You may have heard of modern language learning solutions like Duolingo, Babbel, or Rosetta Stone.
Yet, back then, there were prominent names in a language teaching method.
Today, we’ll be focusing on how to learn languages with Michel Tomas.
Who is Michel Thomas?
Michel Thomas, born Moniek Kroskof, was a survivor of the Nazi regime. He has suffered from the war-related crimes of the Nazis due to his Jewish roots and being from Poland.
Although he has escaped to Austria and fled to France, he still faced many tribulations.
After the war, he taught many schools about his experiences from the war.
A special lesson he taught other people is his memory retention. In particular, words and phrases that he quickly adapted after living in various countries.
Michel Thomas started sharing his language learning technique to schools right after 1947 when he discovered how powerful the brain is.
Michel Thomas has died but left a very important technique for all language learners, the Michel Thomas Method.
The concept of Michel Thomas Method
Learn by listening and speaking
If you’re familiar with Paul Pimsleur, then you know that listening is one of the essential language building blocks to improve your language skills.
There is a huge impact when you’ve heard what a native speaker of your target language sounds like.
You’ll get a grasp on how foreign words are pronounced, and not every word sounds the way it looks.
What most users say about Michel Thomas’ learning method is its proper pronunciation of everyday phrases.
The examples are authentic phrases from earlier levels (beginner and intermediate) to high-intermediate level.
The Michel Thomas Method is a popular technique for language learning that includes a variety of audio language courses for beginners.
By stopping the audio and translating the teacher’s spoken sentences into the target language, you may learn.
In summary, the Michel Thomas method teaches you the basics of a foreign language’s structure.
Learners will discover their sentence structure by parts such as tenses and conjugations.
Moreover, Michel Thomas also encourages beginner students to think in the target language.
As you expand your vocabulary in your own terms, you can create complex sentences after you
Learn languages with Michel Thomas: Did it work?
Unfortunately, the Michel Thomas Method-based course has received full criticisms for its endorsements of celebrities and a-listers.
But that didn’t stop the course to produce enjoyable steps to learn verb tenses while listening to audio files at home or at work.
Many users believe that Michel Thomas helped them become a confident speaker through listening to his audio courses.
You will not just learn simple sentences from the get-go as a beginner, you’ll be familiar with the colloquial language of your target language.
Today, there are at least professors, language experts, or students that may recommend the Michel Thomas method for their language study.
Let’s dive in on which matters this language teaching program can offer more for a variety of situations.
The Michel Thomas Method: areas to improve on
Like many techniques from the past, language learning takes an everyday improvement, not just for the learners, but also for the language programs.
Michel Thomas’ audio language courses often use very formal language which sounds awkward for any country.
Also, his pronunciation is not of the best quality since he isn’t a native speaker of some of the included languages.
It also doesn’t help that most of the topics, and even the program’s UI (User-Interface) language is almost entirely in English.
Another review from a recurring user said that Michel Thomas wasn’t able to understand his students due to impairment in hearing, which was another issue for outdated methods.
Nevertheless, the Michel Thomas Method is one of the foundations in many language learners today.
We can’t help but still look back at how this method has influenced many learners and even language programs to develop better language learning courses.