Undoubtedly, if you studied a language while in school, the curriculum to which you were exposed bore little or
no resemblance to the ULAT program. Likely it was largely text-based and, if your experience was anything like mine, you were doing written exercises right from your first day
of class. Your teacher also likely used a certain amount of English in instructing you and provided you with detailed grammatical explanations, written vocabulary lists, including
translations, and maybe even dialogues to memorize.
If that was the case, you will surely find the ULAT's approach unusual, potentially rather confusing and possibly a bit frustrating as you were expecting a pedagogical approach
for your child that resembled that which you experienced. The notion of learning a foreign language in the same way one learns one's native language (moving from listening and
speaking, with no translations or analytical grammatical explanations and no text whatsoever, to reading and then, much later, to writing) may cause some anxiety as you wonder
how your child will be able to perform.
If you are uncomfortable with this unconventional approach, allow me to ask you to do four things. First of all, consider the degree of fluency, particularly fluency of speech,
that you were able to attain as a result of the more traditional training you received. Would you want those results replicated in the life of your child? Secondly, suspend judgment
for at least a month. Observe and listen to your child performing his or her lessons online. Thirdly, read carefully through
the documents provided at the links found below, as they will help you to understand better the rationale behind the ULAT's approach, as well as allow you to read feedback
regarding the ULAT and its author. Finally, please do not translate nor write down for your child any vocabulary found before Unit 9. Be as patient as will be his or her teacher
regarding your child's degree of understanding as to the precise meaning of words and structures.
There is an comfortable way to study a language and then there is the right way,
which takes time, repetition, context clues, hypothesizing and risk-taking. The comforable way involves translation, written grammar exercises from the first day of study and grammar charts and explanations
and ends either in frustration or in lowered expectations. The right way requires far more thought and concentration, but results in the student actually being able to
communicate for years thereafter, which is the richest reward. Anyone who has had to learn to speak another language, while living in another culture, can tell you that attaining
genuine fluency is not always comfortable but, in the end, doing it the right way was worth the hardships along the way.
S. Nesbitt