Mini-Retirement - Learn Thai the Natural Way

Sick of learning languages the traditional way, perhaps it's time to try something completely different. Automatic Language Growth (ALG), is a Thai (Chinese and Japanese also) language course provided by A.U.A.

There are no tests, no homework, an open schedule so you can go when you want (provided the school is open), no books, no exercise, grammar isn't a focus and you are actively encouraged not to speak, and yet, the programme produces many competent students who have near perfect accents. For people, who complete the course (over 1,000 hours), it is said that they have a much better grasp of the language than other language courses.

Instead of the usual language classes, there are some striking differences with AUA's approach. One of the most, is that two native speakers provide the class. In this way, students get to hear realistic conversations (natural language)that are made comprehensible to the students, via visual aids, objects, actions, props, body language etc. Reading about people who have attended the course, they claim to have understood fairly complex stories with almost minimal Thai.

The course was designed by Mr Brown, who based the course approach on how children learned. He didn't develop this method until fairly late in his life. He spent approximately 30 years teaching the traditional way. He was a great believer in practice, practice, practice but after a disastrous review of his course in an American University, he completely revamped his approach. Once he got the ALG course running he knew that the model is much better than the traditional approach.

The basic tenets of the course are;

-- Listening and observation are the primarily tools for learning a language.
-- Speaking too early will damage your long term ability in that language (by this, they mean approx 700 hours for a Western studying Thai)
-- Acquisition and guessing at the meaning of words, are a better model of picking up a language than vocabulary lists and practicing are.
-- Listen first, speak, read and write much later.

Unfortunately, this approach seems to be unique to Thailand. I haven't tried the course but I'd love to. it might not be to everyone's taste (as some people want to speak straight away) but it sounds like the most effective approach so far developed.

To find out more about the course AUA Homepage