Callan Method

http://www.callan.co.uk/detailedpreface.htm

P A R T O N E
Introduction

It could perhaps be said that, as English is the international language, most people in the world today would like to be able to speak it. It might be useful to them for their work, their social life, or for when travelling abroad. However, although they would like to be able to speak it, they are often very reluctant to learn it.

The same is true of learning to play a musical instrument - most people would like to be able to play one, but do not want to go through the long, boring and demanding process of learning how to play. The reason for some people's reluctance to learn English is that they find it takes too long, costs too much (if studied at a private school), and requires too much mental energy, which they cannot spare if they are studying other subjects or have to work all day. In addition to this, they often feel they have little or no natural ability for learning a foreign language.

The Callan Method Organisation, after many years of experimentation, intensive research and development, has now changed all this by producing a method that reduces studying time to a quarter of the usual time, also making it possible for virtually anyone to learn the language.

The Cambridge figure
According to the University of Cambridge, the average student studying at the average school throughout the world takes about 350 hours (about four academic years) to reach the level of the internationally famous Cambridge Preliminary English Test. The Callan Method gets him (or her) there in about 80 hours (about one academic year), and to the more advanced Cambridge

First Certificate in about 160 hours.
No homework
With the Callan Method, there is almost no homework, whereas with other forms of teaching, for every hour the student spends in the classroom, he spends about 15 minutes outside on homework, thus adding 25% (87 hours) to his studying time, turning the 350 hours previously mentioned into 437 hours.

The guarantee and free lessons

Because the claims of the Callan Method are extremely difficult to believe - in fact they sound humanly impossible, like a man claiming he can run a one-minute mile - most private schools of English using the Callan Method give their students a written guarantee that if they fail the Cambridge exams or fail to reach their desired Stage of the Callan Method in the number of hours stated on the guarantee, the schools will give them free lessons until they are successful.

Such schools can also guarantee students for their exams at state school and university. If a student does not wish to take any specific exam, he can be guaranteed to reach whatever level of English, or Stage of the Callan Method, he desires, in a stated number of hours.

Although the claims of the Method sound humanly impossible, it must be remembered that radio, television and rockets to the moon are also inventions that once sounded humanly impossible; nonetheless they are now facts of life.

95% pass rate
For the Cambridge exams, most schools using the Callan Method have a pass rate of about 95%, compared with the international average of around 70%, as shown in the statistics published by Cambridge University.

Trial lessons
Most schools using the Callan Method allow the student to take 15 trial lessons before he has to decide whether or not he wishes to enrol. If he does not enrol, he receives the lessons free. If, however, he enrols, he pays for the lessons with his first payment.


Payment on results
Unlike other schools, most schools using the Callan Method allow their students to pay on results instead of in advance. In this way, if the student is not satisfied, he does not pay. This is the greatest proof of the truth of the Method's claims, as the schools are not asking the student to believe anything they say or to risk his money.
Alternatively, a school might make the student pay monthly in advance, but each time the student comes to pay for his next month of lessons, the school checks to see that the student has reached the level promised him in his guarantee. If he has not, it will refund him the equivalent of the difference in lessons. For example, if, in his first month, the student has been guaranteed to reach paragraph 60 in his book, covering an average of 5 paragraphs a lesson, and it is found that he has reached only paragraph 50, he will be refunded the money equivalent to 2 lessons, which is the number of lessons it would have taken to cover the shortfall of the 10 paragraphs.
Valid by law
In most countries of the world (such as England) it is against the law to issue a guarantee if its terms cannot be fulfilled. The legality of the guarantee should, therefore, prove that the claims of the Callan Method must be true. It is also against the law in most countries to make false statements in publicity.
A bad reputation means bankruptcy
If a school using the Callan Method did not keep to the terms of its guarantee, it could be sued by its students, and would consequently acquire a bad reputation locally, and if it had to give too many free lessons, it would go bankrupt. This too shows the validity of the guarantee and that the claims of the Callan Method must be true.
Even if the guarantee were not valid by law, it would still be a valid document, as any school not keeping to its terms would soon be found out as a cheat, and would be avoided by the public, and consequently go out of business.
The logical argument
Purely as a logical proposition, the claims of the Callan Method must be true. A school using the Callan Method is not like a man selling "gold" watches on the corner of the street who vanishes the next day before the customer finds out the watches are defective and not really made of gold. The school has to prove to its customers that what it says is true before they pay for the goods, and, in addition, has to provide a continuous high standard of service. If it did not, it would soon acquire a bad reputation among the local community for making absurd claims that it could not substantiate, and would quite quickly have to close.
Ask the other schools
If the student wishes to have confirmation of the figures given in this book, he can ask those schools in his town not using the Callan Method how long they take to get their average complete beginner to the level of the Cambridge exams (or their equivalent), and whether or not the schools give a written guarantee of success. A verbal guarantee is, of course, of no value - anyone can claim to do anything verbally.
The Survey
According to a Survey carried out in 1988, the average foreign student studying in England took about 600 hours to reach the level of the Cambridge Preliminary, compared with the 100 hours taken by Callan students studying at the London Callan School - the figures for the First Certificate being double this.
The reason Callan and non-Callan students in England take longer to reach the level of the Cambridge exams than students studying in their own country is that in England the students study in mixed-nationality classes in a short, concentrated period of time. Instead of studying three hours a week for four academic years, they study three hours a day for nine months. The third hour is not usually very profitable, because of tiredness; and students in mixed-nationality classes hold each other back, through each nationality having different problems.
The real figure is nearer 800 hours
Although non-Callan students studying in their own country take only 350 hours for the Preliminary, the total amount of time they actually spend learning the language is about double this. The figure of 350 hours applies only to classroom work. For every hour the student spends in the classroom, he spends another hour outside it acquiring the language in a non-academic manner. During the course of the four years, he usually spends a lot of time acquiring English from films, records, books, newspapers, magazines, holidays abroad, or from English-speaking friends or pen-pals. The Callan Method student, on the other hand, learns virtually all his English in the 80 hours of classroom work. This is because he completes his course in a mere six to ten months.
If the 87 hours of homework are added to the 350 hours of classroom work and then to the 350 hours spent acquiring the language outside the classroom, it will be seen that the average non-Callan student spends a total of nearly 800 hours to reach the level of the Cambridge Preliminary.
The slowest Callan student is faster than the fastest non-Callan student
The director of one of the oldest-established and largest schools in London has stated that, in his 38 years' experience, he has never known a student to pass the Cambridge First Certificate in less than 400 hours. Any Callan student taking this number of hours would be considered extremely slow.
Companies using the Method
Many large international companies use the Callan Method for teaching their employees English, and would not do so unless they were satisfied that its claims were justified. Most schools using the Callan Method have such companies on their books.
The record for the Callan Method is 87 hours
In fact, a student studying English with the Callan Method at one of these large international companies passed the Cambridge First Certificate in a record 87 hours - starting as a complete beginner.
The Method is infallible
The reader might wonder how it is possible to guarantee everyone success in the learning of a language - surely it depends on the individual's natural ability ? Contrary to popular belief, however, anyone can learn a foreign language, exactly as anyone can learn to type. We have all learnt one language already - our own. Consequently, we are all capable of learning another language. With the Callan Method, the student never fails to learn. If this were not so, schools using the Callan Method could not guarantee every student success in the Cambridge exams. The only difference between students is that some learn faster or more slowly than others.
When learning subjects such as maths, science or philosophy, one does perhaps require some kind of natural ability, but not when learning a foreign language in its initial stages.
"He" also means "she"
It will be noticed throughout this book that the student is always referred to as "he". This is, of course, only for the sake of convenience - "he", naturally, also means "she".
Schools using the Callan Method usually enter more students for the Cambridge exams
Because the Callan Method is so fast and easy, it takes more students to the level of the Cambridge Certificates than other forms of teaching, and gets a higher percentage through their exams. A school using the Callan Method often enters as many as ten times more students for these exams than other schools.
For example, the thousand English-language schools in England, in a four-year period to 1986, each entered an average of 2½ students per year for the Cambridge Preliminary, whilst the Callan School in London entered 112. For the Cambridge First Certificate the schools entered an average of 18 students compared to the 155 entered by the Callan School, of whom only 5% had to be given free lessons because of failure. In 1994, the Callan School entered a total of 600 students for the Cambridge exams, with a 95% pass rate.
Only about 1% of Callan students fail to complete each Stage of the Method in the guaranteed number of hours; only about 1% fail their university exams, and 3% their state-school exams. Of the 5% of students who fail the Cambridge exams, virtually none fail on their second attempt.
When enquiring at other schools in his town, the student should ask them how many students they enter for the Cambridge exams, or equivalent exams, and what percentage pass. He should also ask to see the schools' statistics.
The Callan School in London
With its 70 or more classrooms and 1700 to 2200 students, the Callan School is the largest English-language school in London (and almost certainly the largest in Europe). The second largest school has only 450 to 600 students, whilst the average school has only 13 classrooms, which of course makes it difficult for it to grade students with the same accuracy as that achieved at the Callan School.
Financial savings
Naturally, because the Callan Method reduces studying time to a quarter, it reduces a student's expenses to a quarter, and saves governments and large international companies three-quarters of the annual budgets they set aside for the teaching of English, thus also indirectly benefiting the taxpayer.
19 words an hour compared to 4¼
Learning a language can be compared to building a house - the words are the bricks, and the grammar the girders. In order to reach the level of the Cambridge Preliminary, the student has to acquire a mastery of about 1,500 words (3,000 for the First Certificate). He not only has to know the meaning of these words, but must also know the grammar that goes with them, and be able to use them quickly and correctly in any sentence. As the average Callan student masters these words in about 80 hours, it means he learns at the rate of about 19 words an hour. With other forms of teaching taking 350 hours, students learn at the rate of only 4¼ words an hour. In one month, at five hours a week, the Callan student masters 380 words whilst the non-Callan student masters only 85.
Cambridge University bases its Preliminary examination on a vocabulary of about 2,200 words. The Callan student, however, needs only about 1,500 words. This is because he has complete mastery of these words (and the grammar that goes with them) and can use them to communicate as effectively as a student who has a knowledge, but not necessarily a complete mastery, of 2,200 words.
Even if the non-Callan student had a complete mastery of the 2,200 words, he would still have learnt at a rate of only 6¼ words an hour, which is only about a third of the Callan student’s 19. For the average non-Callan student to have a complete mastery of the 2,200 words, he would have to study for more than the 350 hours.
27 pence a word compared to £1.17
The cost of lessons at a private school varies from school to school, town to town, country to country, and, of course, from year to year; but if, for example, a lesson costs £5 (by London 1995 rates), it is seen that a Callan student pays £400 for his 80 hours of preparation for the Cambridge Preliminary compared with the non-Callan student's £1,750 for his 350 hours. This means that to master 1,500 words the Callan student pays 27 pence a word compared with the non-Callan student's £1.17. Even if the non-Callan student mastered 2,200 words, he would still be paying 80p a word, which is still treble the Callan student's 27p.
The student should learn to think in terms of "cost per word taught" and "cost for a complete preparation" rather than in terms of "cost per lesson". The number of words he learns per lesson does not depend so much upon himself, or on his teacher, as upon the method the teacher employs.
How schools using the Callan Method can guarantee success
After the student has completed his first 15 lessons, a school using the Callan Method will calculate his speed of learning. If, for example, he has covered an average of four pages per lesson, the school divides this figure into the total number of pages the student will have to cover to reach the level of the Cambridge Certificates. This will give the number of lessons required. The school can then give the student a guarantee for this number of lessons, plus a percentage to cover such things as lateness and absenteeism.
The reason a school using the Callan Method can calculate in advance how many lessons each student will require, and guarantee every student success, is that, unlike students using most other methods, the Callan student cannot proceed from Page One to Page Two of the Method until he has mastered all the material on Page One. If he proceeds prematurely, the lesson becomes incomprehensible to him, as it is based almost entirely on oral work. Consequently, when the student has, for example, reached Page 100, he knows and can use all the material on the preceding 99 pages, and can automatically pass any exam at that level.
How the Method achieves its results
The reader might wonder how the Callan Method achieves its remarkable results. It would, of course, take many pages to explain exactly how the Method works, but, basically, the Callan Method student listens and speaks four times more during the lesson than he would with any other form of language teaching. Consequently, he learns in a quarter of the time taken by any other form of language teaching.
Language learning is not an academic subject, it is a skill subject; therefore the more one practises the faster one learns, exactly as with typing. If the student practises an hour a day, he is going to learn in a quarter of the time he would take if he only practised 15 minutes a day.
With most other forms of language teaching, the student is listening for only about 15 seconds of every minute, i.e. for about 25% of the lesson. The rest of the time his mind is wandering - he is looking at his watch, looking out of the window, or thinking about what he is going to do that evening. With the Callan Method, he has to listen for 60 seconds of every minute (i.e. four times as much), because the class is constantly being bombarded with questions from the teacher, and the student does not know when he is going to be asked a question.
With other forms of language teaching, the student hardly opens his mouth during the lesson. The teacher does most of the talking, and a great deal of the lesson is spent with the teacher writing on the blackboard, or with the students writing in their notebooks. With the Callan Method, the students are speaking the whole lesson, at least four times as much as they would be with any other form of language teaching - and often ten times as much. This is because they are obliged to answer questions the whole time.
If the individual wishes to have proof of all this, he can ask to sit in on a Callan lesson and see how much speaking and listening the Callan students do, and then sit in on lessons at other schools, and make a comparison.
With other forms of language teaching, the students are not learning to speak and understand the language: they are only learning about the language. This is like trying to learn to play the piano by studying the history of music, or by learning how the piano is made, or just by listening to the teacher play. The only way to learn to play the piano is to play it. The only way to learn to speak a language is to speak it.
It could be said that the Callan Method is not four times faster than other forms of teaching, but that other forms of teaching are four times slower than the Callan Method. The Callan Method makes maximum use of the time available, whilst other forms of teaching use only a quarter of that time, wasting the other three-quarters.
The student is obliged to speak
Of the four aspects of learning a language - reading, writing, speaking and listening - it is the speaking of a language that is usually found to be the most difficult. As already stated, with the Callan Method, the student is not only obliged to listen the whole time, but he is also obliged to speak, because he is constantly being asked questions. In this way, he soon overcomes any initial embarrassment he might have in speaking, thus giving him confidence in conversation outside the classroom.
The student is obliged to learn
As is evident from the foregoing, if the student is obliged to listen the whole lesson and is obliged to speak, it follows that he is also obliged to learn, whether he wishes to or not. It is virtually impossible with the Callan Method for the student to sit in the classroom and not learn. This aspect of the Method is very important for state schools where students are often reluctant learners. With most other methods, the students are usually able to sit in the classroom hour after hour, year after year without learning very much - the end result being that they can hardly form a simple sentence in the language - an appalling waste of human life. Because the Callan Method obliges the student to learn, he soon becomes quite enthusiastic, as he feels he is achieving something.
Another reason the student is obliged to learn, and is able to do so, is that the nature of the Callan Method makes it virtually impossible for the teacher to carry the students forward from Page One to Page Two until everyone in the class has understood and remembered almost everything on Page One. The normal procedure at a state school is to pass students from Book One at the end of their first year to Book Two in their second year, and so on, irrespective of whether or not the students have mastered Book One. When a Callan Method student, on the other hand, has completed Book One of the Method, it means he has mastered 80% to 100% of its contents.
Talking at top speed
One of the ways the Callan Method achieves maximum speaking time and maximum concentration from its students is by ensuring that, from the very first lesson, the Callan teacher speaks to his students in English at the rate of 200 to 240 words a minute. This is faster than normal conversational speed, which is only about 150 to 180 words a minute. Teachers using other methods speak at only 100 to 120 words a minute. The Callan teacher’s extra speed prevents boredom, makes the student concentrate, stops him translating in his head (by not giving him time), allows him to hear more words repeated more times, makes it easier for him to understand English outside the classroom, and, of course, makes him learn faster.
The student, of course, does not speak at the same speed as the teacher; he speaks only at normal conversational speed.
The need for speed
The reader might think that speed is not all that important in language learning, and that accuracy and correctness are more important. Naturally, accuracy and correctness are important, especially in writing, but speed is absolutely essential in speaking and understanding, and especially in understanding. Like most mechanical reflexes, a language is performed at speed. The understanding in particular has to be done at speed. When reading, writing or speaking one can go at one's own pace, provided it is not too painfully slow, but when listening, the understanding has to come instantly; one cannot slow down the speaker, particularly if the speaker's voice is coming from the radio or from the television or cinema screen. The student must, therefore, be able to understand English at a minimum of 180 words a minute.
The two meanings of speed
There is the danger when talking about the Callan Method of confusing the two meanings of the word "speed". Two things are meant by speed: 1) the speed of the lesson, that is, the speed of speaking and understanding, and 2) the speed of progressing through the Callan Method books and reaching a certain desired level. The Callan Method gets its students to the desired level in a quarter of the normal time, and, at the same time, teaches its students to speak and understand much faster than with other methods.
Learning fast means learning well
Some people say they do not wish to learn English quickly. They just want to learn it well. They are afraid that if they learn quickly, they will not learn well, and will forget everything just as quickly. Learning subjects such as history or geography in a rapid manner would of course be disastrous, but, unlike almost any other subject, a language is, in fact, best learnt quickly. Speed in speaking and understanding a language is essential. It prevents the student thinking in his own language, and conditions him to think in the foreign tongue, thus avoiding confusion.
If the reader doubts that it is possible to learn well at speed, he should remember that, like most schools, schools using the Callan Method prepare their students for the Cambridge First Certificate, and to pass this exam the students must have studied well, and not just fast. The end result is always the same. It is like taking a university degree in one year instead of four. It is the same degree.
12,600 words an hour
Because the Callan teacher speaks to his students at about 240 words a minute (about twice as fast as teachers using other methods), and both teacher and students speak the whole time throughout the lesson at a combined speed of about 210 words a minute, the Callan student has about 12,600 words an hour going into his ears, either spoken by the teacher or by the other students. With other methods, he has only about 3,000 words. By hearing more words per hour spoken in the classroom and using more words himself, the student naturally learns much faster - four times faster, in fact.
Each student has his own speed of learning
With the “average” Callan Method student taking 80 hours to reach the level of the Cambridge Preliminary, an "exceptional" student will take only about 40 hours, a "fast" student 60 hours, a "fair" student 100 hours, whilst a "slow" student might take 120 hours. The type of student taking 120 hours would typically be a middle-aged person who did not speak a Western European language.
Lesson of Prova
When a student begins his studies, a school using the Callan Method gives him his first lesson by himself in order to ascertain his knowledge of English and his speed of learning, so that it can find him a suitable course. This lesson is called a Prova.
Speed comes from constant revision
The Callan Method achieves speed of speaking and understanding by asking the students the same questions every day until they can understand and answer them at top speed. This top speed is usually attained after the students have heard the questions on four or five occasions.
Poor memory is overcome by constant revision
The two greatest enemies of learning are boredom and poor memory. The Callan Method overcomes boredom through speed, and poor memory through revision. Revising everything four or five times, not only ensures speed of speaking and understanding, but also ensures that the student remembers what he learns (usually for the rest of his life), no matter how poor his memory.
"Learn English in three months (or even three and a half weeks)"
One of the problems the Callan Method has to face is that of being associated in the public mind with such things as miracle cures for baldness, or adverts saying "Learn a language in three months". Such adverts seldom give the precise level reached after three months (usually quite a low one), or offer any guarantee of success in an exam conducted by an independent body. The word "guarantee" is even sometimes used in adverts, but no written guarantee is actually given. Some people can, of course, learn a language in three months, if they have a great natural ability, excellent memory, and totally dedicate themselves to the task; but such people are extremely rare. The Callan Method, on the other hand, defines precisely the level the student reaches and guarantees him success, whether or not he has a good memory or any natural ability.
Some teach-yourself language courses claim that the student can teach himself a language in 35 hours. At one hour a day, this would mean he is able to speak the language at the end of seven weeks (some courses claim at the end of 3½ weeks). At that rate, in about six months (or three months), he would be able to speak four languages. Why is it, therefore, that everyone in the world is not multilingual ? If cures for baldness really worked, why are there still so many bald people in the world?
When learning a language, most people need the stimulus of speaking to a teacher and fellow students in a classroom. Learning by oneself can be very boring, which is why most people give up the attempt after an initial effort. Also, without a teacher, there is no-one to correct one's errors of pronunciation - one cannot learn to speak a language just by listening to it : no more than one can learn to play the piano just by listening to someone else play.
One indication of the level reached with teach-yourself courses is the number of words the student is reckoned to learn in the number of hours the course is said to last. Often the number of words is as little as half that required for the Cambridge Preliminary, and many of the words taught are not among the most commonly-used in the language. If a course claims to teach a thousand words in 35 hours, the learning rate is about 30 words an hour. It is, however, quite easy for most people to memorise 30 words in an hour (or even three times this number), and if that were all that the learning of a language consisted of, we would all be multilingual. Unfortunately, learning a language requires putting words together in a sentence quickly and correctly, and this involves the development of a quick reflex - as taught by the Callan Method. It is much easier to understand a language, especially if spoken slowly and clearly, than it is to speak it, especially at normal speed. This is why a great many people know a language, but cannot actually speak it.
Most teach-yourself language courses just teach the student to get by in the language when on holiday. The Callan Method, on the other hand, teaches the student the language in its complete form.
One internationally well-known language course, for example, claiming to teach a language in about 35 hours is found upon inspection to teach only about 300 words - a level equivalent to about the first quarter of the Callan Method Book One. This can hardly be described as "teaching a language". Before an individual can claim to be able to speak a language he must have mastered a vocabulary of at least 1,500 to 2,200 words and the grammar that goes with it; that is, he must have reached Cambridge Preliminary level. The average Callan student learns 300 words in about ten hours or so, and also learns to use them at speed.
The Cambridge Preliminary in six months
If the average Callan student studies for three fifty-minute lessons a week, he will take ten months to reach the level of the Cambridge Preliminary, including the 25% his school would add to cover such things as lateness and absenteeism. If, on the other hand, he studies for a lesson a day, five days a week, he will take only about six months. Generally speaking, the shorter, more concentrated period of time is to be recommended. All students can reach the Preliminary level quite easily and usually find it more stimulating and less boring to dedicate themselves to the task for six months rather than draw out the studying time to ten months.
Even a slow student would not take more than nine months at five lessons a week.
The level of English reached after 40 hours
To give the reader an idea of the level the average Callan Method beginner student reaches in a mere 40 hours (or rather 60 lessons, i.e. 48 fifty-minute lessons, plus 12 lessons (25%) to cover such things as lateness and absenteeism) he completes in this amount of time, i.e. 12 weeks (at a lesson a day), Book One of the Method, which is halfway to the level of the Cambridge Preliminary, and contains approximately the 1000 most-commonly-used words of the language; words such as “come, go, high, already, often, have,” etc., that are used hundreds of times a day, and which constitute 90% of the words on any page or in any normal conversation in any language. He learns to master these words and the grammar that goes with them - Past, Present, Future, Conditional etc. - in reading, writing, speaking and listening.
To prove this to be so, the reader can look at the last page of Book One, on which he will see the question: “If you found anything in the street worth a lot of money, would you keep it or would you take it to the police station?” At the end of the 12 weeks, the student is able to understand and answer this question asked him at top speed. He is also able to write out the question from dictation, translate it and use its vocabulary comfortably in any normal conversation, as he is able to do with the rest of the 1000 words. This level of English enables him to hold a simple conversation and write a simple letter in English.
If, after the 12 weeks, he has not reached the end of the book, many private schools using the Callan Method will refund him his fees, equivalent to the number of lessons short of his target.
As the Callan Method can obtain such a remarkable result in a mere 12 weeks, it follows that it can also get the student through the Cambridge exams in record time.
If the student is never late or absent, he can achieve the above result in 9½ weeks.
The Cambridge Preliminary is the best yardstick
The Cambridge Preliminary, rather than the First Certificate, is the best yard-stick for measuring one method against another. This is because every student is able to reach the level of this exam, and in a relatively short period of time, whereas far fewer students throughout the world reach the level of the First Certificate.
Why the Cambridge exams?
The reason schools using the Callan Method prepare most of their students for the Cambridge exams is that these exams are much better known throughout the world than other exams and have been in existence for much longer (one since 1913). They are indeed truly international.
The schools prepare students for any exam
Although most Callan students taking exams take the Cambridge exams, schools using the Callan Method prepare students for any kind of exam which is at the same level as, or a similar level to, the Cambridge exams, and guarantee them accordingly. By studying with the Callan Method, the students automatically reach the level of these other exams. They then only need a few lessons of examination technique in order to sit the exams.
The student is not obliged to take the Cambridge exams
The Callan student is, of course, not obliged to take the Cambridge exams, or any exams whatsoever. He might be studying for his own personal satisfaction. He can cease studying at any point, but if he does reach the level of the Cambridge exams, it would be a pity not to sit them and have a valuable certificate to show his level of English. He might not need the certificate at the present moment, but one day in the future he might wish to work abroad, or in a job at home which requires a knowledge of English, and consequently will be asked for his level in the language. To say that he has a "good" or "fair" command of the language is rather vague, but if he can say that he has one of the Cambridge Certificates, his future employer can immediately classify him, as the Cambridge Certificates will almost certainly be well known in the employer's own country.
Even if the student is studying just for pleasure, he might as well have a certificate at the end of it so that he has something to show for the effort he has put into learning the language. It could give him personal satisfaction, and something to aim at.
What are the levels of the Cambridge exams?
When the student has reached the level of the Cambridge Preliminary, it means he has a good command of 1,500 words and all the basic grammar (Past, Present, Future, Conditional, Subjunctive and Past Perfect tenses etc.). It means he can travel abroad and feel reasonably comfortable in the language. He can, for example, book a room at a hotel in English, order a meal, ask for a taxi to pick him up the next day to take him to the airport, and so on. At an international gathering he would be able to socialise, holding the sort of simple conversations that people tend to have on such occasions. In addition to this, if he is skilled enough in using what he knows, he could even conduct a certain amount of business in English.
By the time the student has reached the level of the First Certificate, he will have acquired a total of 3,000 to 4,400 words and will have had more practice in using the language, and consequently should feel very comfortable in it, and be able to use it for most activities.
In June 1997, Cambridge introduced a new exam called Key English Test (KET) which is below the level of the Preliminary and at about the level of Stage 4 of the Callan Method.
The Preliminary is half-way to two-thirds of the way to the level of the First Certificate
In its "Information for Centres and Candidates" pamphlet, Cambridge University states that "the Preliminary English Test is designed to test written and spoken communicative competence in relation to listening and reading ability up to a level represented by about 350 hours study from beginner level. This may be thought of as a level about two-thirds of the way towards the First Certificate in English. The vocabulary demanded is the equivalent of Level Three in the Cambridge English Lexicon" (R. Hindmarsh, C.U.P. 1980). The Callan Method, on the other hand, places the Preliminary about half-way to the level of the First Certificate.
However, when asked by the Callan Method Organisation, Cambridge stated that the Preliminary can, in fact, be anywhere between half-way and two-thirds of the way to the level of the First Certificate. This probably depends on the type of method used.
Purely in terms of vocabulary, the Preliminary is almost exactly half-way to the level of the First Certificate. Level Three of the Cambridge English Lexicon indicates a vocabulary of 2,207 words, whilst Level Five, the First Certificate level, shows a vocabulary of 4,470 words.
Defining the average student
It is perhaps well to define what exactly is meant by the "average" student. If the 350 hours for the Preliminary is taken as a yardstick, it means that the average non-Callan student will take anywhere between 260 and 440 hours to reach the level of this exam compared to the Callan student's 60 to 100 hours.
Defining a complete beginner
It is also well to define what is meant by a complete beginner. Some private schools of English include among their beginners a type of student who has previously studied English for four or five years at state school. Although effectively such a student often has to begin at the beginning because he learnt so little at school, he is not a complete beginner, and consequently should not be used in any tests or experiments comparing one method with another. A complete beginner is one who has not studied English before, although he might know a few English words such as "hallo, goodbye, thank you, shop, bus, stop" etc.
Some schools, not using the Callan Method, might maintain that their average student does not take four academic years to reach the level of the Cambridge Preliminary but only two or three years. This is because the academic year referred to in this book is based on 3 fifty-minute lessons a week for 8 months, which means that if a non-Callan student studies 6 lessons a week, he will take only 2 years to reach the level of the Preliminary instead of 4. If the Callan student did the same, he would take only half an academic year.
Also, a school, not using the Callan Method, might be referring to its "average" student and not to its average "complete beginner" when it says its students take only 2 or 3 academic years to reach the level of the Preliminary. Such an "average" would include students who had studied English before beginning at the school. Such an average Callan student takes much less than one academic year.
The figures vary
Whilst the Callan Method figures of 80 hours for the Preliminary and 160 hours for the First Certificate are based on years of carefully maintained statistics, those for the other forms of teaching might not be. What the real figures are (and they could be much higher than those stated in this book), the student will discover for himself when asking the schools in his town. The figures will, of course, vary from school to school, town to town, and country to country. Those of the Callan Method will also vary in this regard.
The cream of the cream
Another point to remember when comparing methods is that most schools base their statistics on the cream of their cream, that is, the 10% of students who actually take the Cambridge exams and therefore have had the necessary determination, stamina and ability to complete the course. The Callan figures, on the other hand, are based on the performance of all its students. This is because the Callan students are assessed and given their guarantees at the beginning of their studies.
Paying in advance for goods we cannot see, and which are not guaranteed
When we buy a car or a television set, we examine them, pay for them on receipt, and expect to be given a guarantee. When we take out an insurance policy or have a house built, we expect to receive a written agreement laying out the various conditions for our protection. A language school, on the other hand, is one of the very few businesses in which the customer cannot see the goods he is going to buy, has to pay for them in advance, and, in addition to that, is blamed if they turn out to be defective. The student naturally thinks it is his own fault if he fails to learn. He does not think it could perhaps be the fault of the method his school is using.
With the Callan Method, the student does not have to pay in advance and is given a written guarantee that he will receive what he is paying for.
Easy, interesting and pleasant
The student finds the Callan Method easy, interesting and pleasant. If he found it boring, he would be unable to learn in a quarter of the normal time - as a bored student is a slow learner - and a school using the Callan Method would be unable to guarantee every student success in the Cambridge exams. Not only is the Callan Method not boring, it can even be quite exhilarating, especially when taught by a dynamic expert teacher.
Suitable for students of all ages and all nationalities
The Callan Method is suitable for students of any age from seven to seventy, and of any nationality, and can obtain excellent results with both young children and elderly people.
Suitable for all types of student
The Callan Method is also suitable for any type of student, of any cultural background, from waiter to university professor. Learning a language in its initial stages is not an academic activity. It is more akin to learning to type - anyone can do it.
Suitable for all purposes of study
The Method is suitable for any purpose of study - university exams, Cambridge Certificates, business, commerce, science, technology, tourism, or any other field of activity requiring a knowledge of English. Up to the level of the Cambridge First Certificate, the English language remains the same no matter for what purpose the student is studying. After that, the student can be said to be specializing, perhaps for the purposes of literature, commerce, business, or science, and at that point may need to adopt a different approach to the language.
Suitable for any size of class
The Callan Method is also suitable for any size of class from one to forty students, the ideal size, of course, being between 6 and 12. A class of less than 6 can lack atmosphere, and also not give students sufficient time to ponder their mistakes and listen to others speak, whilst a class of more than 12 students reduces the students' speaking time to below the recommended amount. Nonetheless, the only real difference between a class of 12 and a class of 40 is that the students in the smaller class will be able to speak with greater ease, through having had a greater opportunity to practise. But in reading, writing and understanding there will not be too much difference.
No other books are required
The Callan Method consists of five books. Books One and Two take the student to the level of the Cambridge Preliminary, whilst the remaining books take him to the Cambridge First Certificate. The student needs no other books (except for Past Examination Papers). This means that if his teacher introduces other books into the lessons, the time spent on such books has to be added to the hours on the Callan Method guarantee. There is an additional book, which prepares the student for the Cambridge Advanced Certificate, but for this certificate there is no guarantee, as at that level most of the work has to be done by the student at home. The fact that no other books are required also reduces the student's expenses.
No expensive equipment
The Callan Method involves no expensive equipment, such as language laboratories. In fact, it involves no equipment at all, not even desks or a blackboard. The lesson can be given in any location and in any surroundings.
The tapes that accompany the Callan Method are really optional, and are intended for the student who wishes to speed up his progress or help cover his absenteeism, or for the student who has no teacher.
Equal speaking time
Another feature of the Method is that all the students in a class enjoy an equal amount of speaking time. With most other methods the most talkative of the students do nearly all the speaking whilst the others usually sit in silence.
Shyness
A further feature of the Method is that it overcomes the student's shyness. Many students when learning a foreign language are afraid to speak it. With the Callan Method being based largely on oral question-answer work, the student is forced to speak, and consequently soon overcomes his fear.
A Callan student can move from town to town
One of the practical advantages of studying at a school using the Callan Method is that, if the student has to move to another town, or even another country, he can pick up his studies at a school using the Callan Method in that town, or country, at the same page in the Method as he reached at the school he left.
Open all hours
Although private schools using the Callan Method are independent, and open and close as they please, most of them are open all the year round from early in the morning continuously until late in the evening, and only close on public holidays.
Flexible timetable
Because of the flexible nature of the Callan Method, many schools using the Method are able to allow the student to choose whatever number of hours he wishes to study per week, and whatever hours of the day he wishes to study, and are also able to allow him to change his timetable whenever he wishes.
Starting, stopping and re-starting at any time
Unlike most other methods, the Callan Method is so structured that the student can start, stop, and re-start his studies at any time without damaging his progress. This means that most schools using the Method can allow the student to start his studies at any time of the year.
Social activities and the teaching of more than one language
Most schools using the Callan Method do not go in for providing too many social activities for their students, or for teaching more than one language. They usually prefer to concentrate on just teaching English.
Articles in the press
Various articles about the Callan Method and its remarkable results have appeared in newspapers and magazines throughout the world. Such articles are not written without a careful investigation of the Method.
List of arguments
The following is a brief summary of all the arguments contained in this book proving that the Callan Method teaches English in a quarter of the normal time. Almost any one of the arguments is sufficient proof, but when taken together the evidence becomes overwhelming.
1. The Cambridge figure. According to Cambridge University, it takes the average student 350 hours to reach the level of the Preliminary exam. The Callan Method gets him there in 80 hours.
2. The guarantee and free lessons. A school using the Callan Method gives all its students a written guarantee that if they fail the Cambridge exams in the predicted number of hours, it will give them free lessons until they are successful.
3. 95% pass rate. Many schools using the Callan Method have a 95% pass rate for the Cambridge exams compared with the international average of about 70%.
4. Legal proof. It is against the law in most countries to make false statements in publicity or to give guarantees the terms of which cannot be fulfilled.
5. A bad reputation means bankruptcy. If a school using the Callan Method did not keep to the terms of its guarantee, it would soon acquire a bad local reputation, and if it had to give too many free lessons, it would soon go bankrupt.
6. Payment on results. Students, if they wish, can pay on results instead of in advance. In this way, they do not pay if they are not satisfied.
7. A greater number of candidates. Because the Callan Method is so fast and easy, a school using the Method usually enters far more students for the Cambridge exams than other schools.
8. The logical argument. A school using the Callan Method is not selling gold watches on the corner of the street. It has to give its customers proof of its claims before they part with their money, and also has to provide a continuous service.
9. How the Method obtains its results. As Callan students listen and speak four times more in the lesson than students studying with other methods, they learn four times faster.
10. Ask the other schools. If the student does not believe the Callan Method's figures, he can ask the schools not using the Callan Method in his town how many hours they take to get their average complete beginner to the level of the Cambridge exams, and what guarantee they give.
For further details
If the reader wishes to have a more detailed proof of the Callan Method's claims, he can refer himself to the Student's Handbook which accompanies the Method, but this is intended more as a reference book for teachers, school directors, companies, state schools, and governments than for students.
The reluctance of some teachers to use the Method
Some teachers in the English-teaching profession are reluctant to use the Callan Method because they think it takes away their independence in the classroom and lowers their social status. With the Callan Method being carefully structured and programmed, the teacher has to keep to a set format. The justification for using the Method, however, is that it gets the student the result he wants in a quarter of the normal time.
Some teachers might protest that the Callan Method goes against all the principles of modern, liberal education. They forget that most people in the world today do not study English for educational or cultural reasons, or because they have a passion for learning languages, but because English is the language of international communication. Consequently people want to learn it as quickly, as easily, as painlessly, and as cheaply as possible. Unlike other subjects, it is not important how one learns a language, it is only the result that counts. When studying subjects such as history or literature, the student is also learning a way of thinking, but when learning a language up to the level of the Cambridge First Certificate, the student is only learning to perform a skill. After that level, he can be said to be learning a way of thinking. By then, however, he is no longer learning the language - he is reading the literature of the language and increasing his vocabulary. In other words, first the student learns the mechanical skill of playing the piano, through the five-finger exercises etc., and then he learns to play a Beethoven sonata. They are two different, though connected, activities.
Learning a modern language is a means to an end, it is not usually thought of as an end in itself. Once the student has reached the level of the Cambridge First Certificate, he can, if he wishes, begin to think about the culture of the language.
The reluctance of some schools to use the Method
Some private schools of English are also reluctant to use the Callan Method because they are afraid that, as the Method reduces studying time to a quarter, it will reduce their income to a quarter. The market, however, does not function like that. When something is made quicker, cheaper and easier, more people avail themselves of it. In the old days, very few people travelled any great distance, because travelling was too slow, too expensive and too uncomfortable. Today, millions of people travel many miles each year because travelling is quicker, cheaper and easier. In 1994, for example, airlines throughout the world carried one billion passengers.
There are perhaps about six billion people in the world today. Of these perhaps two billion already speak English in some form or other. Most of the other four billion would like to be able to speak it, but do not study it because it takes too long to learn, costs too much, and is found to be too difficult to master. With the Callan Method making the learning process quicker, cheaper and easier, these people come onto the market and increase the schools' income - as experience has already shown.
Also, as research has shown, for every person studying English at a private school at any given moment, there are about ten others who would study it if it were made cheaper, faster and easier.
The goose that lays the golden eggs
As an example of the attitude that some schools take towards their students, the student who carried out the Survey of the London schools asked the principal of one of the schools why he did not adopt the Callan Method at his school, knowing that it taught English in a quarter of the normal time. His answer was : "Why kill the goose that lays the golden eggs?" In other words : If a student can be made to pay £4000 for a preparation, why do it for £1000.
The magazine article
The following account serves as an example of how reluctant the profession can be to use the Callan Method and how afraid it can be of its effects. When the Method was first put onto the market a full-page article appeared in a major teaching magazine explaining that the claims of the Method had been verified by one of the highest authorities in the English-teaching profession. Despite the fact that 4,000 copies of the magazine were sent to schools throughout the world, not one school made the slightest enquiry about the Method. This is equivalent to a highly-respected international medical magazine printing an article about a major break-through in the cure for cancer, and not one hospital anywhere in the world showing the slightest interest.
It would have been very easy for the schools to have verified the claims of the Method. They only needed to have put one of their courses onto the Method and seen how long it took it to reach the level of the Cambridge Preliminary exam compared to their other courses. Such a test would have been the best way of showing, unequivocally, that the Callan Method teaches English in a quarter of the normal time. It would have cost those schools nothing, as the Callan Method Organization offered to give them the books needed for the experiment and train one of their teachers in the use of the Method free of charge. Not one school took up the offer. The schools did not even answer any correspondence sent to them. They were too scared.
The Method can be used at state schools and universities
The Callan Method is also suitable for use at state schools and universities. Some state-school and university teachers, however, are reluctant to use it, as they feel it is something of an insult to their profession. Such teachers have often spent several years learning English and learning to teach it, and so, quite naturally, do not take kindly to a method that can train virtually anyone to teach the subject in a matter of a few days, provided he speaks the language well or it is his mother tongue. What such teachers do not realise is that, because the Callan Method teaches the language so quickly, it leaves more time for them to teach the literature, the history and the culture that go with the language. In any case, it is very unfair on the students and on the taxpayer to force students to spend four years learning a subject that can be learnt equally as well in one - it is a waste of time, money and energy.
If a teacher, a school, or a university refuses to use the Callan Method, the student could remind them that it is his time, money and energy that are being wasted, not theirs - although, in a certain sense, they too are wasting their time and energy taking four years to teach something that could be taught in one.
Easing international communication
Many people today are concerned about world peace, and the possibilities of a nuclear holocaust. One of the greatest hindrances to this peace and to the understanding between countries is the lack of easy and direct communication between the peoples of the world. English is already used as the means of international communication, but until now it has taken too long for the individual to learn. By simplifying the subject and reducing studying time to a quarter, the Callan Method makes it possible for everyone to acquire the language, and so help facilitate international understanding. It does not help the process, therefore, if teachers or schools refuse to use the Method because they have a personal dislike of it, or because it goes against their own personal theories of teaching.
Teach yourself to teach
The Callan Method is so easy to operate that virtually anyone can learn to teach with it. It is not even necessary to know the difference between a verb and a noun, as all that kind of thing is explained to the teacher as he teaches. By reading the Teacher's Handbook and watching the video of demonstration lessons that accompanies the Method, it is possible to master the techniques of the Method in a matter of a few days. The difference then between one teacher and another will be a question of dynamism, personality, physical presence, a good, strong, lively voice, and good pronunciation. With the Method being so easy to use, students can even teach one another (provided they have a reasonably good pronunciation), and they can certainly give one another practice in the language - one student can take the part of the teacher and ask the other student questions.
Learning from a friend
If the student has a friend who speaks good English, he could ask the friend to teach him with the Callan Method. The friend does not have to know anything about teaching. All he has to do is ask the questions from the Teacher's Book - everything is self-explanatory.
Naturally, learning from a friend would only be done if there were no English teacher available, or if the student could not afford lessons at a private school. A friend might take 120 hours to get the student to the level of the Cambridge Preliminary instead of a private school's 80 hours, but that would still be only about a third of the 350 hours taken in the normal way.
Family lessons
If a member of a family speaks good English, he could teach the rest of the family with the Callan Method. This too would only be done if there were no teacher available or if a family could not afford lessons at a private school.
Teaching oneself the language
By reading the Callan Method books and listening to the tapes that accompany them, the student can even teach himself the language, if he has no-one to teach him. In order to do so, however, he would need a good ear and a considerable amount of determination, as with any self-teaching system. Studying in a group with a teacher who can correct the student's mistakes is always quicker and more stimulating.
By studying alone, the student might take 160 hours to reach the level of the Cambridge Preliminary, but this is still less than half the 350 hours taken with other methods. Also, if the average student takes double the 80 hours studying with a teacher for the Preliminary, it is still less than half the 350 hours of preparation Cambridge University calculates is needed for this exam.
As a rough guideline, therefore, the following figures could be applied to the various ways of studying with the Callan Method:-
Number of hours for the Cambridge Preliminary
1) Studying with a well-trained teacher whose mother tongue is English802) Studying with a well-trained teacher whose mother tongue is not English1003) Learning from an inexperienced, untrained friend who speaks English well1204) Two students studying together with Callan Method books and tapes, but without the aid of a teacher140 5) Studying totally alone with books and tapes160
For the last three categories a lot will depend on the natural ability of the student.
Opening one's own school
Being so easy to operate, the Callan Method makes it possible for virtually anyone to open his own school. If, for example, the student finds that the private schools in his town do not wish to use the Callan Method, because they think it may mean a loss of income, he (or a business friend of his) could open a school of his own using the Callan Method. The Director's Handbook, which accompanies the Callan Method, would tell him exactly how to go about this. In fact, a Callan Method school is best run by a businessman (or woman). As the Method takes complete care of the teaching and everything connected with it, the operation outside the classroom is best organised and conducted on business lines, giving the student-customer a smart, pleasant and efficient service. The businessman will also not tamper with the Method or change it to suit his own ideas of teaching, any more than he would dream of taking off the back of his computer and playing around with its inner workings. He will look at the Method objectively, as a product to be sold at a quarter of the normal cost, and will make it his business to see that it is used correctly, as the manufacturer intended it to be used, so that it will get a result in a quarter of the normal time. On most pieces of electronic equipment these days, the manufacturers put a notice warning the user that if he tampers with, the equipment, he will invalidate the guarantee that goes with it. In the same way, if the teacher alters the Callan Method, he will not obtain the guaranteed results.
Another school using the Callan Method opening in the same area
Sometimes a teacher working at a school using the Callan Method will decide to open his own school with the Method. In doing so, he is strongly advised not to open within about 15 minutes' walk, i.e. about 1½ km., of the existing school. If he does so, it could be detrimental to both schools and to the students.
The new school will usually try to woo students away from the old school by offering them cheaper lessons. This, however, is only acceptable if the new school can guarantee the students the same results in the same number of lessons as the old school. Even then, the students must be wary, as the new school might go out of business through charging too low a fee. This being a possibility, the students should not pay their fees in advance, or at least no more than one month in advance (even if offered a large discount) until the new school has been in operation for about two years, thus showing that it can function successfully at the lower price. In any case, in that time, it has usually had to increase its fees to those of the old school. It must be remembered that if a school goes out of business, its students lose all the money they have paid in advance.
Preferring the old ways, but not the old prices
Some students and teachers who have never tried the Callan Method or have only given it a very brief trial, feel they would not like it, because they prefer the old ways of teaching, i.e. with dictionaries, translations, free conversation etc. Unfortunately, the old ways of teaching take at least four times longer and cost four times as much. Some people like old cars, but do not use them to go to work in, because such cars are too slow. Even if the students and teachers disliked the Callan Method, it would still be worth using, because of the enormous time, money and energy it saves. It is, however, found that virtually every student and teacher using the Method finds it very enjoyable by the time he has tried it to the level of Stages Three or Four, and never returns to the old ways. If the student or the teacher does not find the Callan Method enjoyable, it usually means the teacher is not using it correctly.
How the individual can help get the Method adopted
The student might wonder what he can do if the private school, state-school or university at which he is studying refuses to use the Callan Method, or even to test it to see if it can do what it claims it can do. As a single individual he cannot do much, but if he and a few other students like him make their discontent publicly known, even perhaps through their local newspaper, there could arise a ground swell of public opinion that would eventually put pressure on the teaching profession in his town to use the Method.
For a profession to block the use of a method that teaches English in a quarter of the normal time is like a petrol company trying to prevent a car from coming onto the market that consumes only a quarter of the normal amount of petrol, or like a doctor trying to block a cure for cancer.
The profession should put the interests of the student first.
The schools and the Method are not connected
It should be pointed out that the Callan Method Organisation does not own or run any schools other than the London school in Oxford Street. Therefore, no matter what name a school goes by, it has no connection whatsoever with the Organisation, and should therefore not use the name "Callan" in its title. This is to protect the Method from acquiring a bad reputation through schools using the Method incorrectly, or by operating inefficiently. A school can, of course, advertise itself as using the Callan Method, and refer to itself in speaking or correspondence as such a school, although in any form of its publicity the words "Callan Method" should never be more than 30% the size of the area occupied by the name of the school, and neither should the school give the impression that it is a Callan School.
No school has any connection with Cambridge University
It should also be pointed out that there is no connection between any private school of English and Cambridge University. The Cambridge exams are set and marked by a body which is quite separate and independent of the English-teaching profession. If this were not so, its certificates would not be of much value.
Schools give themselves all manner of names - Oxford School, Cambridge Institute, Westminster House, British College etc. But these are all just trade names.
Copies of the Method
The Callan Method was first developed in 1960. Consequently, any method published after that date and bearing a strong resemblance to the Method could be considered a copy. Such a copy would, therefore, only be worth adopting if it could guarantee to teach English in less time than the Callan Method, which is really impossible, as the Callan Method already moves the student at his maximum speed.
The student can easily protect himself against such fake copies of the Method by enquiring if they can guarantee to get him to the level of the Cambridge exams in as few hours as the Callan Method. He will find that they will not even be able to get within two or three hundred hours of the Callan Method figures for these exams.
Over the years, many people, showing complete disregard for the laws of International Copyright or Intellectual Property, have tried to copy the Callan Method (which is a compliment to the Method, as imitation is the sincerest form of flattery), but all have failed totally. They have failed to understand exactly how and why the Callan Method works, and have consequently sunk without trace, making it unnecessary for the Callan Method Organisation to take legal action against them. They think that all that is required is to take a few English words at a time and make up questions with them. If this were the case, why did it take the Callan Method Organisation ten years to develop its Method and another five years to refine it?
There are 33 ways in which the Callan Method differs from other methods. Any method, therefore, employing more than five of these ways can be considered a copy. The Callan Method is like certain international products that have been highly successful for many years and which now and then other manufacturers have tried to copy but have failed in the attempt, as they do not know or completely understand the ingredients that make the product so successful. The Callan Method is like the alphabet, or the keyboard of a piano or typewriter. If it is altered in any fundamental way, its performance is upset to such an extent that it malfunctions and does not produce the desired results. There should only be one reason for copying a product, and that is to improve upon it. If there is no improvement, there is no point in the operation. Nobody wants a poor copy when they can have the real thing.
The only criterion to be applied to a method of teaching English is how quickly it obtains the desired results. 90% of students studying English in the world today are not doing so because they have a passion for learning languages. They study it because they need it, as it is the language of international communication. Consequently, they want to learn it as quickly, cheaply and easily as possible, especially quick!
Two obvious ways in which the Callan Method differs from other methods are : 1) The questions are scripted word for word for the teacher, in order to make his job easier and to ensure that, without qualifications or experience, he can obtain an excellent and fast result for his students, and 2) It gets the students to answer in the long form in order to make them speak as much as possible.
It is remarkable that over the many centuries that languages have been taught, such techniques have not been used before (except by an 8th century English monk who employed them to teach Latin). One of the reasons for this is that, never before in history has there been such a lingua franca as English that encompasses the entire world and is studied and spoken by the educated and uneducated alike for purposes of communication in the modern global village.
In the past, languages were usually taught by professional linguists and studied by a select few, mainly for cultural purposes, and time was of no importance. Today, a language like English is learned to be used for practical purposes. The old ways of learning are therefore no longer suitable. Time is money in the modern world, and even if only professional linguists were allowed to teach English, there would not be enough of them to supply the demand for teachers.
Necessity being the mother of invention, the Callan Method Organisation approached the teaching of English with fresh eyes. It looked at the learning process from the point of view of the student rather than that of the teacher. Most language books are written by linguists for linguists. It is very difficult for linguists to understand the difficulties non-linguists have in learning a language. They cannot understand that what was easy for them to learn is extremely difficult for others.
The Callan Method is aimed at the student who finds language learning extremely difficult, on the grounds that, if such a student can learn quickly with it, the natural linguist will learn even quicker.
The fact that the Method is scripted and delivered at speed upsets certain teachers who like to be free to teach in their own way, i.e. the old-fashioned, confused, boring and leisurely way, even though such a way takes four years to produce the same results as the Callan Method produces in one.
Unlike Latin, which used to be a lingua franca, English, with its basic grammatical simplicity, is tailor-made for the Direct Method and is perfectly suited to the question-answer technique of teaching.
Colourful and modern vocabulary
A look at most books used for the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) shows them full of pictures, and spiced with up-to-date vocabulary. Whilst pictures bring a book to life, they are not much of an aid to learning a language, and whilst modern vocabulary adds colour to the learning process, it gets in the way of the study of the basic vocabulary and slows down the learning process, so boring the student, who wants to learn the language as quickly as possible. The Callan Method avoids all this. Those books that try to copy the Callan Method usually introduce colourful, premature or unnecessary vocabulary in an attempt to enliven the study of the language. Unfortunately, they only succeed in achieving the exact opposite effect.
One such copy, for example, introduced about 500 modern, unnecessary or premature words into its course of 2200 words for the Cambridge Preliminary - words such as pop star, word-processor, dice, jigsaw and monastery - the last three of which were not even First Certificate words. When its students had finished their course and were tested against the Callan Method, they were found to be only at the level of Stage One to Two of the Method and were nowhere near ready for the Preliminary exam - much to their dismay.
Cambridge University publish a Lexicon of the 2200 basic words of the English language that the student is required to know in order to pass the Preliminary, and a further 2200 (4400 in all) required for the First Certificate. Such words have to be taught in a set order, according to how frequently they are used in normal, everyday writing or conversation. A word such as "table", for example, is used much more frequently than a word such as "tractor" and consequently should be taught well before "tractor", whilst such words in frequent modern use as "credit card, microwave, cashpoint, barbecue, blockbuster" and "software" seldom need teaching at all, as most of them are among the several thousand words that have been absorbed into the various languages of the world in their English form..
Selection of vocabulary is extremely important. Although every word the student learns inside or outside the classroom is important and useful, some words are more important and useful than others. A person can be in a country for quite some time without needing to use the word "tractor", whereas he could hardly go for a week without using the word "table". To overload the student, therefore, with words such as "tractor" whilst he is still struggling with words such as "table" is very bad teaching.
If the student is faced with the choice of having to study four years with a course containing colourful, modern and advanced vocabulary or one year with the Callan course (that just teaches basic vocabulary) to obtain exactly the same end result, he is always going to choose the one-year course. In any case, modern words, such as "T-shirt, calculator, stopover" etc., the student acquires outside the classroom; whilst if, for example, he travels on a plane, he will easily understand instructions such as "Fasten your seat belts" if he has been taught the basic words "fasten, seat" and "belt" (as he would have been with the Callan Method). Such words are best not taught in conjunction with one another, as is not the case with so many methods. Whilst books with modern vocabulary and photos of currently famous people give the impression of a modern up-to-date system, most of the 4400 basic words of the language have remained the same for centuries. Only after the student has acquired these, should he start learning more advanced vocabulary. He cannot learn advanced vocabulary at the same time as learning the basic vocabulary without slowing down the learning of the basic vocabulary - unless, of course, he is that very rare student, a natural linguist.
Given the importance of vocabulary, each school should have a copy of the Cambridge Lexicon for the student to consult, so that he can check that he is not being taught advanced vocabulary at the expense of the essential basic vocabulary. To show how prevalent is the problem, the following sample list of words was taken from five different course books that prepare the students for the Cambridge Preliminary. Not only are the words not Preliminary words, they are not even First Certificate words. Most of them are Proficiency words that should certainly have no place in a Preliminary course book : - stubborn, species, bust, alibi, bully, bossy, glossy, swap, dub, collide, blizzard, grab, cope, barn, code, flop, speedometer, mask, helmet, gory, legend, sulk, parachute, dove and guy.
In any case, the student does not need colourful vocabulary to stimulate him to study English. It is sufficient stimulation for him that English is the international language which he sees everywhere around him outside the classroom, and which he knows he needs if he wishes to communicate with people of other countries.
The Callan Method looks similar to other methods
At a superficial glance the Callan Method might look similar to other methods, in the same way as a car of today looks similar to a car of the 19th century : it has four wheels, an engine, a brake, an accelerator etc. The difference is, however, that a car of today can travel comfortably at 80 miles an hour, whilst a car of the 19th century could hardly exceed a walking pace.
The Callan Method has not invented the Direct Method (this has been in existence since languages began). What it has done is simply to speed up the learning process by eliminating waste, and simplifying the subject for easy digestion, thus reducing studying time to a quarter.
The Callan Method solves the problem of the inexperienced teacher
Most teachers at private schools of English throughout the world have little experience in the teaching of English, although they are often obliged by their schools to pretend to their students that they have. They usually come from all walks of life and do the job for a year or two and then return home to England or elsewhere to resume their original careers. They might have a degree in some subject or other or no teaching qualifications at all; but even if they have a degree in English (or in a foreign language), it will not help them all that much in teaching English to foreign students.
The teaching of English as a foreign language, therefore, is something of a profession carried out by non-professionals. All that a teacher usually requires is a pass in three subjects taken at school at the age of eighteen, and a month's training (at some kind of institute) in the various ways of teaching English. After that, he receives the social status of "teacher", which is the equivalent of calling someone a doctor, a lawyer or an engineer after a mere few weeks' instruction. Obviously, such training does not ensure the teacher's competence.
A Callan Method teacher, on the other hand, can become competent in a matter of a few days. This is because the Callan Method is carefully scripted and programmed. Callan students do not, therefore, have to suffer whilst their inexperienced teacher learns his trade. Also, as is not always the case with other forms of teaching, the Callan Method teacher at a private school is continually supervised, and goes through refresher training, even after years of teaching.
The unregulated profession
The governments of some countries try to regulate the English-teaching profession by insisting that all English-language teachers be qualified and experienced. This is a policy that is virtually impossible to operate, as most teachers drift around the world from country to country, often staying only one year in each country - most private schools of English, for example, give their teachers a contract for only 9 months, i.e. one academic year. It is extremely difficult to keep track of such teachers, especially as it is very easy for itinerant teachers to acquire forged qualifications, which are seldom checked. As regards experience, this can only be acquired by actually teaching. It is difficult, therefore, to see how a teacher can become experienced if inexperienced teachers are not allowed to teach.
Some countries even require English teachers to have degrees of some description. Unfortunately, a degree in a subject such as chemistry is not going to be of much use in the teaching of English as a foreign language. All that a degree ensures is that the teacher is reasonably well educated and intelligent, but does not ensure that he will be a good teacher, especially a good Callan Method teacher.
Given that there are hundreds of thousands of English teachers required in the world today, it would be quite impossible for the universities of the English-speaking countries to provide sufficient graduates to fill all the posts available. A university such as Cambridge, for example, produces only a few hundred graduates each year in English or in foreign languages, and only very few of these go abroad to teach English. Private schools of English throughout the world, therefore, usually have to take whatever type of teacher they can get - qualified and experienced or unqualified and inexperienced - no matter what they may say to the contrary in their brochures. If the student does not believe this, he should ask his school to show him documentary evidence of its teachers' qualifications and experience.
The Callan Method overcomes the problem
One of the main reasons the Callan Method Organisation created the Callan Method was precisely to overcome the problem presented by unqualified, inexperienced teachers drifting around the world teaching here and there for a year or two and then leaving the profession to return to their home country. Because the Callan Method is scripted and anyone can be trained to use it in five days, a Callan Method teacher can be selected on his ability to actually teach, rather than on any qualifications he might have. He is selected as one selects an actor. An actor is chosen to play Hamlet purely on his ability to act, not on whether he has a degree in English or has studied Shakespeare.
A Callan Method teacher is chosen for his lively, dynamic personality; good, strong, pleasing voice, standard pronunciation; and, above all, like an actor, the ability to hold the attention of his audience and not bore it. No degree can give him these qualifications. As in acting, it is often found that someone who left school at sixteen with few qualifications makes a better Callan Method teacher, achieving better results, than one with a degree. The unqualified teacher is also much more likely to take English-language teaching more seriously and make a career out of it than a graduate who is only doing the job for a year or two before settling into some other career, looking upon English teaching as a way of seeing the world which is better work than washing dishes. He might even look down upon the teaching of English with a slight air of disdain as being beneath his qualifications.
The very nature of the job
Since the 1950s, the teaching of English has been an ever-growing industry throughout the world, and it is generally accepted that the best way to learn the language is from a mother-tongue speaker. The type of person who goes abroad to teach English is not the type who is married and has children and a mortgage. By the very nature of the job, therefore, he is usually young and foot-loose. He is also not going to spend time at university to obtain a degree in the teaching of English as a foreign language if he is going to do the job for only a year or two, and then return home to do something else.
There are courses for the teaching of English at a few universities, but they are not of great practical use to the teacher when he eventually finds himself in the classroom of a private school. The best way to learn to teach English is to teach it.
For this reason, it has to be accepted that a month's training course in general principles of teaching is all that can be given to help a young English-speaking teacher to find his way in the world of the English-teaching business. He might be a university graduate; a student taking time off from his studies; someone with passes in three subjects in a school exam taken at the age of eighteen; or someone with no qualifications whatsoever.
Another problem English teaching has to face is that, over the last 30 years, English grammar has hardly been taught in English schools, with the consequence that children have been leaving school with virtually no knowledge of how the language works - they barely know the difference between a verb and a noun, and certainly not what a past subjunctive is. It has been thought better to learn to write and speak correctly by example rather than by learning rules of grammar. Whilst it is possible to learn to use language correctly without learning rules (especially a language such as English which has a relatively simple grammar), it is quicker and easier if the pupil understands how the language is put together. Grammar is now at last, however, being re-introduced into English schools.
With the Callan Method, the teacher does not need to know any grammar, as it is all explained to him in his book as he in turn explains it to his students.
CMO Agency
Although the Callan Method Organisation (CMO) is not directly connected with any school, it runs an agency that puts Callan Method teachers looking for work into contact with Callan Method schools looking for teachers. It provides such schools with the teachers' records from the schools the teachers have previously worked at, showing their ability to teach. This ability is in no way influenced by their qualifications or experience. It is based purely on their performance in the classroom, i.e. their ability to actually do the job. Non-Callan Method schools do, of course, need their teachers to have some kind of qualification, as such teachers cannot be trained in five days. Consequently, a degree in their case is a sign that the teacher is a least well educated.
Opinions are not worth much
Before buying anything, we often ask people for their opinions on the product. But, as can be seen from the foregoing, a person's opinion on the Callan Method can be coloured by a vested interest in blocking its use. It can also be that the person does not agree with the techniques the Method employs, or that he has never tried the Method or put it to the test. Even when a teacher or a student has actually used the Callan Method, he is in no position to judge its claims unless he has something to compare it with, and has carried out laboratory-type tests on it. Failing this, he is just expressing an opinion.
The only valid proof a school can have of the Method's claims is to try it out on one of its courses, whilst the only valid proof the student can have is the guarantee the school gives him. Anything else is just opinion.
Company tests
If a company wishes to test the Callan Method against the method it is currently using to teach its employees English, it can give its employees the following dictation, which Callan Method students are able to do after only 40 hours of study, i.e. 48 fifty-minute lessons (three lessons a week for four months, or 4¾ months if 25% is added for such things as lateness and absenteeism), having started as complete beginners. It is quite certain that after only 40 hours of English, non-Callan Method students would be quite unable to do such a dictation. The sentences in the dictation are disconnected, in order to pack in as much varied vocabulary as possible, and to avoid lucky guessing by the students understanding the gist of a whole passage. There are 100 words in the dictation, and the Callan student would make only 5 to 10 small mistakes.
A dictation is one of the quickest and best ways of testing a student's knowledge of English. It shows that he understands what he hears and can reproduce it correctly. The Callan student would also be able to translate the dictation and use its vocabulary comfortably in any normal conversation. There are no words in the dictation that cannot be found in Book One of any method, or, at least, should be found there, as they are taken from the 1,000 most-commonly-used words in the language. The dictation should first be read to the students, then dictated (with each segment repeated twice), and then read through again.
Dictation: My favourite drink/ when I'm ill/ is milk./ He's willing to agree/ that he's made a mistake./ Bought, hung, thought,/ shook, said, met./ When they reach her age, they'll earn as much as she does. We can't sit/ at the corner of a round table./ How often/ do they walk along this way?/ Seldom./ They weren't here yesterday./ This wine doesn't taste/ nearly as pleasant as the other./ I can't lift this stone ball,/ it's either too heavy/ or I'm too weak./ This suit is cheaper than that./ That one is the most expensive./ I like silver less than gold.
A further test of the Callan Method would be for the company to give its employees, who had studied 40 hours with the company's current method, the exam at the end of Book One of the Callan Method.
The most conclusive test of all, however, would be to take a selection of employees who had never studied English before, and, dividing them into two groups, teach one group with the Callan Method and the other with the method the company is currently using. At the end of 40 hours (which usually coincides with the end of Book One of the Callan Method), each group would take its own exam and that of the other group. The results would be so astonishing that the matter would be beyond dispute. The students of the Callan group would find the exam of the non-Callan group extremely easy, whilst the non-Callan students would find the Callan exam almost impossible to do.
When the difference between one method and another is so great, an accurate laboratory-type test is not required. If, in a horse race, one horse comes in just ahead of the others, it could be argued that it is not necessarily the fastest horse - in a re-run it might come in second or third. But when a horse finishes the race whilst the others are only a quarter of the way round the track, there is no need to examine a photo to see which horse came in first and which was the fastest - the matter is beyond dispute.
Government, state-school and university tests
Governments, state schools and universities can also apply the same kind of tests as those applied by companies in order to check the claims of the Callan Method before adopting it.
There are no experts
One of the problems that arises when an organisation investigates the Callan Method is that it tends to have the Method tested by its "experts"; that is, people who are already involved in the teaching of English. Unfortunately, with a new invention, the only expert is the inventor himself. The "experts" often find it difficult to look objectively at the Method. They tend to judge it, not on its results, but on whether they like it or not, or on whether or not it fits in with their own ideas or preconceived theories of teaching. Such an attitude can sometimes lead them actively to attempt to block its use. Any organisation (private or government), therefore, should supervise its own tests and judge entirely on results. If some of its teachers refuse to use the Method, it is very easy to train replacements in a matter of a few days. Any local school using the Callan Method could arrange this for the organisation.
For further details on how to carry out the tests, the organisation should consult the Student's Handbook that accompanies the Callan Method.
The cost of the Callan Method books - an extra £2 saves the student £720
If the average non-Callan student takes 350 hours, i.e. 420 fifty-minute lessons over a period of four academic years, to reach the level of the Cambridge Preliminary, and pays, for example, £5 a lesson (at a private school), the whole preparation will cost him £2,100. The average Callan student, on the other hand, taking only 80 hours, i.e. 96 fifty-minute lessons, over a period of one academic year, will pay only £480 for the same complete preparation. The Callan Method therefore saves the Callan student £1,620 and three years of his time. (These figures would be double for the Cambridge First Certificate).
It is for this reason that the Callan Method books might cost more than the average English-language book. The student is not just buying a book, he is buying a means of saving himself an enormous amount of time and money. To pay a few extra pounds for all this is surely quite reasonable. The extra money he pays for a Callan Method book represents a patent fee. In any case, most specialist books these days cost far more than the average book, and do not save the buyer anywhere near as much as the Callan Method saves him.
As an example of how much is saved on each book of the Method : If the average Callan student takes 48 lessons (3¾ months at 3 lessons a week) to complete Book One of the Method and pays £5 a lesson, he will pay a total of £240 for his Book One course. On the other hand, a student studying with any other method would take 192 lessons (spread over 15 continuous months) and pay a total of £960, i.e. 11¼ months and £720 more than the Callan student, to reach exactly the same level of English.
If the average English-language book in the student's home town costs £6 whilst the Callan Method book costs £8 (25% more), the student is paying a patent fee of a mere £2 on top of the total of £240 he pays for his lessons, which, spread over 48 lessons, adds a mere 4p to each £5 lesson, i.e. less than 1%, or 1p in the pound.
Even if the Callan book cost £12, i.e. double that of the average book, it would still only add 12½p (2½%) to a £5 lesson, and even if the Callan Method taught English in only half the normal time instead of a quarter, it would still save the student £360 and about 5½ months' studying time on each book.
Not only does the Callan Method save the Book One student £720 and 11¼ months' studying time, it also saves him the time, money and energy travelling to and from his school for the 11¼ extra months. In addition to this, the non-Callan student often has to buy two or three books for his course, such as books of exercises, grammar, reading texts, writing skills, dictations, comprehension etc., which means that he could finish by paying twice as much for his many books as the Callan student pays for his one, all-inclusive, book. Although the Callan student is advised to buy a dictionary (a good pocket dictionary) it is not essential to do so with the Callan Method, as it is with other methods.
Patent fees
When one buys such things as a television set, a car or a computer, included in the price is the patent fee paid to the inventors of the various parts that go to make up the end product. In the same way, the student, his teacher and his school, although not paying a separate patent for the use of the Callan Method, have it included in the price of the books they buy.
The success of the Callan Method does not, however, lie in its books, but in its teaching techniques. The books are purely incidental, they are just the physical form the invention takes. This is made clear by the fact that the books are used only by the student for about ten minutes of a fifty-minute lesson. The rest of the lesson is spent using the techniques of the Method, and, as already stated, it is for this that the student pays. He pays a combination of an author's royalty and an inventor's patent fee. As he is the one who benefits from the Method to such an extraordinary degree, he is naturally the one who pays the fee.
The difference between a royalty and a patent fee is that a royalty is paid to an author for giving pleasure, in the form of a novel etc., or instruction, in the form of a text book, whilst a patent fee is paid to an inventor, usually for saving the user of his invention time and money and making life easier. An invention usually takes far longer to develop than a book takes to be written. In the case of the Callan Method, it took 15 years to develop. As can be seen, the Method comes under both the above categories.
Accepting all this, the student might still argue that his school ought to pay the royalty or patent fee instead of himself. The Callan Method Organisation did in fact try a system of franchise whereby the schools using the Method paid a fee, but it was far too difficult to operate and control world-wide, so it included the royalty and patent fee in the price of its books, which enabled it to reduce its fees, as it was able to eliminate the administrative costs of collecting such fees.
The student should not be worried by this, for, whichever system is operated, the amount he pays for the goods he buys always includes everything that goes towards producing and delivering those goods, i.e. the manufacture, packaging, advertising and distribution etc. In the case of the books, if CMO charged a fee to the school instead of to the student, the school, like any other business, would automatically pass the extra cost on to its student/customer in the form of an increased fee. It would probably add the aforementioned 4p to each £5 lesson.
In order to avoid the students' complaints about the cost of books, some Callan Method schools give the student his book for nothing (or at half price), which of course pleases the student. But, as one seldom receives anything for nothing in this world, the school adds the price of the book (or half the price) to the student's fees or inscription, without the student realising it or feeling it.
Pirating the Method
When selling its books to the shops, CMO gives the shops a considerable discount, as a shop usually has to make its entire living out of its sale of books. To a school, on the other hand, CMO gives only a small discount (to cover such things as loss or damage), as a school makes its money out of its fees, not out of selling books. The books, therefore, do not cost the schools a single penny - in fact, the schools make a small profit out of them. The schools buy the books directly from CMO and sell them on to their students as a service that saves the students time shopping for books themselves. They should not, however, charge the students more than 5% above or 5% below the price the local bookshops charge for the same books.
Although the books cost a Callan Method school absolutely nothing and enable such a school to make a very good living, there are some schools that are not satisfied with this and consequently print or photocopy the Callan Method books themselves to sell to their students, completely disregarding the laws of International Copyright or Intellectual Property. If, then, such a school charges its students less money for its books than CMO charges, because it does not pay royalties or patent fees, it means it is undercutting the local bookshops that sell the books at the correct price, thus creating unfair competition.
If, therefore, a student suspects that a school is printing or photocopying the Callan Method books and considers it mean-minded, unfair or unacceptable to cheat the Method's inventor out of his 1p in the pound fee, considering how much time and money he saves the student, he can contact CMO who will investigate the matter and prosecute the school vigorously if the student's suspicions are found to be valid. The student can remain anonymous if he wishes, whilst if he gives his name, it will never be disclosed, and he will not be involved in the prosecution in any way. All that CMO requires is the initial information (together, if possible, with a copy of the suspect books). If the student's suspicions are confirmed, CMO will be quite happy to give him a considerable financial reward.
The same conditions apply if the student suspects a school of pirating the Callan Method tapes, or marketing books which show that their author is using Callan Method techniques without regard to international law concerning Intellectual Property.
If the student finds it difficult to know whether or not a book has been piratically printed by his school, he can compare its quality and contents with that of the same books in his local bookshop, and, if still in doubt he can send the school's copy to CMO, who can immediately tell if it has been pirated.
The student might think that this concern of CMO's is rather extraordinary. But we live in extraordinary times. The world today is full of massive financial frauds, the marketing of fake products under internationally-famous brand names, and the pirating of tapes and videos, often of an inferior quality, and, of course (in many countries), the defrauding of the welfare state. Even governments today are having to take drastic action to protect their citizens from fraud and deceit.
The effects of pirating the Method
The student might wonder how the pirating of Callan Method books and tapes affects him personally or his fellow students. The answer is that, apart from inferior reproductions, the school might have left out of its books important information, such as that regarding the guarantee, or it may have tampered with the Method to suit its own theories of teaching English and in so doing lengthened the student's studying time, which naturally is going to cost him more money.
Another very important consideration is that CMO has found in its many years of experience that any school dishonest enough to cheat and swindle CMO by pirating its books or tapes will not hesitate to cheat and swindle its students, and even its teachers, if it thinks it can get away with it. CMO has found that, without exception, such schools never prosper in the long run, whilst those that play fair and play by the rules are very successful. In the meantime, the students and teachers at the rogue schools suffer, and the Callan Method is brought into disrepute, even though it has no connection with such schools. A rogue school, for example, will cheat a student out of his fees if a dispute arises over his payments, and will do the same over its teachers' wages. In other words, it will not play fair. It can even finish by suddenly going out of business, owing its students hundreds of pounds that they had paid in advance for their courses.
From all this, the student must not get the impression that most schools are rogues. Ninety-nine schools out of a hundred do not cheat in any way whatsoever. It is only the hundredth school that presents the problem and gives the profession a bad reputation. Even if only one school in a hundred is dishonest, that is more that enough if it happens to be the school the student is studying at.
The Preface is not paid for. It is the student's Bill of Rights
Unlike other English-language books, the Callan Method books contain no drawings or photographs aimed at trying to hold the attention of the student and stimulate his interest. The Method does not need such devices : it achieves these aims through its teaching techniques.
The student may therefore think that the extra money he perhaps pays for his books is due mostly to the length of the Preface. This is not so, as the entire cost of the Preface is borne by the Callan Method Organisation which charges exactly the same for its books with the Preface as it did before the Preface was added. Even if this were not the case, the Preface would still be essential to the student.
As explained in the Preface, language learning up to the level of the Cambridge First Certificate is not an academic subject, it is a skill subject that anyone can learn. The student should therefore think of his school (if it is private) as a language shop and his teacher as a language instructor, and himself as a customer, with the Preface as his customer's Bill of Rights or Quality Control. Without it, he has no means of knowing if the Method is being correctly used and saving him the £720 and 11¼ months' studying time that the manufacturer states it can.
126 lessons instead of 48
As an example of what happened when there was no Preface in the student's books, a Callan Method school in Europe used to take 126 lessons to get its average student through Book One of the Method instead of the usual 48 lessons. This was solely due to the school not following the instructions in the Callan Method Teacher's Handbook. Among other things, it was making its students repeat the Readings and Dictations in Book One far too many times, and, of course, the students had no way of knowing if this was normal.
Although 126 lessons was still less than half the number other methods would have taken to get their students to the same level of English, it was 76 lessons (6 months, at 3 lessons a week) more than was necessary, and cost the student an extra £400.
Linguistic colonisation
Some people in the world today are concerned about the influx of English words into their own language. Such people fail to realise that an influx of foreign words gives their language more colour, variety and precision. One of the reasons English is the international language is that for centuries the English have had an open-door policy towards the import of foreign words into their language. In its basic vocabulary, English is Germanic, but over the centuries it has absorbed into it tens of thousands of words from French, Latin and Greek, and also words from over 100 other languages, such as Spanish, Dutch, Arabic, Italian, Persian and the Indian languages.
An imported word seldom replaces a native word, it nearly always exists alongside it with a slightly different meaning or use - and most such words are nouns. The French word “chauffeur”, for example, did not replace the English word “driver” when it entered the English language, it came to describe a certain type of driver. If someone says “My chauffeur will pick you up at the airport (another French word) tomorrow” , we immediately have an image of a man in a uniform driving an expensive, elegant car, whereas, if someone says “My driver will pick you up at the airport tomorrow” we have an image of a normally dressed man in a normal kind of car. The word “chauffeur” saves the speaker having to say “My uniformed-driver in my expensive, elegant car will pick you up at the airport tomorrow”. By the same token, a French person can go into a bar in France and order a ham sandwich - using the English word “sandwich” to save himself having to ask for two pieces of bread with a piece of ham between them.
Sometimes in English, two words, such as “hunt” (Anglo-Saxon) and “chase” (Norman French) originally had the same meaning, but eventually diverged, so that today one would say “The police hunted for the criminal. When they found him, they chased him down the street.” Another example is the word “flat” (Anglo-Saxon) and the word “apartment” (French) which have basically the same meaning in English, but the word “apartment” is more used to describe a large, and often luxurious, “flat”.
As an example of the result of the influx of foreign words into the English language, there are over thirty synonyms for the word “thief” in English, each describing a specific type of thief, e.g. brigand, marauder, pirate, gangster, pillager, plagiarist, house-breaker, pick-pocket, cat-burglar, fraudster etc.
Some people think that the use of English words in their native tongue should be prohibited by law. The use of language, however, cannot be legislated against. A language is a living, breathing, organism, which is why artificially created languages, such as Esperanto, have had so little success. If people like the appearance and sound of a foreign word, and find it serves a useful purpose, they will use it. If they get tired of it, it will die a natural death. If not, it will become a permanent part of the language to such an extent that it will cease to be looked upon as a foreign import. An English person today, for example, would be very surprised to be told that a word like “garage”, that he had been brought up with from birth, was French in origin. In virtually every language there are an enormous number of words of foreign origin that over the years have become so absorbed into the language that the native speaker thinks them native born. Prohibiting the use of words cripples the natural growth of a language.
When trying to prohibit the use of English words in the native tongue some authorities think that a word like “computer” is English, when in fact it is of Latin origin (computare, meaning “to calculate”), as is the word “exit” (exitus). One of the reasons many English words find their way into other languages is that English, originating from a dialect, is full of short, snappy, expressive, racy words, such as “boom, bust, stop, go, fast-food” etc.
By putting a protective barrier round their native tongue, people think they will preserve it. The opposite is true. If a language is put in chains, it will die. A language will always survive if people want it to. Although, for example, the Welsh speak English, their own Welsh language has survived alongside English over many centuries - and Wales is a mere 200 miles from London.
English itself was a despised patois for about 300 years, from 1066 onwards. The English aristocracy spoke French whilst the clergy spoke Latin. Although everyone in England knew English and used it on a daily basis, the educated English wrote only in French or Latin. Nonetheless, English survived. And when English became the official language of England once more, there were English people who initially protested against the importation of French and Latin words into the language that they mistakenly thought were replacing English (Anglo-Saxon) words.
The English have never had the desire or intention of using their language to colonise other languages. They do extremely little to promote their language internationally. The fact that English is the international language is looked upon by the English simply as a legacy of empire and the influence of America, which was originally colonised by English settlers. Most people in the world today do not study English because they have a passion for learning foreign languages or for learning English in particular. They learn it because it is the language of international communication. They need it for their work or for their travels etc. They learn it as a writer or journalist learns to type. It enables them to carry out their work. It is a means to an end, not an end in itself. (For further information regarding the history and nature of the English language the reader could consult the Callan Method Student’s Handbook).
American English
Some students might wonder how much difference there is between English-English and American-English. There are, of course, differences in pronunciation and accent. Each part of England and America has its own accent, but standard English-English and standard American-English do not differ very much.
As for vocabulary, out of the 4,400 words the student learns to the level of the Cambridge First Certificate, only about 40, i.e. less than 1%, differ in use or meaning between the two types of English. The English, for example, will say "petrol", "pavement" and "autumn" whilst the Americans will say "gas", "sidewalk" and "fall". Many of the differences, however, are understood on both sides of the Atlantic.
As for spelling, only seven of the 4,400 words are spelt differently by the Americans, i.e. colour-color, centre-center, favourite-favorite, theatre-theater, humour-humor, cheque-check and labour-labor.
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