National Dynamics Speed (Language) Series (all audio)

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Speakeasy
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National Dynamics Speed (Language) Series (all audio)

Postby Speakeasy » Thu Jan 17, 2019 8:22 pm

Preamble
About a year ago, I came across an offer on eBay for a complete set of the “Speed Series Spanish” course. As the three-volume set included a total of 24 audio cassettes accompanied by three course manuals, I suspected that this course might be yet another variant of the first level, or perhaps the first two levels, of the FSI Spanish Basic course.

0 Speed Spanish I-II-III 2.jpg
My searches of the internet led me to a couple of offers on Amazon for the first volume only which were accompanied by brief but ultimately uninformative customer reviews. I located a few additional used, incomplete, sets of the courses for sale on AbeBooks and eBay, leaving me with the impression that either (a) these courses had not enjoyed a high level of popularity, or (b) the courses were so highly-valued by those who had purchased them that very few people were prepared to part with them (an unlikely scenario). Eventually, I located the publisher’s website, which appears to be operational (the copyright notice includes the year 2019) and sent them a couple of Emails to which I never received a reply. Finally, intrigued by the sheer mass of audio recordings, and as the price for the three-volume set was so attractively-low, I ordered the lot, received delivery, and have been playing around with the cassettes on-and-off. Here is what I can tell you about the course:

National Dynamics Speed Series (audio only)
2 Speed Series Languages.JPG


Languages Available
According to the publisher’s website, following a two-year development program, the company commenced operations in early 1984 with the offer of its “Speed Spanish” line of self-instruction language courses and, shortly thereafter, introduced similar courses for the teaching of French, German, Italian, and Japanese. LINK: (http://nationaldynamics.com/aboutus.asp)

Guiding Philosophy
The publisher’s website offers the following viewpoint behind their approach to teaching: “The main reason you had a hard time in High School Spanish Class is that by Sophomore Year most of your brain cells were already Hard Wired to English. It really isn’t your fault. Blame it on your brain! From birth to about age six, billions of cells on opposite sides of our brains hook up with each other using long fibers called axons… Beginning about age 12, any connections we haven't used begin to dissolve away. The axon connections formed have hard-wired our brains to the sounds of language(s). If you waited until high school to start learning a new language, your brain had no place to store the new sounds. As a result, your brain tried to think in English and say Spanish words as if they were English words. Your brain got very confused. Rather than re-invent the Adult Brain, our Speed Tape Method gives you dozens of "strategies" that help you use English words and phrases to remember new words and phrases in Spanish, French, German, Italian and Japanese. Just listen. Your brain will enjoy learning as much as you do … The program took two years to develop and had input from several expert linguists and teachers in Southern California and throughout the USA. Once perfected, the program successfully helped adults and children who only spoke English learn a new language without memorizing long lists of proper verbs, nouns and unnecessary grammar.”

Materials and Prices
A complete set of the three-volume course packages includes: (a) 24 audio-cassettes or 24 compact discs, for a total duration of approximately 24 hours, (b) three instruction manuals (transcripts of the audio recordings), (c) packaged in a hard-shell, plastic storage case. The company’s website advises that the materials will soon be available in digitized format for use on computers and smartphones. Prices (rounded) are 120 $US per volume or 340 $US for a complete three-volume set.

Approach to Teaching (all audio)
The courses employ the “all audio” approach to teaching. The “Helpful Hints” section at the beginning of the accompany course manuals advises the user: “Although books are included, it is not necessary that you use them to learn. All of the information is included on the tapes, so there is no need to follow along with the books. The books are a direct transcription of the material on the tapes and are there for reference if you have a question about something you heard, or if you are also interested in learning to read and write the language.” Having listened to a selection of the recordings and having read through the corresponding texts, I am left with the impression that the books are, indeed, a “transcription” of the audio recordings and not a script from which the audio recordings were prepared. That is, the narrator/instructor seems to have been working from prepared notes but not a complete script or, perhaps, was speaking extemporaneously without notes following years of practice as a teacher.

The narrator’s delivery is pleasant and informal, resembling that of someone addressing an evening adult language class or first-year college students. For the Spanish program, despite the presence of what-appears-to-be a native-Spanish-speaking assistant, in the person of Marilyn Perona, the author and instructor, Dan V. Mikels, does the vast majority of the speaking, both in English and in Spanish. His delivery is well-modulated and well-articulated in both languages. Nevertheless, his Spanish is tinged with a noticeable, but not at all irritating, Anglophone accent.

The language is introduced through various “strategies” that are meant to emulate how one might learn a foreign language, progressively, with the guidance of a personal instructor or in a full-immersion setting. As for the Pimsleur programme, the structure of the language is not discussed directly; rather (without explicitly saying so), it is assumed that the student will infer the main grammatical issues. The pace of instruction is quick, but not rushed. Although there are few recorded opportunities for review, the “Helpful Hints” section of the accompany course manuals offers the following suggestions to the student: “Listen to one side of a tape per day and progress through all the tapes to the end, without repetition. Then go back and start Tape 1 again. Each time you go through the tapes, you will learn more and more … don’t try to learn all of one tape before proceeding to the next one … rather than listening to a complete side of a tape without stopping, break up your listening time into 10-to-12 minute segments … studies have found that we retain more from the beginning and end of a segment than from the middle …” Hmm, sound advice, indeed! In other words, the reinforcement must be gained through successive listening to the recordings. I would note, however, that I found the recordings somewhat “less interactive” than, say, the Pimsleur or Michel Thomas programmes.

Final Comments
I have experience with the competing “all-audio” self-instruction language programs by Pimsleur, Michel Thomas, Paul Noble, and Linguaphone AllTalk and, just as it would be easier to contrast each of the foregoing, one against the others, than it would be to compare them, the same can be said for the Speed Series by National Dynamics. They have all adopted unique (well, okay, except for Paul Noble) approaches to teaching the basics of a foreign language. In the case of the Speed Series, I would estimate the level upon completion to be bumping up against, but not quite penetrating, the CEFR A1 level. Does the Speed Series work? I think that it has the “potential” to work for students who enjoy this publisher’s approach.

EDITED:
Corrections to auto-correct.
Minor changes to the title of this discussion thread.
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MorkTheFiddle
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Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
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Re: National Dynamics Speed (Language) Series (all audio)

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Wed Jan 23, 2019 12:20 am

Certainly a shame that the web site provides no sample audio whatsoever, so thank you for giving us an idea of the level the tapes might take students to and of the nature of the speaker.
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