LINGUAPHONE ALL TALK: French. CD or audio cassette. Beginner level pound;49.90. Beginner and intermediate pound;89.90. Linguaphone Institute
MICHEL THOMAS INTRODUCTORY COURSE: French. CD or audio cassette pound;14.99
MICHEL THOMAS LANGUAGE BUILDER: French. CD or audio cassette pound;20. Hodder amp; Stoughton
Because children acquire language and languages with such ease, there is a presumption that adult language-learning, too, should be “painless” and “natural” - if one could only discover the appropriate method. The search led to priority being given to speech, and the ideal was total immersion and authentic, unscripted recordings of speech.
The goal of painless learning survives: the Linguaphone All Talk series (French and Spanish, with English to come) claims to be easy and entertaining, for use “in the car, on the train, in the gym”. Beginners follow a storyline about an English businessman who has to replace a French-speaking colleague on a trip to Paris. Together, we collect a thousand words of French in an unthreatening environment, listening to the story and repeating phrases as they arise.
Michel Thomas, who offers a still more radical departure from traditional methods, insists that all his students have to do is to listen. It is very important, he says, that you relax, make no effort to remember and let the teacher take responsibility for your learning: no drill, no taking notes, no books, no memorising, no revision.
He eases us into French via the vocabulary that it shares with English: all you have to do is to pronounce words such as “possible” and “table” with a French accent, he tells us. It is as easy as that.
Is it? He makes huge claims for the method, backed by testimonials from some of his famous former clients, who include a long list of celebrities (Woody Allen, Mel Gibson, Barbra Streisand, Julie Andrews and many others), who have studied with him since he set up his school in Beverly Hills in 1947 (after service with the French Resistance and capture by the Gestapo).
Only a complete beginner in one of the languages he offers (German, Italian and Spanish, as well as French) could test the validity of his claims.
All I can say is that students differ, that most can achieve some progress with any reasonable method and that no one should expect too much from a language course, whatever its claims.
