Brian P.
Passive repetition not the best path to fluency
Hmm, everybody here gives 5 stars. I'm surprised. "Ripeti con me!" promises to be different than the other courses and to lead to spoken fluency. Stefano has a lot of good lesson content on grammar and I like the graded "Leggi con me!" But, I don't believe that passive spoken repetition of a teacher is the best path to spoken fluency. I prefer methods where you are prompted to think of a correct reply and then to speak it. At least one well-known course teaches languages this way. I don't think "Ripeti con me!" passive spoken repetition is as effective. Stefano replies below that his program is active. It is not. If you are interested, there are many good articles easily found on the internet that address active vs. passive language learning. S criticizes me for not properly following his method. I investigated his approach and decided that it was not the best method, so I have moved on. Think in Italian has much to offer, but it is not the best course for me.
Response from Think in ItalianJul 9, 2022
Ciao Brian! I'd have been happy to address your doubts personally, but this is the first message I see from you, so I'll reply here. :) -- Q1 "I don't believe that passive spoken repetition of a teacher is the best path to spoken fluency." A1 There's nothing "passive" in my course. You're continuously prompted to speak, especially in Sequence B of the audio lessons "Ripeti con me!", where a long pause gives you the chance to actively _recall_ the sentences (instead of speaking along with my audio). It's like removing for a moment the small extra wheel of a kid's bicycle to enable them to keep balance by themselves. Here's a simple explanation of the difference between "active recall" and "passive review". https://getatomi.com/blog/what-is-active-recall-and-how-effective-is-it/ Q2 "I prefer methods where you are prompted to think of a correct reply and then to speak it." A2 The "correct reply" _is_ the sentence you just heard. You're prompted to think (recall) it and say it. The sentences work as reference (study) material and practice (review) material at the same time, with the advantage that you already have everything you need to practice. If you were to build sentences from scratch, you'd need to come up with an answer, look up words, etc. That easily breaks the flow and keeps you silent instead of speaking. Indeed, there are many courses, apps, and books that teach like that, but I don't use or recommend them. Q3 "At least one well-known course teaches languages this way." A3 Is it the course that I see in your other review? I just tried their lessons and that's the kind of materials that will never make anyone fluent. The only valuable material is their conversations, but they're not put in a way that enables you to speak, but rather to play games as in many other apps. -- I just checked your activity. You've been a member for one month today. I noticed that, although you've been browsing lesson pages almost daily, you haven't marked any lesson as completed. This could just be that you didn't know how or didn't feel the need to do that, but from the lesson pages that you visited, I can tell that you didn't follow my advice to take one audio lesson of "Ripeti con me!" per day, every day. Besides that, there's no way to know if you repeated what you heard and went through the lessons as recommended. While you still have access, why not do this experiment? Take 3 consecutive lessons of "Ripeti con me!" over 3 days, then go back to the first lesson on Day 4. You'll realize that you already understand and speak along more than you did before. Please do repeat everything as recommended, or else it really becomes passive. If you're still not satisfied with the results, I have a 30-day money-back guarantee policy that I'm ready to honor. Just drop me an email. :) Ciao ciao!