Direct Method

INTRODUCTION

Direct method is not a new method. Its principles have been applied by language teachers for many years.  Most recently, it was revived as a method when the goal of the instruction became learning how to use a foreign language to communicate.

The direct method is a method of teaching was developed as a response to the Grammar-Translation method. It sought to immerse the learner in the same way as when a first language is learnt. All teaching is done in the target language, grammar is taught inductively, there is a focus on speaking and listening, and only useful ‘everyday' language is taught. The weakness in the Direct Method is its assumption that a second language can be learnt in exactly the same way as a first, when in fact the conditions under which a second language is learnt are very different. For example, The teacher explains new vocabulary using realia, visual aids or demonstrations. Aspects of the Direct Method are still evident in many ELT classrooms, such as the emphasis on listening and speaking, the use of the target language for all class instructions, and the use of visuals and realia to illustrate meaning.

The source of Kelly stated in 1969 that is the most accessible source for a historical interpretation, although his treatment of the direct method is scattered over the different chapters of his work. A systematic attempt to trace the origins and development of the direct method in Germany has been made by Rulker in 1969.

Historically, in the language teaching reforms from 1850 to 1900, particularly in Europe attempted to make language teaching more effective by a radical change from grammar-translation. Various methods were developed during this period attesting to the general discontent with the prevailing theory and practice.

The direct method has one very basic rule. No translation is allowed. In fact, the direct method recieves its name from the fact that meaning is to be connected directly with the target language without going through the process of translating into the students’ native language.

Teachers who use the direct method intend the students learn how to communicate in the target language. In order to do this successfully, students should learn to think in the target language.

THE FEATURES OF THE DIRECT METHOD

1.             Objective

            The direct method represents a shift from literary to the spoken everyday language as the object of early instruction, a goal that was totally lacking in grammar translation. The direct method represents more a change in means than in the ends of language teaching, and it can be said that the direct method did not convey a fundamentally different view of the main goals of language instruction from that of its predecessors.

2.             Characteristic 

                        Teachers who use the direct method believe students need to associate meaning and the target language directly. In order to do this, when the techer introduces a new target language word or phrase, he demonstreates its meaning through the use of realia, pictures, or pantomime; he never translates it into the students’ native language. Students speak in the target language a great deal and communicate as if they were in real situation.  In fact, the syllabus use in the direct method is based upon situation ( for example, one unit would consist of language that people would use at a bank, another of the language that they use when going shopping) or topics ( such as geography, money, or the weather).

3.             Technique

Ø  Reading Aloud

Students take turns reading section of a passage, play, or dialog out loud. Aat the end of each student’s turn, the teacher uses guestures, pictures, realia, examples, or other means to make to make the meaning of the section clear.

Ø  Question and Answer Exercise

This exercise is conducted only in the target language. Students are asked questions and answers in full sentences so that they practise with new words and grammatical struture. They have opportunity to ask questions as well as answer them.

Ø  Getting Students to Self-Correct

The teacher of this class has the students self-correct by asking them to make a choice between what they said and an alternate answer he supplied. There are, however, other ways of getting students to self-correct. For example, the teacher repeat what the student said, stopping just before the error. The student will know that the next word was wrong.

Ø  Conversation Practice

The teacher asks students a number of question in the target language which the students have o understand to be able to answer correctly. The question contained a particular grammar structure. Later the students were avle to ask each other their own question using the same grammatical structure.

Ø  Fill-in-the-Blank Exercise

All the items are in the target language; furthermore, no explicit grammar rule would be applied. The students would have induced the grammar rule they need to fill in the blanks from example and practice with earlier paarts of the lesson.

Ø  Dictation

The teacher reads the passage three times. The first time, the teacher reads it at a normal speed, while the students just listen. The second time, he reads the passage phrase by phrase, pausing long enough to allow students to write down what they have heard. The  last time, the teacher again reads at a normal speed, and students check their work.

Ø  Paragraph Writing

      The teacher in this class asked the students to write a paragraph in their own words on the major geographical features of a country. For example, United States. They could have done this from memory, or they could have used the reading passage in the lesson as a model.

4.             Theoretical assumptions

            Linguistically, language teaching was to be based on phonetics and on a scientifically established coherent grammar (victor 1882). The learning of language was viewed as analogous to first language acquisition, and the learning processes involved were often interpreted in terms of an associations psychology. Hence the emphasis on sounds and simple sentences and direct association of language with objects and persons of the immediate environment, for example, the classroom, the home, the garden, and the street

5.             Assessment

            The direct method was the first of the method in which the impetus came both from the inventiveness of a few practitioners and from the critical and theoretical thought about the nature of language and language learning of a few linguistic scholars such as Sweet and Victor. The direct method was also a first attempted to make the language learning situation one of language use and to train the learner to abandon the first language as the frame of reference. The use of the text as a basis of language learning, demonstrations of pictures and objects, the emphasis on question and answer, spoken narratives ,dictation , imitation, and a host of new types of grammatical exercise have resulted from the direct method.

            Two major problems have persistently troubled direct method teaching. One has been how to convey meaning without translating, and how to safeguard against misunderstanding without reference to the first language. Another has been how to apply the direct method beyond elementary stages of language learning. The direct method like other new methods has extended the repertoire of language instruction in the early stages of teaching , but has added relatively little to the teaching of advanced learners. In a way particularly because of the second language in classroom communication, the direct method can legitimately be looked upon as a predecessor of present – day ‘ immersion’ techniques.

REFERENCE

Ø   a complied material of teaching learning strategy

Ø  Freeman-Larsen,Diane. 1986. Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching.England: Oxford University Press