Audio lingual language programs

[diplomaticus]

It seems that someone who created courses of this style for Arabic, Chinese, and the like would make out quite handsomely.

[peterbeischmidt]

I just came across the textbook "Demotic Greek" by Bien, Chrysanthi and Rassias, and thought that it would be a nice addition to this thread. Here's the blurb:

The purpose of this textbook is to teach beginners to speak and understand modern Greek in a relatively short time. The method is oral/aural, and there is no translation whatsoever. The language is presented as it is spoken. Grammatical points are discussed as they are encountered, and a grammar, for reference only, has been placed at the end of the text.

Tapes for use in a language laboratory are available. The record all the dialogues and drills in the text and allow students time to repeat each phrase and to respond to the drills. Also available is a supplementary Workbook, with answer sheets, for those who wish to give more emphasis to writing or spelling.

I'm not sure if the tapes can be found now, forty years after its publication.

[Speakeasy]

Hello, Peter:
Thank you for the addition of "Demotic Greek" by Bien, Chrysanthi and Rassias to the list. I notice that the Indiana University CeLt archive has the recordings: http://www.iu.edu/~celtie/greek_archive.html. However, they are available only to registered students, staff, and faculty members. My past attempts at gaining access to restricted files, or having them released to the general public, have not met with success. It seems that the issue of public access is always one of copyright.

[diplomaticus]

Does anyone know of an audiolingual method for Indonesian?

[Speakeasy]

I notice that the FSI and DLI websites, the "usual sources" for the public domain audio-lingual courses, do not presently display a Basic Indonesian course.

Nevertheless, there continue to be purveyors of the FSI and DLI courses on the Internet and, more particularly, on EBay. Looking at the description and the onscreen images of the Indonesian Language Training Course http://www.ebay.com/itm/Learn-Indonesian-Indonesia-Language-Training-Course-Guide-/190619231695?hash=item2c61caa5cf:g:caQAAOxyV85RyyRA that is available on Ebay, I "suspect" that it is copy of the DLI Basic Indonesian course. You could try contacting the seller, but there is no guarantee that they will reply. Otherwise, you could simply place an order and, given the very low price, "buy a pig in a poke" that may, or may not, suit your purposes. If you do order, please let us all know how this worked out for you.

I have checked the "Spoken Language Services" website (they sell mostly audio-lingual courses that were often the precursors of the FSI courses) and they do not offer an Indonesian course.

As a "long shot", you could try asking about Indonesian materials available at the University of Michigan LRC:
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/lrc/sales. Recently, they began releasing their archives of audio recordings to meet individual, specific, requests. As far as I understand, many of the recordings in their collection match older language courses that were, at times, published by the University of Michigan and for which the textbooks are still available on Amazon, AbeBooks, etcetera. It is "possible" that, given the age of these courses, some of them employed the audio-lingual approach to teaching/learning. Should the UofM reply in the affirmative and should they send you a link to the audio files, you could ask them to identify the textbook and order it. In either case, it would be very helpful to other members of the forum were you to insert the link into the separate discussion thread: http://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1534

Finally, if you were to use the Search Function of this forum and of the HTLAL, you would come across a number of discussion threads (2,600 in the HTLAL) that mention "Indonesian". Some of the members who posted in those threads are still quite active and may be able to guide you.

[diplomaticus]

Thanks for the reply. I was able to find this site selling the out-of-print Linguaphone course for what seemed like a reasonable price, so I went with that.

http://www.language-learning.org/Buy_Linguaphone.html

Unsure if it was legal, but the download worked, so here we are!

[peterbeischmidt]

Thanks for the reply. I was able to find this site selling the out-of-print Linguaphone course for what seemed like a reasonable price, so I went with that.

http://www.language-learning.org/Buy_Linguaphone.html

Unsure if it was legal, but the download worked, so here we are!

The owner of this website obviously downloaded them for free from a certain well-known website before he offered them in his shop... I'd bet any amount of money that he doesn't have the permission of the copyright holder to sell them.

I think, this would make a nice target for a DoS.


On another note, is anyone familiar with "Artes Latinae" or "Latin for the New Millenium"? The question comes up occasionally whether there are any audio-lingual methods for Latin, and I'm wondering whether these two publications might be the answer. For example, form the description of "Latin for the New Millenium":

LNM offers aural-oral exercises in each chapter—a necessity for Latin programs expected to comply with campus-wide language department policies. In addition, all readings from LNM Levels 1 and 2 are available for download from iPodius.

Unfortunately, they don't offer any audio samples.

The publisher's website can be found here: http://www.bolchazy.com

[diplomaticus]

Thanks for the reply. I was able to find this site selling the out-of-print Linguaphone course for what seemed like a reasonable price, so I went with that.

http://www.language-learning.org/Buy_Linguaphone.html

Unsure if it was legal, but the download worked, so here we are!

The owner of this website obviously downloaded them for free from a certain well-known website before he offered them in his shop... I'd bet any amount of money that he doesn't have the permission of the copyright holder to sell them.

I think, this would make a nice target for a DoS.


On another note, is anyone familiar with "Artes Latinae" or "Latin for the New Millenium"? The question comes up occasionally whether there are any audio-lingual methods for Latin, and I'm wondering whether these two publications might be the answer. For example, form the description of "Latin for the New Millenium":

LNM offers aural-oral exercises in each chapter—a necessity for Latin programs expected to comply with campus-wide language department policies. In addition, all readings from LNM Levels 1 and 2 are available for download from iPodius.

Unfortunately, they don't offer any audio samples.

The publisher's website can be found here: http://www.bolchazy.com

Really I'd just like to know why Linguaphone doesn't sell it anymore. I wonder if the Indonesian course is a dud?

[Serpent]

For Indonesian, I liked http://www.learningindonesian.com

[diplomaticus]

For Indonesian, I liked http://www.learningindonesian.com

Did you utilize the premium lessons? Care to share your view of how far the free ones got you and if the paid ones are worth it?