Richfilth: Gazzaroon, don't take this personally, but the reason Berlitz is getting attacked is because its methodology is proven not to be an efficient mode of language acquisition. Being based around its own tests, all it proves is that students can be taught to pass Berlitz exams, in much the same way the British Council teach students to pass the Cambridge exams (whether or not anyone in the business world uses Yours Faithfully any more). The Berlitz method is an unchanging dogmatic attempt to force language down someone's throat. Some students pick up some useful stuff, I won't deny, but research repeatedly shows that those students would pick up exactly the same amount of English from just watching films, or having a conversation with a native, with or without Berlitz's wholly unfounded "method." The Communicative method, which IH teaches in its CELTA courses, is a system of tools which regularly changes over time to adapt to the latest studies in Language Acquisition. It's not a kogo-czego-we-do-this method, like all Polish Language schools use; it's just a way for the teacher to get through to his* student, whether he uses flash cards, audio recordings or targeted questions. The Berlitz method doesn't use any of that; it just uses slick phrases, well-drawn photocopiable sheets for every single student and extremely high prices to convince the client he's getting a quality service. * or her, of course.
As I have repeatedly said I am not saying it's the best method but it's an option for someone wanting to learn the language quickly, as is IH, Callan or other methods. The point I am trying to make, and seemingly rather poorly, is that students learn in different ways that is appropriate for them and only they can choose. There is no hard and fast rule for learning a language which is why different methods are still operating today.
All of us have probably heard horror stories relating to different methods, schools and so on but I tend not to listen to them as people need to find the best way they learn, a good teacher and then commit the realistic time to learning the language in an appropriate manner.
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