I am thinking about designing a small course pretty much based in the same methodology that Rosetta Stone uses to teach alongside my English classes in the school I work at and maybe eventually only teach that.

IMO you really can't expect much from an English course at a juku so I thought this would be a nice idea, simple, fun to implement, easy to teach and maybe / probably more useful for the children than the traditional Repeat > Practice > Write lesson.

Of course I wouldn't copy any pictures but I would pretty much follow the same idea. I will show them items they can easily recognize, apple, boy, girl, followed by an action expressed as a full but simple sentence, the boy eats an apple, the girl eats an apple, and so on.

I could use an iPad to show them the items

What do you think?

i think rosetta stone as a business is successful because their advertising budget is insanely large. like bose and audio products.

bcrAn Wrote:IMO you really can't expect much from an English course at a juku

well, it sounds like you really have no faith in your company so i guess you can do whatever you want since you feel like in the end it's going to be unsuccessful and have no effect anyway, right?

This is not about faith and I have no possible way to determine if it will be succesful or not, I like the idea because it's easy for me to implement, it's different, it would eliminate some textbooks, kill the traditional classroom grudge, etc. I just want to know if it's legal to do just like Rosettta Stone, using my own pictures and dialogs of course (although I would probably reuse the same general themes featured in RS).

I was also generally speaking, and we, Japanese learners know very well that you don't acquire language in 50 minutes a week.

Rosetta Stone is pretty bad, so I'm not sure what to think.

Wait, if RS was free is wouldn't be that bad as just a supplement tool for *absolute* beginners. Plus I think is better than what I am currently doing at the juku with the shittiest textbooks ever written.

Example sentences with pictures? Copyrighted? Surely not...

Pictures, text, code, sentences - they can all be copyrighted. But you can't copyright a method. They could have patented it, sure, but the patent would only hold for a specific implementation, i.e. probably not worth worrying about.

Flashcard picture -> vocab, then sentence pattern + changing vocab is exactly how my cram school teaches English. There's nothing really revolutionary about digitising it and making the answers multiple-choice.

If you want your students' learning more effective, I'd recommend you employ a context-based learning method. For example, I don't know a better way to teach what "swing" means than showing a short video or something where the word is used in an obvious way like:

A: *sigh* No other clothes? I don't wanna wear this... Well, better than nothing, I guess... *dress*
B: Oh, god. Beautiful... I can't tell which way I'm supposed to swing anymore!
A: Stop! I don't swing that way!!

You can include another meaning of "swing" by letting his stuff swing and putting an onomatopoeic caption *swing*. Kids will love it. Make sure to put the usual mosaic (or the black bar if it's hand-drawn).

On a more serious note, no. I don't think showing pictures would make huge difference. It shouldn't be illegal, though, unless you use copyrighted material.

kainzero Wrote:

bcrAn Wrote:IMO you really can't expect much from an English course at a juku

well, it sounds like you really have no faith in your company so i guess you can do whatever you want since you feel like in the end it's going to be unsuccessful and have no effect anyway, right?

Can't argue with that.

I don't know if you've already received a satisfactory answer or not. But, copyright doesn't subsist in ideas. It only protects expressions.

So no. Their method is not protected. But the expression of the method may be.

Exactly, thanks everyone. About the pictures, I don't have where to get them, can I just get whatever pictures I found online? This is most probably going to be used solely by me.

How about googling "copyright free images" or some equivalent phrase?

To be honest that is a really difficult question, and better to just accept that it is. You are better off to admit that you developed your method on your own, and never admit that Rosetta Stone is the bases of your method.

There isn't anything unique about "the boy eats an apple" as it is a pretty standard method, so there shouldn't be any problem.

My advice is to design your own instruction method. Ask yourself what you want to teach. How you want to teach it. What activities that you want to use. I think that you are very capable in using the methods that helped you learn as a tool to teach to your students.

It will be way easier and probably more effective to use an already developed textbook. Many use methods similar to what you're explaining and come with pictures, workbooks, CD's etc.

See http://elt.oup.com/cat/courses/young_lea...n&mode=hub

If its fun activities along the lines of Rosetta, you can get a memory game, and use it to teach the children.

You write some action verbs on the blackboard before the game starts. As memory is a game with pairs, a child, once it has found two of the same cards, should pick a partner and give the second card to them. Both then have to go to the blackboard, present the cards to the class, and pick and choose one action verb, and make up a sentence. Once they have decided on a sentence, they should say it out loud. If it was correct, they then stick the cards on the board, and write the sentence underneath it.

There are other activities, like the stop and go game, but this is hardly any good for classrooms when there is little room for it. I am thinking of throwing a word at the children, and they can advance one step when they come up with a good sentence.

There surely are more such activities, that are both entertaining and edutaning for both you and the children, you just have to come up with something.

bcrAn Wrote:Exactly, thanks everyone. About the pictures, I don't have where to get them, can I just get whatever pictures I found online? This is most probably going to be used solely by me.

You can use free stock photos. http://www.sxc.hu/ is a good one.

bcrAn Wrote:I am thinking about designing a small course pretty much based in the same methodology that Rosetta Stone uses to teach alongside my English classes in the school I work at and maybe eventually only teach that.

IMO you really can't expect much from an English course at a juku so I thought this would be a nice idea, simple, fun to implement, easy to teach and maybe / probably more useful for the children than the traditional Repeat > Practice > Write lesson.

Of course I wouldn't copy any pictures but I would pretty much follow the same idea. I will show them items they can easily recognize, apple, boy, girl, followed by an action expressed as a full but simple sentence, the boy eats an apple, the girl eats an apple, and so on.

I could use an iPad to show them the items

What do you think?

I don't think they can copy write or patent their method because their use of images and language has already been in use.

I think that RS falls short in many areas, but I also think that the basis holds a lot of promise if it could be implemented better. As for using a monolingual approach using images, I think it's a great idea.

Eventually I'll do a write up on why Rosetta Stone sucks, and what it would be like if it were to live up to the hype.