I saw this Callan method thing floating around in a lot of job and training advertisements some time ago. It was making some pretty big claims about its effectiveness. I'm always interested in hearing about new methods (well, techniques and activities, anyway), because I do believe teachers increase their options and variety by mixing together aspects of different methods and - well, basically experimenting.
So I got onto YouTube and found some examples - including this one (the whole nine minutes is pretty much the same, so you only really need to check out the first couple of minutes):
My immediate reactions to this were:
- Wow, the audiolingual method is alive and well
- Audiolingual plus a splash of TPR thrown in
- Highly pre-set and organised
- Very active, good high level of tempo
- Very pronunciation-focussed, fluency-based at a very superficial level
- Perhaps a good model for the occasional warm-up or mid-lesson activity
- Can a method become any more TEACHER centred???
- Where's the communication? Why aren't students ever talking to each other?
- How could a teacher do this for 6 lessons straight, five days a week?
- As a method, looks to be showing students what they want to see (rather than what they need to experience)
- How on earth is anyone at Callan managing to promote this as the NEW cutting-edge language learning method?
Well, the lady in the example lesson above also talks about the method and what's it like to use it as a teacher (promotional of course, but worth a listen):
All in all, in my opinion, there might be some useful activity ideas here to promote pronunciation and fluency practice. But in very small doses and only as a practice-based side-jaunt within a broader and more interactive approach.
As an overarching method for learning a language? Yeah, if you like timewarps and believe we should all go back to audiolingualism and just adapt it a bit...
Interestingly, I think this method would be really popular in a context like Korea, where parrotting and drills and "fun/active/fast" pronunciation-oriented techniques are admired. The "learn a language in a quarter of the time" pitch from Callan would certainly appeal to them as well...
:-D
