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The Michel Thomas 5-hour Advanced Spanish language course is an
audio-only course (strictly no pens, paper or books) which follows
on from the 8-hour course.
The course is for advanced students (the title of 'Michel Thomas
Advanced Spanish' makes this slightly obvious) but also for people
who want a refresher course in a language they have already learnt
to quite a good level. It follows Michel Thomas through four CDs
as he teaches two students, who have already completed the 8-hour
course, how to improve their Spanish. The course is not divided
into specific lessons, but it is divided into tracks so it is easy
to pick up from where you left off (that is if you remember which
track you got up to!).
It was very
strange hearing Michel Thomas for the first time as I have not done
any of his previous courses. For some reason I expected a very cheesy
sounding Frenchman (the cover photo of him gave me this impression).
Granted you do get a French-sounding man, but he isn't at all cheesy
and does remind you of one of your old teachers (in a good way).
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Because
of the no pens, no paper and no books technique, you find
that surprisingly the information really stays in your head.
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I loved his method of teaching and the way that the CD was organised.
There were no 'typical' scenario introductions and no 'typical'
Spanish music (in other words this is not a typical foreign language
audio course). Michel (first name terms already!) uses two students
and teaches us along with them. They make mistakes and I found that
they often made the same mistakes as I did, so this was handy! Michel
is quick to correct them and not in a patronising way, which you
sometimes get with these kind of courses. Because of the no pens,
no paper and no books technique, you find that surprisingly
the information really stays in your head. I'm not sure if this
is down to the pure driven determination of learning a new language
or Michel's method of repetition - whenever a new structure is introduced,
it is repeated several times until you just seem to get the hang
of it.
The course is
very structure and grammar orientated and there is no real day-to-day
vocabulary included. This is not the type of course you would do
if you were just looking to freshen up on your holiday lingo and
learn how to buy something in a shop. This course is designed for
people who want to learn the whole language and not just to learn
how to get by.
The CDs obviously
get harder as the course progresses. Despite this, Michel Thomas
keeps on repeating things and continues to correct the students
until the sentence is perfect. I think that the course content is
manageable for people who want to be advanced at Spanish and are
at an intermediate level at the moment. The CD content is good as
it covers topics that you would have already covered elsewhere (in
the 8-hour Michel Thomas course or in other Spanish lessons) but
still goes on to introduce a lot of new structures. Michel tends
not to spend too much time on grammar points which would already
have been covered at an intermediate level, but he spends time on
the new information to make your Spanish fluent. I think this is
an ace way of revising and consolidating what you already know and
then from this base going on to learn new things. I personally didn't
get bored recapping some of the Spanish I was already familiar with,
as it was taught in a way that I had not experienced before.
One thing I
must mention is about the students! It is a man and a woman ...
you have no idea what their names are, which personally I think
is great. I hate the courses where you meet the characters and are
supposed to feel some sort of connection, for all we know "Crystal"
could be a 87 year old granny rather than a 19 year old gap year
student. Anyway getting back to the Michel Thomas Spanish course
… the one thing I did find annoying with the students was their
accents. The man's accent was bearable, but I had a slight problem
with the woman's accent. She had a tendency to emphasise every single
sound of the word, which sometimes seemed as though she was trying
too hard to pronounce things.
Michel Thomas
cracks little jokes throughout the course (well I say jokes, but
they are more like humorous comments. For example, he says "they're
in their own club, they want to keep it that way" where he
is talking about the go-go verbs. I think that if anyone else tried
to get away with this humour, it just wouldn't work. But for Michel,
teamed with his accent and the fact I have a small soft spot for
him, he manages to pull it off and actually got a small chuckle
from me.
I have never
done an audio course which I have enjoyed doing as much as this
one. The teaching method is just fab and really makes you remember
things. I would not hesitate in buying more of Michel Thomas' language
courses. He's been teaching languages for over 50 years and he obviously
knows what he is doing. He is even considerate enough to provide
another extension to the course. This is his own Language
Builder - I haven't tried this one out yet but apparently it
provides you with vocabulary and more grammar (if that's even possible)
and if it has Michel Thomas on the CD it cant be half bad!
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I
have never done an audio course which I have enjoyed doing
as much as this one. The teaching method is just fab and really
makes you remember things. I would not hesitate in buying
more of Michel Thomas' language courses.
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Click
here for more information about all Michel
Thomas Advanced language courses.
Michel Thomas is the world-famous language guru, who has taught
the stars to speak another language in record time. He has taken
his ground-breaking audio-only technique and put it on CD and cassette
for us all to enjoy. There is a beginner
8-hour Michel Thomas language course available in French, German,
Italian and Spanish and then a follow-on intermediate
2-hour Michel Thomas Language Builder available in the same
languages. He has recently released Michel
Thomas Advanced language courses in French, German and Spanish.
Click here for more information about all Michel
Thomas language courses..
Click
here for more information about the best and most innovative Spanish
language courses.
If
you require any further information, please contact
us.
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