Learn a New Language - The Michel Thomas Method

Anyone can learn another language, according to Michel Thomas, the celebrated language teacher, considered by some to be the best language teacher the world has ever seen. Michel Thomas developed a system which has been tried and tested all over the world to great acclaim. He called it The Michel Thomas Method.

Over one million people have studied using Michel Thomas' techniques. This includes my best friend and my partner. Both are now able to converse in Spanish to a good level. The most important factor regarding my partner is that this is the course that he has stuck to and learned most with.

The Michel Thomas Method claims to be able to bring a student to conversational proficiency in days. Michel Thomas found that he had great success in teaching if he used a series of techniques which, in principle, derive from instructional psychology. Breaking the language down into manageable chunks, learning via your mother tongue and ensuring that you correctly understand each step as it is being learned are vital components to the methodology. He aimed to encourage learners to pick up another language in a similar was to that which we all acquire our first language.

The Michel Thomas Method of teaching languages involves you as a third student to the audio class. Michel Thomas is the teacher, and takes full responsibility for your learning, and there are two other students also learning alongside you. Everyone is learning real-time and Michel Thomas ensures that all students are confident with their newly acquired language skills before moving on to subsequent lessons. The other students learn, repeat and get corrected, and the whole class learn from any mistakes made.

In contrast to other courses, Michel Thomas allows vocabulary to take a back seat to begin with. We are not concerned about days of the week or numbers, but rather how to start speaking and understanding. Grammar is explained in easy to follow segments, allowing the learner to start to comprehend how the target language works and eventually create sentences of up to 15-20 words after just a few lessons. So, most importantly, the learner can recreate sentences of their choosing, and understand why their word selection is correct.

Studying in this way is versatile and encouraging. I have seen the results for myself. Only in the event that you are a very visual learner can I see that these courses will not be beneficial to your language learning. Also, being Eastern European, I detected a slight accent when he was speaking Spanish but he insists on working on intonation and pronunciation and the technique is excellent and highly recommended.

Courses using the Michel Thomas Method are now available in French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Dutch and Portuguese. There are specific courses designed to concentrate on increasing vocabulary as well.  If you or a loved one is struggling to "get into" your language course, these make a great investment or gift.