I am not overly familiar with this method, but the memorization of lists of phrases without context or a way for learners to make it personal sounds a lot like some of the English learning scams we have in Japan. People want to learn and be lazy and so they buy into that sort of method, and it doesn't work.

Looking closer at the method, I am honestly surprised, this method seems like it would be easy to teach, but not effective for language acquisition.

I basically agree with Mr. Tuner and Mr. Macwhinnie, but I would like to ad the till some point it also include some features of the direct method.

Thank you Steven and Gonzalo for your answers. Gonzalo, you may be right about the influence of the Direct Method, in as much as the Vaughan Method teaches some topic-based vocabulary without translation. However, the approach to grammar in the Direct Method is radically different from the approach employed in the Vaughan Method: the Direct Method uses an inductive approach to grammar in which students are expected to induce the rules from the contextualized presentation of language forms; The Vaughan Method uses a mixture of audiolingualism-controlled,largely decontextualized drills- in the classroom, and a deductive approach-the direct provision of simple (often oversimplified) rules- in its written materials.

Of course. there is nothing wrong with a method that mixes elements from different approaches, providing the person that produces the method has a good grounding in theories of language, theories of language learning and theories of learning per se, and a good knowledge of research into language learning. However, there is no evidence of any of this  in Richard Vaughan's pontifications about language teaching. In my view, his method is light years away from the ideal of informed eclecticism propounded by Henry Widdowson.

Why does any of this matter? Because Vaughan has propagated the myth that fluency, which he terms agility, can be achieved by decontexualized, controlled practice of language forms and decontextualized translations from his poorly assembled phrase lists. It is our duty as language professionals to debunk such myths. 

I spend  a lot of time in Spain, and have often listened to Vaughan lessons on the radio.  I think they're great.  They are aimed at adults, are interesting, and have a sense of humor.  I would recommend them to students of English, though they would not suit beginners. 

Thank you David for your answer. Some of the radio programmes are more interesting than the actual classes. However, the latter are based almost entirely on drills and translation sheets. They might be interesting for a while, as the teachers are undoubtedly trained to deliver the method in a highly dynamic, theatrical way. However, I have strong reasons to doubt their long-term efficacy.

I have had several cases of students who have done Vaughan's extensive or intensive courses and come away with a positive initial impression of their progress. However, once they go back to "normal " classes  and to using English at work, many of them realize that the grammar that they were taught through the drills has not been fully acquired, as they continue to make the same mistakes with it in spontaneous speaking exercises, and that what they thought was fluency was just the ability to manipulate structures quickly during the drills. The level tests that I have done with students after Vaughan Courses usually corroborate little or no real progress in either fluency or accuracy.

In fact, I have certain doubts concerning this mix simply because there is nothing can substitute communication and interaction as a learning technique.  Structured exercises and lists of vocabularies lead student to learn about language not to learn a language itself. 

@Liqaa:

I agree that communication and interaction are essential, but there has to be a focus on form as well. There is a growing body of research that confirms that the best way to learn involves a mixture of communicative tasks and focus on form. This question is treated quite thoroughly in Focus on Form in Classroom Second Language Acquisition, edited by Doughty and Williams.

Richard Vaughan is right to criticize methods or teachers that only focus on communicative output in class. However, his declared decision not to carry out any free speaking tasks, because the teacher has to have control of what is taught at all times, is mistaken in my view. ( You can check his position on this by looking at his webpage.) In fact,his own method would improve considerably if he used free conversation, role plays etc to determine what difficulties his students have, and then treated these difficulties reactively in some way. This would make his approach much less lock-step and predictable, by ensuring that at least part of the language content responds to the specific needs of each class.

Dear Chris

You are fully right and I agree with you that if there is a balance of linguistic competence as well as communicative one, it would be good mix with different  exercises and tasks. 

I agree with Mr Turner. As an english language student, I think that free speaking tasks help me to improve my english skills because I can personalice and remember  much better my own mistakes. Memorization of lists of decontexualized phrases in my opinion is less useful for my learning.

And of course Vaughan radio contents are interesting, and they have a sense of humor, but it is not mainly what I´m looking for as an english student.

Thank you Liqaa.

Our language center at the University of Informatics Sciences, Havana, Cuba, has recommended some of our students who have no time to attend regular lessons to at least try Vaughan. Many of them are actually satisfied by the results. However, no serious research has been conducted in this respect. I really think that in matters of picking a language course, there is still so much to learn, because we have been bouncing for years. For me the best method is the one that really works for my students, not the one which has a lot of supporting research.