The Callan method

Does anyone have any experience of knowledge of this method. Apparently this method is quite popular in Japan on a website called english-bell.

From what I can tell the method involves intensive drilling in English. I have never enjoyed drilling as an approach to language learning, since I believe that constant exposure to interesting content will enable the brain to acquire the words and the habits of the language.

I hear people say that they can understand the spoken language and can read but just have trouble speaking. I have never found that to be the case. Those people who say that they can understand the spoken language and can read but cannot speak, in fact do not understand well when you speak to them  and never read a full book in English.

I remain of the view that if you train your ability to understand the spoken language, and the written language, and if you learn enough vocabulary through that process, you will develop the potential to speak well when the need or opportunity arises.

A small amount of speaking and writing from time to time will prime you, and aid in your acquisition of the language, until you finally find yourself in situations where you need to speak. Trying to force people to speak based on a limited knowledge of the language has always seemed to me to be an unpleasant way to force the language on people. It seems that many or perhaps most people are convinced that it takes someone else to teach them the language, whereas in my experience it is up to the learner to learn the language.

Any views on the Callan method or other methods based on drilling?

Comments

[Valina Eckley]

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=4LmFYbmsY7U

seems fake and childish to me... Personally, I don't think I would ask any of those questions to anyone over 3-4 years old.

but maybe that is just me...

[Steve Kaufmann]

Thanks Val, interesting video. I would not study this way.
1) I would not sit in a classroom doing this day after day.
2) I am in no hurry to learn to say "thumb" "hand" etc. nor do I want to guess what the teacher wants me to say.
3) I believe that you need a lot of words in order to become fluent in a language. This would be a painful way, and I think an ineffective way to accumulate a large vocabulary.
4) I am quite happy learning passively, mostly listening and reading and focusing on vocabulary, with a minimum of interaction with a tutor, for a long time. This is easier, more pleasant, cheaper, and in the long run more effective, in my view.
5) This looks very demanding on the teacher and the student.
6) If students put the same amount of time into this approach and into LingQ over one or two years, I believe the results at LingQ would be better, and it would have cost only a fraction as much.

The brain takes it time to learn a language properly. I do not believe that there are shortcuts.

[mike]

Steve, one interesting counter-example to your statement "I hear people say that they can understand the spoken language and can read but just have trouble speaking. I have never found that to be the case." is provided by Richard Watson.

Prof. Watson is an internationally renowned Descartes scholar. He has written extensively in french, and this led to his problem; he was invited to present his paper in Paris. As he writes quite humorously in his book "The Philosopher's Demise" he struggled to learn to *speak* french even though he is fluent in reading and writing.

[Steve Kaufmann]

Mike,

I do not know if this is a counter-example. I suspect that if Richard Watson wanted to learn to speak he could do so in short order. His work has lead him to treat French like Latin I would surmise.

[Ana]

The video is a nightmare... it reminds me of Primsleur. I tried some of their lessons, but I ended up each one with a headache...
But I do think written drills are helpful to memorize some structures, if they are done consciously. Unfortunatelly, people tend to learn the "trick" to get rid of them as quickly as possible, and then the goal is lost.

[nobuo]

Steve,
I don't have any experience of the Callan method, but I've watched many video of this lesson. And many of my online freinds (some of LingQ members!) take this callan one on one lessons regulally with skype video. I often their lesson report on their blog.
Here is the video of English Bell's online lesson.(see below of the page)
http://www.english-bell.com/info2/class7.asp

As a member of LingQ, I believe the LingQ method is a good place to improve our learning language. LingQ is the good place for the motivated learners and intermediate or advanced learners. However it's difficult to keep learning for the beginners.

I don't know the callan method will work well or not.
Many of my friends , who take the callan online lessons, take 20 or 40 one on one online lessons every month. It means they take one or two lessons every day. And they have audio files and text. They have to buy them. They practise by themselves with this auduo.
And there is 12 stages in this methos. All learners have to start from the 1st stage.

I impressed the active lessons of the callan teathers on the videos. I believe thoese lessons are better than the boring lessons in high school or college.
I never taken such active speaking lesson in school.

I think Speaking drills will work for beginner. But it must be boring for advanced learners.

Everyday lesson or everyday learning is the key to improve their learning language. It is difficult for the beginners to learn the language everyday. English-Bell offer everyday lesson with reasonable price.

The students have to speak, have to repeat aloud when they take lesson in this method, even if they are beginners. As you know it's very diffucult to speak something for beginenrs when they take lesson with native tutors. They often hesitate to speak something in group lesson. I think that speaking something is better than silence.

And 12 stages is very good idea. They have much motivate to climb up the ladder. Most of my friends who complete the 1st stage of this method, they try to challenge the next stage. This idea is good to keep the learner's motivation.

I'm interested in pick one of new courses in LingQ. I hope you offer some of the good idea from the callan method or English bell, like regullar everyday lesson, or the idea of stages. I think many of the Japanese readers and callan method learners are interested in your critical comment about the callan method. But it's difficult to comment here in ENGLHSH. I suggest you speak about this on video in Japanese. You'll get more comment from the callan method learners.

nobuo

[Thiago]

I think the Berlitz method is similar to that and it always made me feel unconfortable to teach students like that. I had the impressioan they were being treated as mentally retarded...

Maybe for total beginners and depending on the age and profile, it could work somehow...

[hawaiki]

Hi,

I've been teaching Callan for a few years now, and I've grown to like it and appreciate its system. Even though it was difficult to apply, it paid off after a year or so.
Results really depend on the students' motivations(sounds familiar?) It does work if you apply the method correctly!
Not for everyone, I agree... But hey,it's been around since the 60s, it's gotta work, right?
Low key, inexpensive, and fast results, isn't it what most students want? Don't be fooled by the cover and videos. As for the childish,weird, and philosophical-like questions used in the method, they are there for very good reasons.
Go, look and see the results for yourself.

[Steve Kaufmann]

Nobuo,

I thought I had left a comment, but perhaps something happened at Typepad, What I said was that I would like to hear from people who are using this website. I asked if you knew the names of blogs where it is being discussed. I also said that I went to the link you left and read the information. I listened to the video. The Japanese student spoke better than the Filipina teacher.

[nobuo]

Steve,
Thanks for your response. OK, I understood. However, I can't tell the names of blogs. Because they are MY online friends and they are doing their best to learn English with this callan method. You have the negative opinion about this method. If you visit their blogs and if you leave some negative comments about the callan method, it will discourage them. I respect their effort to learn English, even if the method is not good. It's the matter of the friendship, OK.
Try to serch callan or カラン with google blog serch.
If you find their blogs yourself and read the information only, I don't care. If they read your blog and want to give you the information about the callan method, they'll leave their commnets here.

One point I want to tell you, EnglishBell is getting popular recently because of this method. The text and audio are expensive, but the number of the students are increasing. And many of the students keep buying the lesson tickets after they finished 1st or 2nd stages.
And still they have strong motivation, I heard. I believe there is something secret to keep student's motivation in this online school or this method.

nobuo

[Steve Kaufmann]

No problem Nobuo. Thanks for bringing this subject up. We are going to try to incorporate some aspects of this technique at LingQ. Here is what I said at our LingQ Forum.

From my resarch on the web it appears that many people find these types of classes fun and useful. I would like to learn more about what goes on in a Callan class but I can see the benefit of combining this kind of focused drill with LingQ.

The benefits that I can see are:

1) the learner is forced to speak , there is no room for shyness
2) the learner does not have to think of what to say, simply picking up on what the tutor says using the same words.
3) lots of repetition
4) a high tempo

I think this would be especially useful for focusing on problem areas. I can see this for my Russian for dealing with verbs of motion, or cases, or verb aspects etc. It can also be helpful for pronunciation although I am less convinced of that. I do not think this system is as effective as LingQ for vocabulary growth, and on its own I think that for some people it might take the fun out of language exploration. But combined with LingQ it might be an effective choice for some learners.

We could call this "focus drill" or something and do it in one on one discussions, and probably only for beginner and intermediate learners.

I would like the learner to be in charge,not the tutor. Therefore we would ask the learner to submit a list of his or her "problem" LingQs to the tutor. The learner can tag words or phrases that cause difficulty and email these tagged lists to the tutor. Another way would be for the learner to email a discussion report or writing report to the tutor. If it is the same tutor who did the report the tutor already has these reports.

The tutor would then ask questions in a high tempo using many of the words and language patterns on these lists. The tutor would aggressively correct mistakes and repeat the questions with some slight variation.

At any rate, I offer this as an idea and would appreciate feedback and ideas, especially from people like Hitomi who have used this method

[Forrest]

Hi guys,

Yes, I have experienced Callan method.
Actually I liked it. Although I did not finish
until the last stage, it worked for me in many ways.

Yet I guess learning something based on methods,
( not only the Language ) really depends.

Some like it and some don't, it works for some and
it doesn't.

After all, it's all up to students.

There is no point for comments on this subject, as
it gets nowhere.

That's how I see it.

[Mike]

Steve, the book by Richard Watson *is* a specific counter-example to you claim. Its more long-essay than book length, BTW. He *wanted* to learn to speak, he *tried* to learn to speak, and he did not succeed.

The book is a very humorous account of his work with tutors and also a class-based immersion approach. Of course he didn't try LingQ :-)

[Steve Kaufmann]

I had a quick look at the philosopher's demise on the web and I can only say that I would love to talk to Watson and invite him to join LingQ,

[mike]

you can look up his contact info here: http://www.wustl.edu/cgi-bin/directory/index.pl

[Carlos]

Callan Method is, in fact, an excellent method.I don't believe the ones who say the opposite because I know the method and how it works!Of course , language institutes don't like it ... teaches too fast... lol