Languages

I trained as a teacher and I can see in Paul Noble's approach to teaching French lots of the latest thinking on how people learn best. He draws on the knowledge you already have, eg words in French and English that are the same or similar. He minimises learning by rote, instead he makes links between words, ideas and concepts so you understand why something is the way it is rather than just parroting it back. Because he helps you to understand the underlying grammar you are empowered to start to build your own sentences using the rules and logic you have learned. He frequently revisits what you have already learned to fix it in your memory. This is a very powerful way to learn. I am now onto the third download and have learned how to use the present, past and future tenses to talk about basic things like booking a room, ordering food and reserving a table, saying what I think, visiting the doctor, getting directions, buying tickets shopping etc. Also little constructions to make the conversation flow more smoothly, such has how to use 'it', and 'there', eg 'I have bought it'' and 'I want to go there'. It is not a miracle worker and I will still have to practice a lot to become confident and sort out my 'you musts' from my 'you cans' but I am well on my way and feeling very motivated by this approach. Paul also speaks very clearly and is not annoying at all. All of the French is repeated by a native French speaker so you can be confident you are getting the correct pronunciation. I took French at school until the age of 17 but I can confidently say that I have learned more through this CD than all my time at school. My criticisms would be that there are no tracks on the downloads, only chapters, which can be half an hour long. Therefore if you want to go over something again you have to rewind rather than just skip back. Also the pdf is designed to be printed on A5 and I have A4 paper so it is quite wasteful on the paper front.