I’ve always been a bit baffled by how un-trumpeted the Michel Thomas courses are. For sure, they do pretty well – they’ve been around in some form or other since the 80s, and have made the transition from cassettes, to CDs, to digital. But I rarely see them as a first-choice recommendation in polyglot circles.
Which is a shame, because there’s something quite uniquely effective about the approach of Thomas and educators like them (Paul Noble has carried that torch admirably well, too). They use what you might call a ‘modified Socratic’ approach to language tuition. Each course follows a teacher-student conversational format that builds language knowledge with gradual exposure and prompting. As the listener, you are the third person in the room, answering and learning along.
If you were seeking a fancier term, then perhaps structured elicitation is the one. And it works. Especially for getting into a new language – I’ve used them as intros to several languages, and the stuff really sticks. Perhaps its usefulness tapers off at more advanced levels, but the format is such a great stepping stone.
Michel Thomas on Tap
In any case, I was browsing Spotify for podcasts and audiobooks the other day. As a premium subscriber you get free access to a certain amount of premium content a month, and as I’ve recently ditched Audible (part of my ecosystem economy drive), I was interested in what was available. And there I spotted them – the entire catalogue of Michel Thomas courses (and Paul Noble!).
That’s quite a cache of premium language learning content. Years back, I paid a small fortune for those CD packs. And they’re all there, from the foundation, to the intermediate, and even the vocabulary builder courses, with plenty more titles added in the meantime. Needless to say, I’ve added the Hindi one to my current playlist as I fancy a dabble. If you’re up for the same, you’ll be surprised how much is available!
While I’m at it, let me give LanguageTransfer a big shout out, too. It uses the same techniques as the courses above, but is a personal labour of love for creator Michalis Eleftheriou, and completely free! His Greek course in particular is a resource I’d recommend to anyone to start learning that language.