I have had a Damascene conversion about the teaching of languages. Until now I have been a believer in the old-fashioned methods: learning how to conjugate verbs, learning the grammar, learning vocabulary and doing translations.

I have considered the modern idea of language-learning - particularly the idea of learning phrases - to be absurd and obviously misguided. It was, I thought, clearly a bad idea not to learn the meaning of individual words. I still hold to that view.

However there is a different, modern way of learning which I have stumbled across which seems to me an improvement on both (though it surely needs to be backed up by some of the old-fashioned methods).

I tried a CD course by Michel Thomas. I bought it with the idea of helping my 10 year-old daughter to learn Italian. There is a dearth of Italian language textbooks for children. She, I must admit, is not as excited by the CDs as I am. On the other hand, I think they are helping her a great deal. (My teaching of both Italian and French to her has, I confess, not been as successful as I had hoped.)

Michel Thomas' approach is clever in a number of ways, not all of which can I easily describe.

You are always learning something new yet also using something you have already learned. This gives you an encouraging sense of gaining knowledge and being able to say something new in a foreign language. But at the same time, since you are repeating something you already know, you are also sub-consciously re-inforcing your memory of that.

You thus are motivated to keep going and you are memorising without any conscious effort. You are also learning to speak the language from the very start.

I recommend the course certainly to adults and older children and probably for children down to the age of 10. And I am copying Michel Thomas's technique for my own teaching of French to my daughter.

Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Home education

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I have had a Damascene conversion about the teaching of languages. Until now I have been a believer in the old-fashioned methods: learning how to conjugate verbs, learning the grammar, learning vocabulary and doing translations.

I have considered the modern idea of language-learning - particularly the idea of learning phrases - to be absurd and obviously misguided. It was, I thought, clearly a bad idea not to learn the meaning of individual words. I still hold to that view.

However there is a different, modern way of learning which I have stumbled across which seems to me an improvement on both (though it surely needs to be backed up by some of the old-fashioned methods).

I tried a CD course by Michel Thomas. I bought it with the idea of helping my 10 year-old daughter to learn Italian. There is a dearth of Italian language textbooks for children. She, I must admit, is not as excited by the CDs as I am. On the other hand, I think they are helping her a great deal. (My teaching of both Italian and French to her has, I confess, not been as successful as I had hoped.)

Michel Thomas' approach is clever in a number of ways, not all of which can I easily describe.

You are always learning something new yet also using something you have already learned. This gives you an encouraging sense of gaining knowledge and being able to say something new in a foreign language. But at the same time, since you are repeating something you already know, you are also sub-consciously re-inforcing your memory of that.

You thus are motivated to keep going and you are memorising without any conscious effort. You are also learning to speak the language from the very start.

I recommend the course certainly to adults and older children and probably for children down to the age of 10. And I am copying Michel Thomas's technique for my own teaching of French to my daughter.

Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Home education

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I have had a Damascene conversion about the teaching of languages. Until now I have been a believer in the old-fashioned methods: learning how to conjugate verbs, learning the grammar, learning vocabulary and doing translations.

I have considered the modern idea of language-learning - particularly the idea of learning phrases - to be absurd and obviously misguided. It was, I thought, clearly a bad idea not to learn the meaning of individual words. I still hold to that view.

However there is a different, modern way of learning which I have stumbled across which seems to me an improvement on both (though it surely needs to be backed up by some of the old-fashioned methods).

I tried a CD course by Michel Thomas. I bought it with the idea of helping my 10 year-old daughter to learn Italian. There is a dearth of Italian language textbooks for children. She, I must admit, is not as excited by the CDs as I am. On the other hand, I think they are helping her a great deal. (My teaching of both Italian and French to her has, I confess, not been as successful as I had hoped.)

Michel Thomas' approach is clever in a number of ways, not all of which can I easily describe.

You are always learning something new yet also using something you have already learned. This gives you an encouraging sense of gaining knowledge and being able to say something new in a foreign language. But at the same time, since you are repeating something you already know, you are also sub-consciously re-inforcing your memory of that.

You thus are motivated to keep going and you are memorising without any conscious effort. You are also learning to speak the language from the very start.

I recommend the course certainly to adults and older children and probably for children down to the age of 10. And I am copying Michel Thomas's technique for my own teaching of French to my daughter.

Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Home education

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An email from Civitas:

Dear James Bartholomew We saw a couple of your recent pieces on your blog and the Mail on Sunday about home schools. I thought you might be interested to know about our special offer to home schools on one of our education titles, Our Island Story. Home schoolers can get copies at postage and packaging cost only (£5). You might want to pass this on to other home schoolers. We have also tried to be at the forefront of the current debate on synthetic phonics by publishing for the first time this year an established reading course, The Butterfly Book. Best wishes Nick Cowen -------------------------------------------------------- Nick Cowen Research and administrative assistant nick.cowen@civitas.org.uk www.civitas.org.uk Office: 020 77996677 Civitas: Institute for the Study of Civil Society 77 Great Peter Street London SW1P 2EZ

I am using

Our Island Story

for teaching my daughter an overview of the course of British history. The history is probably no longer regarded as being wholly right but the author tells stories and children love stories. I did not know the one about the siege of Calais and it is very dramatic. This book has recently been supplemented by watching the video of The Six Wives of Henry the Eighth, which is excellent once it gets going, and also the video of the series in which Glenda Jackson starred as Elizabeth I. This is less compelling but has certainly also held my daughter's attention. The episode on the plot to kill her is particularly good. These TV series bring the Tudors vividly to life and they are, I believe, much more accurate than the recent film on Elizabeth.

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Apparently there is a candidate in the US presidential election who is particularly well-liked by those who home-school their children.

Homeschoolers for Ron Paul is a group of concerned home-educators who believe that parents should be free to make educational choices for their children without government interference. Ron Paul is committed to protecting parental rights, including the freedom to home-educate, and he has proven this with a consistent voting record and continued recognition of homeschoolers and their achievements.

Here is a link to the group of home-schoolers who are supporting his candidacy.

I orginally thought that my decision to home-educate one of my daughters for a few years was completely separate from my views on the welfare state. But I am beginning to see some connections. For one, the state in Britain has gradually increased its control of every kind of schooling, including private schools. Home education is inherently separated from this control - at least under the current legislation in Britain which, thankfully, remains unconstraining. But I believe the British government has already looked at increasing its control and in other countries, I understand, governments have already started telling parents what they should teach and, perhaps even what they should not teach.

I assume that the home-schoolers in the US who support Ron Paul are concerned about government interference.

There is something about welfare states: those who organise them hate to see anyone or any institution making their way outside their control. Perhaps it is offensive in that anyone acting independently is implicitly saying, "I can manage without your money or your regulations and instructions. I don't need you and, what is more, I don't want you."

This is crossing from analysing social policy into the psychology of politicians and government employees. It is a subject worth of study. I believe that the people at Human Givens have, perhaps among others, given it some attention.

Aspect facet of this is the way that the ideal of individual freedom has faded as a political ideal. In the French Revolution, they called for Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. If they were having a revolution today, Liberty would be dropped. Again, I see a possibility that welfare states have had played a part in diminishing the ideal of liberty. But I will return to that another day.

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I don't intend that this should become a home education website. Unfortunately I don't have the time or technological skill to set up a new site on the subject. So I may occasionally have some postings about it.

What are good books to base home schooling on? Any suggestions?

I have found the following good:

Ancient Rome by Peter Ackroyd. A concise and readable account of the entire history of the Roman Empire from beginning to end. Well illustrated, it included a great deal that I myself did not know. We took turns reading it out aloud.

So You Really Want To Learn French. It is hard work but Alex is 'really' learning French. It is a compromise between the old way of learning languages (grammar-based) and the new (through speaking and use of phrases). The main verbs and how they are declined are introduced gradually.

Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Home education

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