In 1997, Michel Thomas agreed for the first time to let cameras record his teaching method where he claimed he could teach in days what normally takes years.
“Michel claimed that he could teach me French over a weekend, 3 days or so.
And I thought, what do I’ve got to lose?
Either the guy is crazy and I lose a couple of hundred bucks, or it’s some kind of miracle.
So I gave it a try.”
– Woody Allen
For the documentary, Michel agreed to come to London to demonstrate for the first time ever that outdated classroom methods are the problem, not the students.
The film opens with him stepping into a classroom.
“This reminds me of my own classrooms, as a child, as a youngster in high school and it was always under stress, uncomfortable.
One had to associate learning with work, with concentration, with paying attention, with homework – it’s all work.
But learning shouldn’t be work.
Learning should be excitement.
Learning should be pleasure.
And one should experience a constant sense of progression in learning.
And one would want more.
That is learning to me.
And a teacher is somebody who will facilitate and show how to learn.”
– Michel Thomas
Michel didn’t belive in the concept of an aptitude for learning or being a good student.
He believed only in good and bad teaching.
For the experiment he took several students that by most standards would be consiered as academically very average.
The students were promised they would learn more in five days than they usually learn in years at school.
When they arrived, they sat down at the school desks, still unsure what to expect.
Michel Thomas looked at them, looked at the tables and chairs, and said he did not think they could feel comfortable in that environment.
He wanted them to feel comfortable.
So he began rearranging the entire room.
The desks were removed.
The lights were dimmed.
Couches replaced chairs.
The atmosphere felt more like a conversation circle or a therapy room than a language class.
The students glanced at each other, asking themselves what was going on.
It was already clear that this would not be a typical lesson.
Then the moment had come.
Michel Thomas started by telling the students that before he began teaching, he would like to set up a very important ground rule:
“Before starting, I’m going to set up a very important rule. A very important ground rule.
And that rule is for you:
Never to worry about remembering!
Never to worry about remembering anything!
And therefore not to try!
Never to try to remember anything from one moment to the next.
This is a method where the responsibility for your remembering and for learning is in the teaching.
So if at any point there is something you don’t remember, this is not your problem.
It will be up to me to know why you don’t remember individually and what to do about it.”
– Michel Thomas
The camera caught the students exchanging surprised looks.
How could that possibly work?
Everything they had ever known about learning a language, every test and every exercise, had been about memorizing.
It was the opposite of everything they had experienced in school.
What happened next became history.
Click here to watch the full documentary “The Language Master”.
Talk to you soon. Bis bald.
Manuel
P.S. Whenever you’re ready, here are 5 ways I can help you take your German to the next level.