2008-06-23 Michel Thomas Spanish vocabulary course

I completed the various Michel Thomas Spanish courses and it is only natural to compare the vocabulary courses of his various "disciples" (in this case Dr Rose Lee Hayden) with those.

As a preliminary point, this is both difficult and uinfair because the courses teach fundamentally different things: MT taught grammar and very little vocabulary. Indeed, he taught vocabulary only to the extent that it was necessary to teach the structure of the language. This course aims to teach, frankly, as many different words as possible in 6 hours, with the result that grammar practice is cursory and it is necessary to do the course at least three times if you wish to internalise every word. I suspect many of the criticisms other have made spring from a failure to see this point.

That said, as I see it the negatives are:

1. Dr Hayden's manner at times. Oh dear, the toes do sometimes curl - the endless "well done", "correct" and "yes!" after you have filled the gap in the recording with your answer, be it right or wrong, is bad enough. The various references to Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady" - "You've got it; by George, you've got it" (yes, really!) is the worst - are hard to stamach.

2. Dr Hayden's accent. I am a relative beginner in Spanish but I have not the least doubt that, just as my English accent is better than Dr Hayden's, so is my Spanish one. The Spanish and South American assistants save the recording to some extent but the last voice we hear is always Dr Hayden's. Far more could have been put on the recordings if she had limited herself to the Spanish translation of an English word and the "how would you say...?" bit in English and left the Spanish answers to her assistants.

More positively:

1. Dr Hayden's teaching method is pretty good. It is not possible to replicate MT for the reason I give above but she does her best to reconcile the teaching of vocabulary with some repetition and grammar practice, which were MT's hallmarks.

2. For £30 (less on Amazon) you do get a lot of vocabulary for your money.

The question surely is not: is this course as good as it could be? (No) but: is it good value for £30. To that question, the answer is a definite yes.