Talk:Michel Thomas

Barbie Trial
Added a link to one of the citations in World War II section. btw, it's inaccurate to say Thomas' testimony against Barbie was "excluded by the prosecutor." Only a judge can exclude testimony. It would be more accurate to state what actually happened, per news accounts:


 * He would later testify at the 1987 trial of Barbie in Lyon, although the prosecutor subsequently asked jurors to disregard Thomas' testimony.

Rivenburg (talk) 02:52, 1 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Rivenburg: you were previously banned & blocked and are currently blocked indefinitely from editing this article because " your edits strongly indicate you're on a campaign against the individual Michel Thomas, and your actions to that end are having an acutely detrimental effect on the articles in question." You must cease & desist from editing this article or risk further censure. 166.205.139.18 (talk) 02:53, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Primary sources and other stuff
It appears that this article is heating up again, with various IPs making various unexplained deletions and changes. I am concerned about the sourcing of the article. Based on a fairly cursory check, parts of it appear to be unsourced or sourced to primary sources, and other material hosted at Michel Thomas' website. For example, there is no source given the Mahl/Knittel issue which has currently in dispute. e.g.  Maybe the info is in the missing second half of the 1950s LA Daily News article hosted on Thomas' website, but there must be better, more recent, more independent sources in any case. There are plenty of solid secondary, indepedent sources out there, and I believe the referencing should be solidified to these. Given the dispute, I think it might help to quell the back and forth. What do others think? --Slp1 (talk) 11:52, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

"He survived Nazi persecution..."
I propose removal of this text because 1) it is POV and 2) it is not supported by what follows.

We are told that he served in the Resistance and was arrested "several" times. On at least one of these occasions he escaped. Presumably on the others he was eventually released. He was sent to prison camps, which an occupying power was legally entitled to do to a resistance fighter under then current international law of warfare. They were even legally entitled to execute him.Channelwatcher (talk) 12:28, 20 July 2010 (UTC)


 * re: "They were even legally entitled to execute him."
 * Under the laws of the Third Reich government, the authorities broke no law by exterminating millions in the concentration camps and by mass executions by the Einsatzgruppen. Nor did the Gestapo violate any laws by torturing tens or hundreds of thousands in the prison cells and torture barracks throughout the Reich.


 * By the logic of the above contributor, those who were tortured and murdered by the regime were therefore not "persecuted."


 * OK...


 * 207.215.212.90 (talk) 20:02, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I was referring to international law. I thought that would have been clear. Channelwatcher (talk) 18:00, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 * In fact, on looking again, that is what I explicitly said. Please learn to read before commenting. Channelwatcher (talk) 18:02, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I have changed it to "He survived imprisonment in several different Nazi concentration camps...", which is factually accurate and NPOV. Channelwatcher (talk) 18:18, 8 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Re:"Please learn to read before commenting": please learn some manners. (Your edit is fine, by the way.) 132.162.91.43 (talk) 04:15, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, nice work there Channelwatcher. I'd hate to see the word "persecution" used to describe certain acts of the Nazi regime, so many of which were perfectly legal under the laws of the Reich -- and international law as well -- and were done simply to defend the blood & soil of the Nation. 12.189.103.2 (talk) 12:37, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
 * "Blood and soil" sounds a bit neo-Nazi for my taste, but the principle is sound. Similar standards must be applied to all nations and parties. Thomas was legally imprisoned; no nation on earth would not at the very least imprison a captured "terrorist"/"freedom fighter". Channelwatcher (talk) 18:36, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I propose to change "slave-labor camp" to "labor camp" for similar NPOV reasons. Any prison labour camp is a "slave" camp in the sense that the labourers do not choose to be there, and we do not have information here about the specific camp(s) or conditions. Concentration camps and labour camps were different institutions so the use of both terms is correct. Channelwatcher (talk) 18:36, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

University of Vienna
"The rise of the Nazis drove him to leave for the University of Bordeaux in France in 1933, and subsequently the Sorbonne and the University of Vienna.[1]" Did he really go to Vienna at this stage? Is this supported by the quoted source? The next section about WW2 places him in France. Either way some clarification is in order. Channelwatcher (talk) 18:49, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Removal of Citation to NY Times article
On July 2nd, 2013 99.48.26.193 removed the external link to the recent NYT item about Michel Thomas. 99.48.26.193 is in the Los Angeles area, where the former LA Times humor columnist resides who was banned & blocked from editing this article. If this IP address can be further traced to Orange County it would be further indication of prohibited mischief.

On July 10, 2013 new user Spokannie removed the external link to the recent NYT item about Michel Thomas, without stating a reason. I have undone this edit, but it's clear that this article is becoming a target for vandalism, or at least tendentious edit-warring. Appropriate appeals to senior Wikipedians will be forthcoming. NV Researcher (talk) 19:04, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

This has a familiar feel to it and senior Wikipedia editors -- who put a stop to all the nonsense a few years ago -- need to be notified. 2600:1010:B017:855F:B1A1:714A:98EA:26EE (talk) 19:59, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

64.134.233.136 is the latest IP address of someone who wants to remove the link to a recent NY Times article about Thomas on the grounds that it's "not neutral." By this logic, any article, in any publication, even the New York Times, cannot be included in a Wikipedia bio if it casts the subject in a positive light. This IP traces to Orange County, as did the first one (99.48.26.193). It is likely being made by Roy Rivenburg, who was banned & blocked from editing this article several years ago. I urge a senior editor to block further edits to this article. NV Researcher (talk) 23:35, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Michel Thomas Method - discussion of a missing information on his pedagogy.
Missing from the article on Michel Thomas is a discussion of his method. As this page is contentious, the changes proposed are here for comment: Michel Thomas Method Michel Thomas was a language teacher with a specific approach to teaching. Thomas proposed that there is no such thing as "a student with learning difficulties, only teachers with teaching difficulties." . According to Dr. Jonathan Solity of University College London, Thomas held that there are three critical components of the teaching environment: "The first is the analysis of the material to be learned. If the analysis is correct, teaching is easier and the subsequent learning of the pupil ensured. The second is isolating and structuring the most useful information to teach so that there is a logical progression in the skills, knowledge and concepts taught. Easier skills are taught before more difficult ones and useful information is taught before less useful information. in this context useful information is defined in terms of its generalisability and wider applicability. The third component of the learning environment is determining the best way of presenting skills, knowledge and concepts to students so that learning is facilitated." The method presents the target language by interleaving new with old material, teaching generalization from language principles, contextual diversity, and learning self-correction in an environment that attempts to be stress-free, as the teacher is responsible for learning, not the student. Serenest (talk) 15:14, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Solity book
I'm really kind of torn about the Solity book in general, and specifically as a source for the article.

It's a weird book at times -- it feels like most of it was written as an academic book by Solity independent of the MT method, and then Hodder bought it for a rebrand and rewrite to make it an MT book. So it feels like there's a lot of citations (from published academics) removed out, and it's really hard to identify the actual source/origin/motivation for much of what's mentioned in it. Prof Wrong (talk) 20:01, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 05:07, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Michel Thomas receiving Silver Star at WWII Memorial May 2004.png