I went to Middlebury College's Summer Language Program for French. In seven weeks, I skipped past 2 years of college level French classes. I was well beyond the norm for that class, but it was not an exceptional amount of work.
The instructors there were a real credit. And it was a kick to sit down at dinner with people from the more advanced classes (including graduate level learners) and have them respond somewhat incredulously, "You're in BEGINNING French?"
It was fun -- a lot of fun, and mentally challenging in a good way. That made it easy to do.
The Middlebury French program was just beginning to use a new video based course course instruction / materials. This didn't reduce the contribution of their instructors, but it enhanced the experience significantly. It really helped in presenting French as actually spoken (well, relatively so; it's still relatively free of the everyday slang and contractions). It also presented language use in context. You saw the setting in which things were being discussed and used. There was a lot of supplementary information regarding (Parisian) French culture and behavior, that you picked up not deliberately but as much by osmosis while watching the story within the lessons. And there was just that, a running storyline that helped you to stay engaged and curious as to how it would unfold. It was somewhat campy, deliberately so and with an open wink, but nonetheless enjoyable. Finally, you could watch the videos as often as you liked. Something I found possible with the videos, while language audio tapes almost immediately put me to sleep.
(Actually, the Middlebury instructor was godmother to the video course developer/instructor's daughter. She had a very good handle on the material and an excellent pedagogical pedigree. Her assistant was equally excellent.)
For Spanish, there is at least one instructional course I am aware of that uses videos. It is fairly contemporary with the French video material I've been describing.
The videos are available on line, albeit in DRM'ed WMF/WMV format with a quite small framesize. A legitimate route to a better format may be through your library (tapes/DVDs: unfortunately very expensive for individual purchase), or per chance a local PBS station if you are in the U.S. There is also at least one torrent floating around, although I've never downloaded it.
Again, the show has a running story to help keep you engaged.
By the way, at the bottom of that Wikipedia page is a link to a page on the French video course that I was describing: French in Action.
P.S. I didn't look at your links, yet, Wallflower (my apology, but I wanted to respond before I got sidetracked).
Your text did mention Beloit and "not for beginners". This suddenly made me think further of my own experiences. Middlebury's program was billed as "immersion", and you actually signed a "contract" of sorts stating that you would use the language you were learning exclusively at all times to the best extent possible.
Sounds really impressive, up front. In practice, many of the beginning class members were not that motivated and they mostly spoke English outside of class. The amount of effort and success varied, and plenty of people showed some good will effort. But the "immersion" experience did not match the marketing.
I was more than a little frustrated by this. But in terms of a lesson to pass on, I would say not to allow yourself to be intimidated by such marketing language. If you have an honest intent to learn and practice, that's probably going to quickly place in you the top 25% of performers, regardless of your starting ability.
I also spent some time during college in Munich, Germany, as part of an exchange program. Again, the program billed itself as "advanced" and requiring fluency and daily use of German. In practice, a lot of those kids could barely string a sentence together. (And you haven't lived until you've heard German spoken with a full on Dallas drawl. ;-) It seems that one kind of marketing for these language courses focuses on projecting the image of "advanced learners". My personal, anecdotal experience is that, for the U.S. audience, at least, and a couple of decades ago, this was consistently, dramatically exaggerated.
Don't let a bunch of attitude put you off. If you really want to learn, you're already ahead of 4/5 of the pack.
The instructors there were a real credit. And it was a kick to sit down at dinner with people from the more advanced classes (including graduate level learners) and have them respond somewhat incredulously, "You're in BEGINNING French?"
It was fun -- a lot of fun, and mentally challenging in a good way. That made it easy to do.
The Middlebury French program was just beginning to use a new video based course course instruction / materials. This didn't reduce the contribution of their instructors, but it enhanced the experience significantly. It really helped in presenting French as actually spoken (well, relatively so; it's still relatively free of the everyday slang and contractions). It also presented language use in context. You saw the setting in which things were being discussed and used. There was a lot of supplementary information regarding (Parisian) French culture and behavior, that you picked up not deliberately but as much by osmosis while watching the story within the lessons. And there was just that, a running storyline that helped you to stay engaged and curious as to how it would unfold. It was somewhat campy, deliberately so and with an open wink, but nonetheless enjoyable. Finally, you could watch the videos as often as you liked. Something I found possible with the videos, while language audio tapes almost immediately put me to sleep.
(Actually, the Middlebury instructor was godmother to the video course developer/instructor's daughter. She had a very good handle on the material and an excellent pedagogical pedigree. Her assistant was equally excellent.)
For Spanish, there is at least one instructional course I am aware of that uses videos. It is fairly contemporary with the French video material I've been describing.
Destiños
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destinos
The videos are available on line, albeit in DRM'ed WMF/WMV format with a quite small framesize. A legitimate route to a better format may be through your library (tapes/DVDs: unfortunately very expensive for individual purchase), or per chance a local PBS station if you are in the U.S. There is also at least one torrent floating around, although I've never downloaded it.
Again, the show has a running story to help keep you engaged.
By the way, at the bottom of that Wikipedia page is a link to a page on the French video course that I was describing: French in Action.
HTH