DIRECT METHOD

DIRECT METHOD

This method was developed in order to overcome the shortcomings of the Grammar-Translation Method which was unhelpful to those who wanted to learn a foreign language for communication.

This  method  became  popular  during  the  early  years  of  the  Twentieth  Century.  It  is  called 'Direct'  because  the  teaching  of  the  foreign  language  was  done  without  any  resort  to  the  mother tongue.  It  is  based  on the  assumption  that  one  should learn  a  foreign  language  as  one  would  learn  one's  mother  tongue. 

1.      The main assumptions underlying this method are:

a.      Grammatical  rules  are  not  taught  explicitly  but  are  rather  acquired  unconsciously  through intensive  listening  and  imitation.  So memorization of  conjugations  and  rules  of  grammar  is rejected as priority is given to speech and oral skills.

b.      Translation  is considered  a useless  activity  in foreign  language learning.  Thus  dramatization, demonstration and pointing at objects are used for teaching the meaning of difficult words.

c.       As the focus is put  on speech and  oral skills, reading  and writing are  postponed for  months until firm grounds  in listening and  speaking are  secured. However, advanced  learners can  read  literary texts for pleasure and comprehension and not for grammatical analysis. 

d.      Pupils are also introduced to the foreign culture inductively.

  

Many  techniques  and  procedures  are  used  for  the  sake  of  making  this  method  more  effective  such  as  question  and  answer  exchanges  between  teacher  and  learners,  vocabulary  teaching  through  demonstration,  objects  and  pictures,  and  the    'mim-mem'  technique  which  consisted  of  the  students  imitating  selected  foreign  language  sentences,  short  dialogues,  expressions and songs, and then memorizing them.

1.      Shortcomings

a.      In this method all the language activities are related to the classroom context, and not to real  life  situations.  Therefore,  learners  are  not  prepared  to  use  the  foreign  language  for  communication  as  the  teachers  do  not  think  of  them  using  it outside  the  confines  of  the  classroom

b.      It  is  time  consuming  because  it  is  not  easy  to  explain  the  meanings  of  the  difficult  words  through pointing at objects and dramatization, especially in the case of abstract words.

c.       It requires a highly competent teacher who is very fluent in the foreign language and a great number of class hours as most of the work is done in the classroom.

2.      Questions

1.      What are the goals of teachers who use the DM?

2.      What is the role of the teachers? What is the role of the students?

3.      What are some characteristics of teaching/learning process?

4.      What is the nature of student-teacher interaction?

5.      What is the nature of student-student interaction?

6.      How are the feeling of the students dealt with?

7.      How is the language viewed?