THE DIRECT METHOD

1. Introduction

Towards the end of the late 1800s, a revolution in language teaching philosophy took place that is seen by many as the dawn of modern foreign language teaching. Teachers, frustrated by the limits of the Grammar Translation Method in terms of its inability to create communicative competence in students, began to experiment with new ways of teaching language.

Basically, teachers began attempting to teach foreign languages in a way that was more similar to first language acquisition. It incorporated techniques designed to address all the areas that the Grammar Translation did not - namely oral communication, more spontaneous use of the language, and developing the ability to think in the target language.
Perhaps in an almost reflexive action, the method also moved as far away as possible from various techniques typical of the Grammar Translation Method - for instance using L1 as the language of instruction, memorizing grammatical rules and lots of translation between L1 and the target language.

The appearance of the "Direct Method" thus coincided with a new school of thinking that dictated that all foreign language teaching should occur in the target language only, with no translation and an emphasis on linking meaning to the language being learned. The method became very popular during the first quarter of the 20th century, especially in private language schools in Europe where highly motivated students could study new languages and not need to travel far in order to try them out and apply them communicatively. One of the most famous advocates of the Direct Method was the German Charles Berlitz, whose schools and Berlitz Method are now world-renowned.

English Language Teaching has been subjected to a tremendous change, especially throughout twentieth century. Perhaps more than any other discipline, this tradition has been practiced, in various adaptations, in language classroom all around the world for centuries. While the teaching of Math or Physics, that is, the methodology of teaching Math or Physics, has, to a greater or lesser extent, remained the same, this is hardly the case with English or language teaching in general.

The Direct Method was the outcome of a reaction against the Grammar Translation Method. It was based on the assumption that the learner of a foreign language should think directly in the target language. According to this method, English is taught through English. The learner learns the target language through discussion, conversation and reading in the second language. It does not take recourse to translation and foreign grammar. The first verses are taught while pointing to objects or pictures or by performing actions. According to H.G. Palmer, The Direct Method has the following:

a.       Translation in every shape or form is banished from the classroom including the use of the mother tongue and that of the bilingual dictionary.

b.      Grammar, when it is taught, is taught inductively.

c.       Oral teaching precedes any form of reading and writing.

d.      The use of disconnected sentences is replaced by the use of connected texts.

e.       Pronunciation is taught systematically in accordance with the principles of phonetics and phonology of the target language.

f.       The meanings of words and forms are taught by means of object or natural context.

g.      The vocabulary and structure of the language are inculcated to a large extent by the teacher and answered by students.

2. The History of Direct Method

In the western world back in the 17^th, 18^th and 19^th centuries, foreign language learning was associated with the learning of Latin and Greek, both supposed to promote their speakers’ intellectuality. At the time, it was of vital importance to focus on grammatical rules, syntactic structures, along with rote memorization of vocabulary and translation of literary text. There was no provision for the oral use of the languages under study; after all, both Latin and Greek were not being taught for oral communication but for the sake of their speakers’ becoming “scholarly?” or creating an illusion of “erudition.” Late in the nineteenth century, the classical Method came to be known as Grammar Translation Method, which offered very little beyond an insight into the grammatical rules attending the process of translating from the second to the native language.

It is widely recognized that the Grammar Translation Method is still one of the most popular and favorite models of language teaching, which has been rather stalwart and impervious to educational reforms, remaining standard and sine qua non methodology. With hindsight, we could say that its contribution to language learning has been lamentably limited, since it has shifted the focus from the real language to a “dissected body” of nouns, adjectives and prepositions, doing nothing to enhance a student’s communicative ability in the foreign language.

The last two decades of the nineteenth century ushered in a new age. In his the Art of Learning and Studying Foreign Languages (1880), Francouis Gouin described his “harrowing” experiences of learning German, which helped him gain insights into the intricacies of language teaching and learning. Living in Hamburg for one year, he attempted to master the German language by dint of memorizing a German grammar book and a list of the 248 irregular German verbs, instead of conversing with the natives. Exulting in the security that the grounding in German grammar offered him, he hastened to go to the university to test his knowledge but he could not understand a word. After his failure, he decided to memorize the German roots, but with no success. He went so far as to memorize books, translate Goethe and Schiller, and learn by heart 30.000 words in a dictionary, only to meet with failure. Upon returning to France, gouin discovered that his three-year-old nephew had managed to become chatterbox of French-a fact that made him think that the child held the secret to learning a language. Thus, he began observing his nephew and came to the conclusion that language learning is a matter of transforming perceptions into conceptions and then using language to represent these conceptions. Equipped with this knowledge, he devised a teaching method premised upon these insights. It was against this background that the series method was created, which taught learners directly a “series” of connected sentences that are easy to understand. For instance, I stretch out my arm. I take hold of the handle. I turn the handle. I open the door. I pull the door. Nevertheless, this approach to language learning was short-lived and, only a generation later, gave place to the Direct Method, posited by Charles Berlitz. The basic tenet of Berlitz’s method was that second language learning is similar to first language learning. In this light, there should be lots of oral interaction, spontaneous use of the language, no translation, and little if any analysis of grammatical and syntactic structures.

3. Definition

Direct Method: Sometimes also called natural method, is a method for teaching foreign languages that refrains from using the learners'''' native language and just uses the target language. It was established in Germany and France around 1900.

4. Principles

a.       Classroom instructions are conducted exclusively in the target language.

b.      Only everyday vocabulary and sentences are taught. (the language is made real)

c.       Oral communication skills are built up in a carefully graded progression organized around question- and-answer exchanges between teachers and students in small, intensive classes.

d.      Grammar is taught inductively.

e.       New teaching points are introduced orally.

f.       Concrete vocabulary is taught through demonstration, objects, and pic­tures; abstract vocabulary is taught by association of ideas.

g.      Both speech and listening comprehensions are taught.

h.      Correct pronunciation and grammar are emphasized.

5. The teaching techniques rely mostly on:

a.      Reading aloud

·      Students take turns reading sections of a passage, play, or dialog out loud.

·       At the end of each student's turn, the teacher uses gestures, pictures, realia, examples, or other means to make the meaning of the section clear.

b.       Question and answer exercise

Students are asked questions and answer in full sentences so that they practice new words and grammatical structures. They have the opportunity to ask questions as well as answer them.

c.       Getting students to self-correct

·      The teacher may have students self-correct by asking them to make a choice between what they said and an alternative answer he sup­plied.

·       The teacher might simply repeat what a student has just said, using a questioning voice to signal to the student that something was wrong with it.

·       Another possibility is for the teacher to repeat what the student said, stopping just before the error. The student knows that the next word was wrong.

d.      Conversation practice

·      The teacher asks students a number of questions in the target language.

·       The questions contained a particular grammar structure.

·       Later, the students would be able to ask each other their own questions using the same grammatical structure.

e.       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 examples and practice with earlier parts of the lesson.

f.       Dictation

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

g.      Map drawing

·      The aim is to give students lis­tening comprehension practice. The students are given a map with the geographical features unnamed. Then the teacher gives the students direc­tions.

·       The students then instruct the teacher to do the same thing with a map he had drawn on the blackboard.

·       Each student could have a turn giving the teacher instructions for finding and labeling one geographical feature.

h.      Paragraph writing

·      The teacher may ask the students to write a paragraph in their own words based on the reading materials.

·      Students could do this from memory, or they could use the reading passage in the lesson as a model.

6. The Goal

The Direct Method aims at establishing the direct bond between thought and expressions and between experience and language. It is based on the assumption that the learner should experience the new language in the same way as he experienced his mother tongue. In the Grammar Translation Method, the foreign concept or idea is first translated into the mother tongue and then understood. But in the Direct Method the intervention of the mother tongue is done away with the learner understands what he reads or hears in the second or foreign language without thinking of the mother tongue equivalence. Likewise, he speaks or writes the foreign language without the need of translating his thought or idea from the mother tongue into the second/foreign language. He acquires, what Champion calls that instinctive, unerring language sense which we all possess in variant degree in the mother tongue, and which superseding all rules, grammar and dictionaries, resting at bottom on the direct association between experience and expression, is the only sure guide in the use of language.

a.       For the teacher and students are:

· Teachers who use the Direct Method intend that students learn how to communicate in the target language.

· Students should learn to think in the target language.

7. The role for the teacher and students is the teacher and the students are more like partners in the teaching/learning process.

8. There are some advantages of using direct method :

• The students are motivated to understand and pronounce words or sentences in foreign language that thought by the teacher, especially when the teacher uses media/ realia.
• The students get more experience in speaking foreign language even only simple sentences at first.
• The students are trained to speak in foreign language well.

9. There are some disadvantages of using direct method :

• 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
• Teaching and learning process will be passive if the teacher can not motivate the students to participate the class discussion.
• It is hard to apply in Indonesia since several teachers in Indonesia are not expert in speaking English.

 

REFERENCES

http://www.iolpmezunu.com/f67/unit-2-direct-method-28463/

http://nezh-ibanez1216.blogspot.com/2010/03/summarize-direct-method.html

http://festyranty.blogspot.com/2010/03/summary-of-direct-method.html

http://it-taken.blogspot.com/2010/12/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-direct.html

http://english-mom.blogspot.com/2010/12/definition-of-direct-methode-what-is-it.html

http://novaekasari09.wordpress.com/2011/06/12/direct-method-as-one-of-language-teaching-approaches/