The Direct Method

BA 3rd Year
KMC
The Direct Method
In the mid and late 19th century, Europe experienced a
wave of increasing opportunities of communication,
due to industrialization, trade and travel.
This method came into existence when the GT
Method was attacked.
A need was realised to develop oral proficiency in
foreign languages.
The main advocates were Pendergast and Sauveur who
proposed what they called natural method that
suggest radical change from GT Method that later
came to be known as the Direct Method.
Language teachers had already found GT Method
inadequate and ineffective in developing
communicative ability in learners.
It was revived as a method when the goal of
instruction became learning how to use a foreign
language to communicate.
Since the GT Method was not very effective in
preparing students to use the target language
communicatively, the direct method became popular.
The basic rule of Direct Method is: No translation is
allowed.
It receives its name from the fact that meaning is to be
conveyed directly in the target language through the
use of demonstration and visual aids, with no
recourse to the students’ native language (Diller 1978).
Direct method in teaching a language is directly
establishing an immediate and audio visual
association between experience and expression, words
and phrases, idioms and meanings, rules and
performances through the teachers' body and mental
skills, without any help of the learners' mother tongue.
Use of mother tongue of students was avoided.
Theoretical Assumption
Language can be learnt only through demonstration.
Instead of analytical procedures of explaining grammar
rules, students must be encouraged to use language
naturally and spontaneously so that they induce grammar.
The learning of second language was seen as parallel to
the acquisition of the child’s first language.
This method emphasizes the importance of sounds,
simple sentences and direct association of language with
object and person of immediate environment-the
classroom, the home, the garden, etc.
Procedure of Direct Method

1. Introduction / review. First, you set the stage for

learning.
2. Present the new material. Use clear and guided
instructions, so students can begin absorbing the new
material.
3. Guided practice
4. Feedback and correctives.
5. Independent practice.
6. Evaluation/ review
Advantages of Direct Method
(1) It makes the learning of English interesting and
lively by establishing direct bond between a word and
its meaning.
(2) It is an activity method facilitating alertness and
participation of the pupils.
(3) According to Macnee, “It is the quickest way of getting started”. In
a few months over 500 of the commonest English words can be learnt
and used in sentences. This serves as a strong foundation of further
learning.
(4) Due to application of the Direct Method, students are able to
understand what they learn, think about it and then express their own
ideas in correct English about what they have read and learnt.
(5) Psychologically it is a sound method as it proceeds from the
concrete to the abstract.
(6) This method can be usefully employed from the lowest to the
highest class.
(7) Through this method, fluency of speech, good pronunciation
and power of expression are properly developed.
Disadvantages of Direct Method
(1) There are many abstract words which cannot be
interpreted directly in English and much time and
energy are wasted in making attempts for the purpose.
(2) This method is based on the principles that
auditory appeal is stronger that visual. But there are
children who learn more with visual than with their
oral- aural sense like ears and tongue.
(3) The method ignores systematic written work and reading
activities and sufficient attention is not paid to reading and
writing.
(4) Since in this method, grammar is closely bound up with the
reader, difficulty is experienced in providing readers of such kind.
(5) There is dearth of teachers trained and interested in teaching
English in this method.
(6) This method may not hold well in higher classes where the
Translation Method is found suitable.
(7) In larger classes, this method is not properly applied and
teaching in this method does not suit or satisfy the needs of
individual students in large classes.
Techniques of DM
1. Reading aloud
First technique of direct method.
Students take turns in reading sections of the passage,
play, or the dialog.
Teacher can use gestures, postures and pictures to
make understand the meaning.
2. Question and answer exercise
This exercise is conducted in the target language.
Students are asked questions and answers in full
sentences so that they can practice the new words and
grammatical patterns.
Students have the opportunity to ask questions as well
as answer them.
3. Getting students to self-correct
Students are told to do the exercise.
Teachers ask them by providing alternative answers.
In it, teacher might repeat what student has said.
Students know what the wrong answer was.
4. Conversation practice
Teacher asks students a number of sentences in the
target language.
Students have to be able to answer correctly.
Questions contain a particular grammatical pattern.
Students can ask questions.
5. Fill in the blank exercise
All the items are in the target language.
No grammar rules are given to students.
Students have to induce the grammar rules.
6. Dictation
The teacher reads the passage three times.
The first time teacher reads at normal speed and
students listen them.
The second time, teacher reads 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.
6. Map reading
It is based on listening comprehension practice.
Students are given a map with the geographical
features unnamed.
Teacher tells students to find out different
geographical locations.
7. Paragraph writing-students get the writing task.
The teacher gives students a topic to write on.
3. The Audio-lingual Method
Using contrastive The Audio-lingual Method, also known as the
aural-oral, Functional skills, new key or American method of
language teaching was considered a “scientific” approach to
language teaching (Lado in Omaggio, 1986:61).
Many people, across the world, showed an intense and abiding
interest in modern languages.
Dissatisfaction with the traditional methods, their validity, and
adequacy, especially with their treatment of spoken language led
to the birth of the Audio-lingual method which is based on the
aural-oral approach.
It put the accent on the acquisition of oral language skills through
oral practice based on repetition and analogy (Larsen, 2000).
The Audio-lingual method is also an oral-based
approach.
It drills students in the use of grammatical sentence
patterns.
It has a strong theoretical base in linguistics and
psychology.
Charles Fries (1945) of the University of Michigan led
the way in applying principles from structural linguistics
in developing the method, and for this reason, it has
sometimes been referred to as the Michigan Method.
Later in its development, principles from behavioural
psychology (Skinner, 1957) were incorporated.
It was thought that the way to acquire the sentence
patterns of the target language was through
conditioning-helping learners to respond correctly to
stimuli through shaping and reinforcement.
Learners could overcome the habits of their native
language and form the new habits required to be
target language speakers.
Experience
After entering the class, the first thing teachers notice is that
students are attentively listening as the teacher is presenting
a new dialog, a conversation between two people.
The students will be expected to memorize the dialog the
teacher is introducing in English.
Teacher tells students to repeat the dialog.
Teacher works on the line in small pieces.
When students have repeated the dialog several times, the
teacher gives them a chance to adopt the role of another
one.
Different types of drills are used in this method.
Teacher selects students for practicing different lines
of dialog.
This type of chain takes place in the class.
Thinking about the experience
Principles
Language forms do not occur by themselves; they
occur most naturally within a context.
The native language and the target languages have
separate linguistic systems.
One of the language teacher’s major roles is that of a
model of the target language.
Language learning is a process of habit formation.
It is important to prevent learners from making errors.
The purpose of language learning is to learn how to
use the language to communicate.
Particular parts of speech occupy particular slots in
sentences.
Positive reinforcement helps the students to develop
correct habits.
Students should learn to respond verbal nonverbal
stimuli.
Each language has a finite number of patterns.
Students should overlearn, i.e. Learn to answer
automatically without stopping to think.
The teacher should be like orchestra leader-
conducting, guiding, and controlling the students’
behavior in the target language.
The major objective of language teaching should be
for students to acquire the structural patterns;
students will learn vocabulary afterward.
The learning of a foreign language should be the same
as the acquisition of the native language.
The major challenge of foreign language teaching is
getting students to overcome the habits of their native
language.
Speech is more basic to language than the written
form.
Language can not be separated from culture.
Techniques of Audio-lingual Method
1. Dialog memorization
Dialogs or short conversations between two people are
often used to begin a new lesson.
Students memorize the dialog through mimicry,
students usually take the role of one person in the
dialog, and the teacher the other.
After the students have learned the one person’s lines,
they switch roles and memorize the other person’s
part.
Sentence patterns are practiced in this method.
2. Background build –up (expansion) drill
It is used when the long line of a dialog is giving
students trouble.
The teacher breaks down the line into several parts.
Students repeat a part of the sentence, usually the last
phrase of the line.
Then, following the teacher’s cue, the students
expand what they are repeating part until they are able
to repeat the same line.
Teacher helps students wherever they need.
3. Repetition drill
Students are asked to repeat the teacher’s model as
accurately and as quickly as possible.
This drill is often used to teach the lines of the dialog.
4. Chain drill
The teacher begins the chain by greeting a particular
student, or asking him a question.
That students respond, then turns to students sitting next to
him.
The first student greets or asks a question of the second
student and the chain continues.
5. Single slot substitution drill
The teacher says a line from the dialog.
The teacher says a word or a phrase-called the cue.
The students repeat the line the teacher has given
them, substituting the cue into the line in its proper
place.
Its purpose is to give the students practice in finding
and filling in slots of a sentence.
6. Multiple –slot substitution drill
It is similar to the single –slot substitution drill.
The difference is that the teacher is that the teacher
gives cue phrases, one at a time, that fit into different
slots in the dialog line.
The students must recognize what part of speech each
cue is, or at least, where it fits into the sentence, and
make any other changes, such as subject-verb agreement.
They then say the line, fitting the cue phrase into the line
where it belongs.
7. Transformation drill
The teacher gives students a certain kinds of sentence
pattern, an affirmative sentence for example.
Students are asked to transform this sentence into a
negative sentence.
Other examples of transformation to ask of students
are changing a statement into a question, an active
sentence into a passive one, or direct speech into
reported speech.
8. Question and answer drill
This drill gives students practice with answering
questions.
The students should answer the teacher’s questions
very quickly.
It is possible for the teacher to cue the students to ask
questions as well.
This gives students practice with the question pattern.
9. Use of minimal pairs
The teacher works with pairs of words which differ in
only one sound; for example, ship/sheep.
Students are first asked to perceive the difference
between the two words and later to be able to say the
two words.
The teacher selects the sounds to work on after she has
done a contrastive analysis, a comparison between the
students’ native language and language they are
studying.
10. Complete the dialog
Selected words are erased from a dialog students have learned.
Students complete the dialog by filling the blanks with the
missing words.
11. Grammar game
Games like the supermarket alphabet are used in it.
The games are designed to get students to practice a grammar
point within a context.
Students are able too express themselves, although it is rather
limited in this game.
There is also a lot of repetition in this game.