On the front of every box of Michel Thomas Language Course is emblazoned No Writing. As I've said in previous postings, I counted Michel as a friend, albeit not a straightforward one, and left him on our last meeting with a bearhug. Here is part of our last conversation, for a Guardian review of his advanced course, with two of the publisher's staff present:
MT They don't need to write. If they can say it, they can write it.
JB (realising that if you contradicted Michel directly, he would just repeat what he had said). Some people need more of a bridge. Here is my bridge (demo of sentence building in French, using Clicker 5 and Acapello)
MT This is good...this is very good...you are a great teacher.
Michel failed in his attempt to introduce his approach into the British school system. This was partly due to the way those in charge of it ignored and belittled him, and partly due to poor choice of schools for his trials. The use of writing in the current adaptation for schoools is inconsistent with the sentence building approach that runs through his teaching. We can't know, of course, what he would have thought of the approach to writing in MT for schools. I do know, however, that it is not consistent with his principles for teaching languages. More importantly, I do know what he thought of my approach, because he told me. Michel's principles co-incided with those I had developed myself in my work with literacy problems - a cause of some friction after our first meeting, as Michel thought that anyone who really understood what he was doing would be likely to pinch it. He only talked to me again after he had secured his deal with the publisher (having been turned down by Microsoft...) and so did not feel at any risk. Clicker 5 and Acapello are available to everyone at a much lower price than MT for schools. They are the solution to the problem of adapting Michel's techniques for writing, and I would welcome correspondence from anyone interested in investigating them.