John Bald/language and literacy

Michel Thomas, Guru with An Axe to Grind, Guardian 1997 Updated after completing his basic Greek course.

 

Following interest in Michel Thomas' work on Twitter, here is my Guardian article of 1997       Download Mtscan

The BBC programme is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0w_uYPAQic

Applying Michel's techniques in school is not possible without considerable adaptations, some of which he specifically rejected. An attempt has been made with Spanish, and has had some success, but it really was not a direct replication of what we see in his lessons. Unlike the adults we hear on his disks, children are still in the intermediate stages of learning their own language. It helps them engage all areas of their brain if they write as well as talk,  and Michel specifically excludes writing - though see his response when I showed him Clicker. Michel's lessons are individual, and children are taught in classes. My approach, in the ppt Eliminating Failure in Language Learning, was developed along similar lines in work with children assessed as dyslexic, some years before I met Michel, and published by U Strasbourg in 1995. It was highly successful in Hackney primary schools, and was the foundation of the current national curriculum for languages.

For evidence on the closee proximity and shared areas of the brain used in processing written and spoken language, see Dr Matt Davis, Brain Systems for Language Learning, Languages Today, 13, Spring 2013. For evidence on the operation of the brain as it learns, see Stanislas Dehaine,Collège de France, Apprendre, reviewed here 

 Updates, A note on Greek,(Hara Garoufalia Middle and Howard Middle)  relevant to teachers of German.

I've long been interested in Michel Thomas' approach to languages and have started Greek. Its relevance to teaching German is that the teacher (not MT, who knew no Greek) starts by demonstrating and having students make very simple positive and negative sentences with neuter nouns - I want/dont want a sandwich/ouzo/glass of wine. The term neuter is not introduced at this stage. Only after this has been practised a lot, with a small number of verbs, does he introduce a feminine (beer, salad). Neuter and Feminine are explained at this point, and only after that has been practised several times does the teacher introduce a masculine. It strikes me that this could apply equally to German - first the idea of using German words instead of English when that is the only thing to think about, then Feminine, which of course does not change in the accusative, but has die instead of das, and only then masculine. Produces a measured and accessible cognitive load, and could well avoid a lot of confusion. Thoughts appreciated, particularly if anyone is interested in trying this with a new class.

Half-way through the fourth disk of this course, I'm finding that the sentence structures, positive and negative, are clear, and that an additional finding in Matt Davis' paper cited above, that words that are shared or nearly shared between languages are easier to learn, is consistently true. Using transiliteration, periodico, periodical, is very easy, as is sandrwitch. Sichna, usually took me three days to recall. I have had similar problems with unfamiliar English words. We have a painting of hellebores by the artist Kay Elliott. It took me several months to learn and remember the name. As soon as I'd learned it, I'd forget it, much to my wife's amusement. This is another of Kay's pictures (not hellebores). We have over 20 of them.

Intlo 5th CD, I'm finding that continuous use of the same small selection of words to build sentences, with no more than one or two new words per session, forces me to use them in context, with correct endings, and takes away much of the stress of trying to remember vocab. Each session is 8-9 mins hard work - I really have to concentrate hard each time, but am begiinning to operate more quickly and confidently. All verbs in singualar so far, with neg and present and future tenses.  Want, wait, understand, know, to be, have, arrive, leave, eat, drink, watch, read, go, hurt. Where there is no link with English, a mnemonic is used. Any link doesn't have to be similar meaning - eg in Greek, panda means always. So there is always a hook to hang something on, even if there are few cognates.

CD7. A teaching technique. Before introducing a new element, T throws out some very easy qs, which P answers confidently and without effort. Then just one new thing at a time, grafted onto this prior knowledge, explained and practised, with a mnemonic if needed. Anticipates cognitive load theory, memory devpt, and consistent with Dehaene's idea of modifying hypotheses.Brilliant. Put student completely at ease, then just add a little. Over time, it works. Example - T. How dos you say I am? P.  (transliteration) Imé.  T: I was is imun. Imun. How would you say I was in the park?    P. Imun sto parco.  Michl can fairly be said to be a man before his time.

CD8. Mostly practice with accusative case, future and simple constructions, incl word order. Then intro to alphabet. 

Overall, this course builds confidence that a person can learn and express simple positive and negative thoughts in Greek, and succeed in learning the language. First-class work by the authors and further evidence that this approach works with languages that MT did not himself speak. I've had simlar experiences with Mandarin and Arabic, as well as using his Spanish in 2005, when I needed to learn the language quickly in order to use it in Hackney primary schools. Highly recommended.

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Michel Thomas German: A Note from Isobel Scott

Readers will know that I see Michel Thomas' central technique of sentence-building as the key to enabling people to communicate in a new language. I'm less convinced that it is the whole story, though the reasons for this vary with different languages. Isobel Scott has just sent me this note on her positive experience of using MT's approach in German:

Hello, John.

Re. German, I actually like the fact that MT "omits" the case system. Of course, he doesn't really omit it, he just assumes that it can be delayed until the learner has confidence with verb structures and word order - by which time learners and teachers are in a better position to tackle it. And, actually, why did I ever insist that pupils learn the difference between "der" and "den" in term one? But that still leaves the question of how to proceed without using articles or possessives etc in the early stages. The obvious answer is to use lots of proper nouns which fit well with "to", "with" and "for", which are well practised in the course. "Something", "nothing" and "it" become essential, if a bit frustratingly devoid of content, and MT does actually introduce nominative, accusative and dative pronouns, without calling them that.

When merging MT with GCSE topics, I start with "Health", because German doesn't use "the" with foods, sports or diseases, and you can go a long way by exploiting MT's introduction of reflexives, modal imperfects and prefixed verbs (causes / try / contain / lose weight / put on weight / avoid are easy to introduce near the end of the Foundation course). Then I take a deep breath and start introducing the "markers" with the topic of Family (around term 5 or 6), starting with Feminine (MT introduces some feminine nouns early in the course), then plural, then neuter. Introducing the concept of Subject/Object shouldn't be necessary, should it, because they've all learnt it, right? Ha Ha! Then we can do Masculine. Only one gender at a time, but with several functions - articles, some possessives (don't try to do them all). They can cope OK with relative pronouns at the same time, because they have already done subordinate clauses earlier on, so they get the word order. I'm going to introduce Dative ones soon (might call them "mit" situation, as MT uses the term "weil" situation). I'll probably handle Genitive fairly quickly near the end of the course, or when it comes up. The case system isn't the only thing MT omits - I've made a list which I ought to refer to again soon, but it's the one that worries people the most, when other things are probably more important.

As for incorrect structures being introduced by MT in the German, French, Spanish and Italian courses, yes, it can be annoying, but often the confidence and sense of order gained by ignoring the odd irregularity of idiom can outweigh the snag of sounding foreign in some situations. I realise many will disagree with me on that, but I'm aware that pre-MT I taught accurate structures till I was blue in the face only to have pupils create their own inaccuracies! Of course, as a teacher, where I do see inaccuracies in the material, I either skip over them quietly or if I don't think it will confuse, explain them quickly and move on.

Good news that in spite of my very imperfect first time teaching of MT+GCSE=RISK, the results out yesterday were noticeably (not dramatically, but then I'm still learning too!) better than in last few years. I have also had a few German MT Foundation CDroms returned, so in response to your request some time ago (sorry for slow response) I can send you one if you let me know where to send it.

Thank you for recent comments about "starting slowly". Pacing the course is still something I puzzle over. It seems self-evident now you have mentioned it, but could you comment further (either here or on your site)? Also happy for you to use any of the above on your site if at all useful.

With kind regards,

Isobel

 

 

Update: Introducing German Grammar to adult speakers of English, with some thoughts on Michel Thomas' Foundation German.

German grammar poses problems to Germans as well as speakers of other languages. Some are due to inherent complexities in the language, which likes to tie sentences together with grammatical features that reflect the role of each word in a sentence. German children study these features and work hard to make them second nature.

Foreign learners need to do this too, and there is an urgent need to enable them to do so effectively. Entries in A level German are at a critical level, threatening the future of the language as a school subject, and GCSE is not preparing pupils to meet its demands. There are several reasons for this, but one of them is a national approach in the UK that has ignored systematic grammatical study and so has left pupils to work out too much for themselves. German grammar, traditionally taught in the same way as Latin grammar,  is very difficult for most English speakers, who have to deal both with a several features are almost unknown in English. These are also less regular and logical than many German speakers like to think them - grammar is, in this respect, a branch of idiom, aspects of language that are as they are in a language, for reasons that have no logical basis outside the language itself.

These notes are intended to clarify and explain some of the key features in German grammar so that they can be understood at an early stage in learning the language and then practised. Students may then find established grammar books, including the excellent Collins Easy Learning Grammar, and Hammer's Grammar easier to understand, as they will not be approaching completely new terminology from scratch.  

1. Two shared features with English, plus one.

Verb.  Almost all sentences in both languages contain a verb. Most verbs indicate an action, but they may indicate thought, feeling, or the state of things. Not all verbs are doing words, particularly to be and to have.

Subject. Not the topic of a sentence, but whoever or whatever is doing, being, thinking or feeling what the verb indicates. In The dog is dead, is is the verb, and The dog the subject. In Der Hund ist tod, ist is the verb, and Der Hund the subject. This is an exact parallel between English and German. Verb and subject are the two most important ideas in grammar - they are the foundation of very nearly every sentence, and every other grammatical feature depends on them.

Verbs in both languages are such important words that they have a "name" themselves - in traditional grammar, this is called the "infinitive", which means more or less the same thing - it is a form of the verb that never changes. Ever. To infinity, even. In English, the name of a verb always has to at the beginning - to go, to be, to drink, to sleep, perchance to dream.  In German, the name of a verb ends in n.  Usually in en, but always, but always, in n.

And one more - object. Not every sentence has one but if something is done to someone or something it becomes an object. In The dog bit the postman, the postman is the object, person or not

2. New grammatical features in German.

Nouns - (Nomen - Latin for names). Easy to pick out in German as they have a capital letter. Nouns are masculine, feminine, or neuter. There are some patterns in these, but for the most part we need to learn the gender of a noun as we learn the noun (Das Kapital - Marx).

Die Fälle - Cases - Roles and Functions. Nouns and their companion words (articles and adjectives) change their endings according to their function in a sentence. The functions are known in Latin and German grammar as "cases" - an term that does not explain what they do. The cases  in German grammar as nominative, accusative, dative and genitive, the same names used for them in Latin. I suggest the following as an introduction to the idea of case:   

Subject.   Calling the nominative case the subject case directly reflects its function as the subject of the sentence.

Object.   Calling the accusative the object case also directly reflects its function. The object case is exactly the same as the subject case except for masculine nouns, where the article and any adjectives end in en. Der Hund biss den Briefträger.

Of    German doesn't share our convenient apostrophe s to indicate possession. So, to say my mother's book, we have to phrase it as the book of my mother, or Das Buch meiner Mutter. Calling this the of case to begin with reminds the learner of the function of the genitive, another word that means nothing in English.

To or beside   The fourth form of German nouns is concerned with connections. The Blue Danube title above is an example of such a category. Once again, the normal term "dative" does not explain the function of the term.

Implication for Teaching. It may be best to concentrate on building sentences that do not involve the final two cases in the first instance, as only the masculine nouns require a change in the companion word. The two remaining cases can be introduced as they occur in things people wish to day, and perhaps not in all three genders at once.

Types of German Verb

German categorises verbs as "strong", "weak", "separable" and "inseparable".  The first two categories are misleading to an English speaker. "Weak" simply means regular - the verbs follow a consistent pattern in all endings. A very few of these regular verbs have small changes in them, but are still overwhelmingly regular. Strong in relation to German verbs means irregular - there are many changes in these verbs, depending on. This predates Stephen Pinker's idea that irregular verbs, because they are so heavily used, resist the pull of regular patterns. Note also, though, that some irregular verbs in all languages are used so seldom that this pull of regularity doesn't get a chance to operate!

In most conversations, two people are involved, one speaking and one listening. If both speak at once we have confusion. If both listen at once, we have silence. So, at any one time, one person is speaking (First person, I or we) and a one listening (second person, you). Anyone outside the conversation is a third person (he, she or they).  This idea of first, second and third person runs through all European languages, and provides a framework for learning to use verbs. The formal term for it is "conjugation" - a list of all of the forms a verb can take.

Complication. German people are more formal in their manners than English speakers, and they extend this to adults we do not know well. We call them Sie, with a capital s, whether there is one or more than one of them, and the verb form is plural. This makes Ihr quite unusual - we only use it when talking to groups of friends.

A typical regular verb is fragen, to ask.

ich frage                                                           wir fragen

du fragst                                                           ihr fragt

er or sie fragt                                                  sie (or Sie)  fragen

Bonus - Eine Frage is a question.

The most important irregular verbs are to be..

 ich bin                                                              wir sind

du bist                                                               ihr seid

er or sie ist                                                       sie (or Sie)  sind

and to have...

ich habe                                                            wir haben

du hast                                                              ihr habt

er or sie hat                                                     sie (or Sie)  haben

Time  Everything we say, do, think or feel, happens in a time-frame, which may be, broadly speaking, in the present (heute, today) past (gestern, yesterday) or future (morgen, tomorrow). German calls time indications Die Zieiten, which simply means times. Our knowledge of these needs to be built up gradually, beginning with the simple indications given here. Some of the key patterns are very similar to English constuctions - Ich werde gehen, for example, means I will go, Ich habe gesagt, I have said.  

Verb combinations.  Joining words together to make new ones is very common in German. One way this happens is to add a short group of letters, a prefix, to a verb. Stehen, to stand, combines with auf, to give aufstehen.  Sometimes, the prefix is taken off when we make a sentence - Ich stehe um seiben Uhr auf (I get up at seven o'clock). Sometimes it stays in place - Ich verstehe dich nicht. I don't understand you. Learning to use these different types of verb takes practice. I suggest that once one is needed for communication, a lot more are included to practise the different patterns. I would not teach both types together.

Modal verbs. No-one, when I was learning German, explained to me the reason why modal verbs are so called, or what their purpose is. They were simply presented as "modal auxiliaries", as if the category itself were sufficient explanation. A modal verb is one that does not stand alone, but adds shades of meaning to another verb - eg in English, I want to play the piano, Ich mag Piano spielen.

 

They are in fact one of the most useful tools in sentence building, allowing a great deal of personal expression. They are at the heart of Michel Thomas's approach to teaching German, and are being used by Paul Cafferty of Christchurch University, Canterbury. Their use in teaching deserves serious investigation.

Update. Michel Thomas' German grammar. To understand Michel Thomas' approach, we need to study the detail and the order of what he does. This is made easy for those who know the language by the publication of replacement booklets, here. It is clear from these that Thomas saw verbs and verb combinations as the key to communication in German, using what he termed "handle" verbs (usually modal, but including werden) plus infinitives, with some informal reference to time manner place order. The sentence building in his 8-cd foundation course has virtually nothing about the case system - mir is introduced, but not explained - and very little vocabulary. This whole approach deserves further investigation.

Michel Thomas and writing - a solution to a problem.

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.