grammatical rules from the input language provided, without necessarily being able to explain the rules overtly, while the audio-lingual approach advocates listening and speaking, rather than reading and writing, as the main mode of input and practice. This approach was seen as odd in a time when language-acquisition was seen as an intellectual or academic pursuit which required a knowledge of and familiarity with overt grammatical description. This mix of direct method and audio-lingual and communicative approach became popular with people who needed to become functional in a foreign language for business or professional reasons.

1 History
2 Berlitz program levels
3 Ownership
4 Criticisms
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] History

Berlitz had immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1872 with the intent of teaching Greek, Latin, and six other European languages according to the traditional grammar-translation approach. Working as a private teacher for a few years, he later joined Warner Polytechnic College as a professor of French and German language instruction.

The school was severely understaffed, and Berlitz served simultaneously as owner, dean, principal, and only faculty member. Needing an assistant who could teach French, Berlitz hired a Frenchman named Nicholas Joly. Joly had been the most promising candidate, but when the Frenchman arrived in Providence, Berlitz was horrified to find that Joly spoke no English. Already infirm from overwork, Berlitz went on sick leave and told Joly to lead classes to the best of the Frenchman’s ability. Berlitz asked his assistant to point at objects, repeating the French word for them, and act out verbs.

The method was seen as a success. Berlitz returned after six weeks to find the students engaged in semi-fluent exchanges with Joly. The students had apparently progressed faster than they did with the common methods of the time. Berlitz began to employ this method in the school, and the school —and its ideas— achieved success over time.

There are currently over 600 language centers located throughout 50 countries world-wide.

[edit] Berlitz program levels

When a student wants to study a language with Berlitz, he or she is first placed at a particular level:

1/2: Functional: Beginners learn to say simple sentences.
3/4. Intermediate: The student learns to function in everyday situations like ordering a meal or getting directions.
5/6: Upper-intermediate: The student begins having simple conversations.
7/8: Advanced: The student practices having more complicated conversations and has mastered the grammar.
9/10: Professional/Native: The student learns and is able to use specific vocabulary associated with his/her profession and converse freely as a native speaker would.

[edit] Ownership

Berlitz became a subsidiary of Macmillan Publishers in 1966. Berlitz became a publicly traded franchise in 1988 after Maxwell Communication Corporation took over Macmillan. However, in 2001, Berlitz was acquired by Fukutake Publishing Co., Ltd., now known as the Benesse Corporation, and is no longer publicly traded. In February 2002 the publishing arm of Berlitz, Berlitz Publishing[1], was acquired by Apa Publications (part of the Langenscheidt Publishing Group [2]).

[edit] Criticisms

The Berlitz method has been criticised by academic critics for being acultural and failing to teach people to comprehend such things as the nuances of foreign-language poetry. ^[1]