Talk:Michel Thomas Method

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Contents 1 Opinions 2 More opinions 3 Article revision 4 My revisions today 5 POV and OR tags 6 More input

[edit] Opinions

While moderately helpful in describing the method, it is obviously taken directly from the promotional materials that accompany the instructional tapes and CDs. This should be revised to describe the method in terms of linguistics, educational practices, etc.

[edit] More opinions

Why all the mystery about the "method"? The Michel Thomas "method" is really nothing more than very careful teaching. It is only what any good language teacher would do if he had the time to spend hours individually with his pupils. It is very careful and conscientious instruction, one to one and intensively. Listen to the cds for an hour a day every day without fail whilst making an effort to relax and by the time you have finished the course you will be able to converse in the language without struggling. You will not be able to read a novel, but you will be able to make yourself clearly understood to natives at the airport, at the hotel, and on your visits to their country.

I've used his cds myself and in my opinion there is no doubt they are the best on the market. He is just a much more careful teacher than most of those you will meet in school or evening classes, that's all. No mystery. He's just what you get if you are "rich" - i.e, more "individual attention". Simple as that.

~~Paul Murphy~~.

I disagree. Even the most careful teachers I've come across tend to introduce quite complicated language as fixed phrases early on. eg in French, I learned Comment t'appelles tu? (What's your name, lit: how do you call yourself) in my first week of classes, which has a lot going on (inversion of subject to question, inversion of object as pronoun, reflexive verb, conjugation of verb to 3rd person, question word). I didn't have "ownership" of the language, because I couldn't change it about -- I couldn't create anything. With Michel Thomas Spanish, however, I was in control of everything I hasd learned -- he never introduced any "fixed phrases".

I've just added more detail on the method -- have a look through it and it should all make sense -- let me know if it doesn't.

Prof Wrong (talk) 14:02, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article revision

I have rewritten this page to reflect NPOV. The previous page was actually written by Thomas' publishers, as outlined here. I have borrowed some of the material from the Michel Thomas main page.

Until Hodder publish their book describing the method, it will be hard to write anything encyclopedic about it. --Lingvo9 20:10, 21 May 2007 (UTC) --Lingvo9 16:43, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] My revisions today

Thanks for making some improvements to my original article. Some of the new material is unencyclopaedic, so I have had to delete it. Here are my reasons for deleting what I have.

"The courses are also available on audio cassette" - Are you sure? No one is publishing anything on cassette anymore. When the original courses were released, most sales were on CD.

"probably September" - It won't be available in American shops until well after September. That's why I said "late 2007".

"And will begin being recorded in July 2007, implying a 2008 release" - Hodder have not decided to publish these courses. They have simply decided to record two hours of material as a test. Depending on how this goes, courses in Dutch and Portuguese may be released in future. Speculating about their release is not suitable for an encyclopaedic article.

"As the teacher will be taking full responsibility for whether they remember or not" - This is a meaningless piece of sales patter. It may have had some meaning in live lessons, but Thomas cannot take responsibility for students who are listening to a CD on a different continent.

"Keeping the students relaxed and entertained is a major focus of the method" - Not encyclopaedic, because it was part of the sales pitch for the courses. Perhaps it can be rephrased?

"Often the words are introduced with a subtle mnemonic" - Thomas hardly ever did this. It was not part of his method. (I have not heard the new vocabulary courses.)

"Sometimes extremely long sentences are asked to impress the students with their abilities, give them confidence and make them laugh" - More sales patter. The article has already stated that the teacher starts a simple sentences and moves to more advanced ones. Nothing in that statement is encyclopaedic.

"Conjunctions such as "but" are frequently used to make sentences more impressively long" - Descriptions such as "impressively long" are not NPOV. There aren't many courses which do not teach the word "but". Mentioning it is not encyclopaedic.

"In the courses conducted in person, students are provided with samples of reading material" - Are you sure? Since no one is teaching MT method classes at the moment (except for the new school materials), what went on in his classes 30 years ago is not encyclopaedic. This might be a good place to mention one of the failings of the CD courses, namely that the written language was virtually ignored.

"Michel claims the method could also be useful other subjects beside teaching..." - Didn't he later change his mind? In any case, if this claim was never tested, it is not encyclopaedic and must be deleted.

"The "Language Builder" courses do away with the virtual classroom scenario, and consist of the teacher giving the listener a series of phrases and sentences in English to translate into the target language, gradually adding new words, and showing all the combinations the words can be used in." - This was mentioned briefly early in the article. Since the builder courses don't conform to the "method", a detailed description of them does not belong on this page.

I have made a couple of typographical changes and improved the style of some of the sentences (without changing the content). I'm sure that many improvements can be made to my article, but please try to remember that Wikipedia articles must be encyclopaedic and NPOV. This applies even more to those of us who are supporters of Thomas' method.--Lingvo9 16:43, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

That's ok, your vandalism was easy enough to undo, since I was in the middle of an edit anyway. Carl Kenner 17:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I see from your talk page that you have a history of multiple reversions and of making accusations of vandalism. Many of your changes on this page violate Wikipedia policy on neutral point of view and/or are unencyclopaedic. Make changes or I will revert to my earlier edit. --Lingvo9 21:22, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[Moved from the Michel Thomas page --Lingvo9 17:18, 11 June 2007 (UTC)] The description is certainly better written and more encyclopedic but it seems to me that the essence of the method has been removed. The description reads like almost a dozen other methods. Although the old description sounded a bit like it was from a publisher, as I remember it far better explained the way the method worked by building structure and interchanging words etc. To be honest, for me, although the description regarding the courses that exist is very good, the bit on the method is now really wide of the mark.

That might be true. Can you improve on my latest revisions, without violating Wikipedia policy? --Lingvo9 17:18, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Don't know. Are my edits too much like "original research"...? Prof Wrong (talk) 14:04, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

"Often the words are introduced with a subtle mnemonic" - Thomas hardly ever did this. It was not part of his method. Actually, he constantly used them -- and to good effect. Maybe they slipped by you because they are integrated into the light-hearted patter. The verb aller' means to go like when you go down an alley and to come is venir like the veneer on wood paneling that doesn't come off (or whatever). He spoke about careful consonants -- consonants in the word careful (C-R-F-L) that are pronounced at the ends of words. Je suis ... is a swee-t expression, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.93.129.59 (talk) 07:45, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I suppose it makes a difference which language you're learning. I used his Spanish course, and there was only half-a-dozen (if that) mnemonics in the entire thing -- less than one per CD. For the most part they were pretty short and didn't require any active recall -- they were things he would use to remind you, not things you would use to remind yourself, so are they really mnemonics? Whether the word's valid by dictionary definitions or not, "mnemonic" suggests active recall which is expressly contrary to the method. Any reference to mnemonic in the article should point out this distinction.

Aside from that little semantic aside, I would say his use of mnemonics isn't frequent enough to class as "often".

Prof Wrong (talk) 09:47, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] POV and OR tags

The current version does not seem to warrant these. OR has been removed and POV is attributed. Any objections to removing them? Antonrojo 12:02, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Most of the current "method" section is technically Original Research (I can say this, since I wrote most of it. As we can see above, everyone has their own interpretation of what the method actually is.) Thomas kept his method secret during his life, and we still don't know much about it. Very little about the method has been published. The forthcoming Sollity book is supposed to explain the method, and if it does, the current "method" section can be replaced in its entirety.

No objections to removing the POV tag. Perhap the OR tag should be at the top of the method section?--Lingvo9 14:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I was not aware that the method was not publicized. The addition of a few fact tags and/or an introductory sentence explaining this should be enough to avoid OR. I will remove the POV tag. Antonrojo 17:48, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More input

This is my first contribution to Wikipedia.

I met Michel Thomas in 1995 and studied with him until shortly before his death (January,2005).

His major goal in working with me was to teach me enough of his method so that I could eventually write a book detailing it.

For a variety of reasons, the book never happened. However, I learned quite a bit from him. He also taught me two languages ( French and Spanish) to illustrate his approach and give us something concrete to discuss.

He introduced me to Christopher Robbins, the author of his biography, The test of courage. I am mentioned in the acknowledgments on page 357 of the British hardcover edition. Mr. Robbins interviewed me as part of writing the book.

Rose Lee Hayden, a phase two teacher, was someone whom he introduced me to. She is the author of some of the Vocabulary courses as well as editor for the British publisher, Hodder, of this series.

Dr. Hayden mentioned my name and background to Hodder. They approached me to work with them on the Michel Thomas series.

I have authored and co-taught the Michel Thomas Mandarin Foundation and Advanced CDs for them.

I disagree with some of the edits that are discussed on this page. These disagreements are based on my own personal experiences, notes from our interviews, and material on the CDs.

I do not know what 'encyclopedic' or NPOV mean.

Volapuk49 (talk) 00:35, 24 December 2007 (UTC)volapuk49

Hello Volapuk.

Much of the current article is based on original research, because there is very little in print about the method from which citations can be taken. I had been expecting to rewrite the article from top to bottom when the Sollity book is published, but perhaps you can do a better and a quicker job. Why don't you state what your disagreements are and what improvements you would like to see - here, or straight into the main article if you prefer.

"Encyclopaedic" means worthy of inclusion in an encyclopaedia. "NPOV" means neutral point-of-view. Much of what we write in Wikipedia turns out to be neither.--Lingvo9 (talk) 14:35, 5 January 2008 (UTC)