Rangkuman The Direct Method

The Direct Method

INTRODUCTION

As with The Grammar-Translation Method, the Direct Method is not new. Its principles have been applied by language teachers for many years. Most recently, it was revived as a method when the goal of instruction become learning how to use a foreign language to communicate. The Direct Method has one very basic rule: No translation is allowed.

REVIEWING THE PRINCIPLES

Consider the principles of the Direct Method as they are arranged in answer to the ten questions posed earlier:
1. What are the goals of teachers who use the Direct Method?
Teachers who use the Direct Method intend that students learn how to communicate in the target language. In order to do this successfully, students should learn to think in the target language.
2. What is the role of the teacher? What is the role of the students?
Although the teacher directs the class activities, the student role is less passive than in The Grammar-Translation Method. The teacher and the students are more like partners in the teaching/learning process.
3. What are some characteristic of the teaching/learning process?
Students need to associate meaning and the target language directly. In order to do this, when the teacher introduces a new target language word or phrase, he demonstrates its meaning through the use of regalia, pictures, or pantomime; he never translate in into the students’ native language. In fact, the syllabus used in the Direct Method is based upon situations or topics. Grammar is taught inductively; that is the students are presented with examples and they figure out the rule or generalization from the examples.
4. What is the nature of student-teacher interaction? What is the nature of student-student interaction?
The initiation of the interaction goes both ways, from teacher to students and from student to teacher, although the latter is often teacher-directed. Students converse with one another as well.
5. How are the feelings of the students dealt with?
There are no principles of the method which relate it this area.
6. How is the language viewed? How is culture viewed?
Language is primarily spoken, not written. Therefore, students study common, everyday speech in the target language. They also study culture consisting of the history of the people, the geography of the country, and information about the daily lives.
7. What areas of language emphasized? What language skills are emphasized?
Vocabulary is emphasized over grammar. Although work on all four skills (reading, written, speaking, and listening) occurs from the start, oral communication is seen as basic.
8. What is the role of the students’ native language?
The students’ native language should not be used in the classroom.
9. How is evaluation accomplished?
In the Direct Method, students are asked to the language, not to demonstrate their knowledge about the language.
10. How does the teacher respond to student errors?
The teacher, employing various techniques, tries to get student yo self-correct whenever possible.

REVIEWING THE TECHNIQUES

The following expanded review of techniques provides you with some details which will help you do this.

Reading Aloud

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

Question and answer exercise

This exercise is conducted only in the target language. Students are asked questions and answer in full sentence so that they practice new words and grammatical structures.

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 an alternative answer he supplied. There are, however, other ways of getting students to self-correct. Another possibility is for the teacher to repeat what the student said, stopping just before the errors.

Conversation practice

The teacher asks students a number of questions in the target language, which the students have to understand to be able to answer correctly. The questions contained a particular grammar structure.

Fill-in-the-blanks exercise

All the items are in the target language; furthermore, no explicit grammar rule would be applied.

Dictation

The teacher reads the passage three times. The first time the teacher reads it at normal speed, the second time reads the passage phrase by phrase, the last time the teacher again reads at a normal speed.

Map drawing

The class included one example of a technique used to give students listening comprehensive practice.

Paragraph writing

The teacher in this class asked the students to write a paragraph in their own words on the major geographical features of the United States.