English Wordplay ~ Listen and Enjoy
MICHEL THOMAS 1914-2005
Polyglot linguist, language teacher and decorated war veteran. He survived Nazi persecution, served in the French Resistance and worked with the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps during World War II. After the war, he emigrated to the United States, and developed a language-teaching system known as the Michel Thomas Method.
"The World's Greatest Language Teacher"
To Thomas there was no such thing as a bad student only a bad teacher.
Learning how to block out pain, while being tortured in a concentration camp, unveiled to Thomas the potential of the human mind. He used the experience to build his new method of teaching languages and set up an institution in Beverly Hills.
He taught the rich and famous - Woody Allen, Grace Kelly and Francois Truffaut among them - for money, and gave classes for free. "Michel claimed he could teach me French over a weekend, and I thought: Why not? Either the guy's crazy and I lose a coupla hundred bucks, or it's some kind of miracle. So I gave it a try and he was, you know, amazing." Woody Allen