by
Muzaffer Katar
CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................
DIRECT METHOD............................................................................................................
GOALS OF THE TEACHERS...........................................................................................
ROLE OF THE TEACHER................................................................................................
THE ROLE OF THE STUDENTS.....................................................................................
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHING AND LEARNING PROCESS....................
NATURE OF THE STUDENT-TEACHER AND STUDENT-STUDENT INTERACTION.
HOW LANGUAGE AND CULTURE ARE VIEWED.......................................................
LANGUAGE AREAS AND SKILLS EMPHASIZED.......................................................
EVALUATION..................................................................................................................
ERROR CORRECTION....................................................................................................
TECHNIQUES IN THE DIRECT METHOD.....................................................................
OBJECTIONS AND COMMENT....................................................................................
CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................
REFERENCES...................................................................................................................
While the world is getting smaller, the need of foreign languge teaching to people from different nations increases. Whatever method is used, the main goal in teaching a foreign language is teaching the grammar of that language. That new methods like functional, national or communicative have appeared never disclaims the reality that we teach grammar. Methods are the carriers by which we transport or teach grammar methods are for a better teaching and using of grammar. If there weren’t grammar or sentence structures, there wouldn’t be anythng to teach. So we caan not accept the scientists who neglect the term grammar teaching. Basing on this, we can name the methods functional language or grammar method, and communicative grammar method.
DIRECT METHOD
It came out as a reaction to the grammar translation method and its failure to produce learners who could use the foreign language and therefore happened to be in the past. While the new methods are concerned with the spoken language, the former methods are concerned with the grammatical structures in general.Since the importance of spoken language has been understood,traditional concepts of teaching grammar arent applied any more.Lessons begin with dialogs and anectodes in modern conversational style.Actions and pictures are used to make meanings clear.Grammar is learned inductively.Literary texts are read for pleasure and arent analyzed grammatically. The target culture is also taught in inductively.
In Direct Method, chunks of language are taught in the target language. If you have a superb teacher who can use the method in its real spirit, the method can be useful and students can learn. However to many learners, especially older ones, the excessive pre-occupation with pronunciation and intonation, the time often spent in getting a meaning across, and the tension caused by the exclusive use of a target language were frustrating. Neverthless, except were teacher aides and a vast collecting of objects and pictures are available, The Direct Method is the only feasible approach in countries like the United States, Great Britain and Israel, where the learners come from numerous linguistic backgrounds.
1. Since it came out as a reaction to the grammar translation method, teachers’ main goal is not to talk mother tongue in order to make them able to talk the second language.
2. Teachers are to teach chunks of the language in the target language.
3. Teachers are to create such a classroom atmosphere to make to students ready to understand and talk about the dialogues or the passages.
4. Teachers are also expected to use actions and pictures related to the teaching matters in the dialogues.
5. Teachers create conversations about the passages.
6. They are to give chances to every student to take part in any way in the conversations.
In the use of the Direct Method in language teaching, the teachers are to undertake a great effort since they are not allowed to talk mother tongue. They are to find meaningful teaching materials to study along with the texts in the book. They try to make the students understand the general rules and structures through the stretches of the target language studied in classroom. Such an effort fits the inductive spirit of the Direct Method.
A native teacher or one who has proficiency like a native teacher can better carry out the role of the teacher along with the Direct Method.
There are some lesson of which course digress from the formal teaching subject. In such a case a talented teacher wouldn’t try to come on the teaching subject of the lesson immediately because such moments are very realistic and communicative and students are very eager to talk about the later appeared subject (For instance, while talking of the life in the USA any of the students drove you talk about American Imperialism. The teacher is better talk about it. Then with a manoeuvre teacher can get on the formal subject).
Some other aspect about the role of the teacher is that she should talk in an accesible level. Their monologues should be arranged in a way which new vocabulary in comprehensible in the context of their presentation.
They should use within or slightly beyond the students receptive control.
That teachers don’t spend a great deal of time explaining grammar, setting up complicated exercises and managing paper flow in the Direct Method is an advantage of this method.
The chief in the teaching process is the teacher. Therefore if the students are to attain some role in the classroom it will be realized by the teacher. A good teacher creates the conditions in which the teaching process turns out to a functional learning process that the students take role in by listening, reading and speaking.
The students have to take part in the classroom activities and to be a good listeners first. They warm up taking part in dialogues with which the lessons start.
According to Gatenby, the students associate an object, etc.with a combination of sounds, not with a picture of a written word in his brain.
A very large proportion of the names learnt come to be known in association with some action. Students look a thing, point it, push it, run to it, play with it.
In the realization of their role the students can make many mistakes. They are constantly corrected by the other students and the teacher. Then the students corrects himself through perception of his own faulty limitation.
The students are filled with various desires which they express in speech realize their role.
They are always to revise what has been taught.
General characteristics of the method is the prohobition of mother tongue. All activities are presented in the target language.
There are lots of demonstrations, dramatisations and pointing to associate words and sentences with their meanings. There is a direct contact with the foreign language in meaningful situations.
In the Direct Method, the learning process is full of variety and is never wearisome. The language studied is the living speech.
Listening, speaking and reading is valid rather than writing.
The process ignores the study of titles and headings of the language elements like “nouns, adjectives, verbs and participles”. Instead, we see talk about the naming and describing of the objects and actions.
In this teaching and learning process, there is fixing of knowledge in the memory by repetition. This means forming a new language habit: to think in the target language.
The syllabus in the Direct Method is based upon situations. A unit may be about language on a situation at a bank or shopping and the other unit may be about geography, money or the weather.
During the lessons students are presented with examples and they figure out the rule of generalization from the examples. An explicit grammar rule may never be given. Student practice vocabulary by using new words in complete sentences.
It is known that a warm, friendly and encouraging classroom atmposphere between the students and the teacher must be established for a better sharing in the teaching activities.
Teacher always motivates his students in the first minutes of the lessons. If the teacher is not a talented one to created a positive interaction in the classroom, he shouldn’t go to the classroom without a lesson plan. It is known that many teachers today, even if he is not talented, go to the classroom without a lesson plan, and lessons are monotonous, the teacher reads the passages, makes some framing and then he discusses “Why they can’t learn a foreign language” and adds “They don’t have ability to learn a foreign language”.
Feedback by the teacher or the better students should be positive. Negative feedback is always discouraging and intimidating, especially if students are shy.
In short, the initiation of the interaction goes both ways, from teacher to students and from students to teacher, although the latter is often teacher-directed. Students converse with one another as well.
As mentioned before, 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 who speak the target language, the geography of the country or the countries where the language is spoken, and information about daily lives of the speakers of the language.
I don’t believe in such cultural differences. We all are human beings and we all have a human culture. For years I have studied English and I have learnt no different culture other than realizing very little differences.
Vocabulary is emphasized over grammar. Since there is no permission for translation, vocabulary teaching takes a lot of time. Grammar is also taught through question and answer activities about the passages.
Although work on all four skills, which are namely reading, writing, speaking and listening, oral communication is seen as basic. Thus the reading and writing exercises are based upon what the students practice orally first. Pronunciation also receives attention right from the beginning of the course.
There couldn’t seen any formal evaluation in the class observed; however, in the Direct Method, students are asked to use the language, not to demonstrate their knowledge about the language. They are asked to do so using both oral and written skills. For example, the students might be interviewed orally by the teacher or might be asked to write a paragraph about something they have studied.
The students are never to be embarrased but tolerated.
Immediate error correction is also discouraging sometimes, so to be avoided. Otherwise the students wouldn’t be willing to participate. So the frequent errors are to be corrected at the end of the activity without referring to individuals.
It is better to make the students to self correct without hurting them whenever possible.
TECHNIQUES IN THE DIRECT METHOD
Reading Aloud: Students take turns reading sections of a passage, play or dialog loud. At the end of each students turn, the teacher uses gestures, pictures, realia, 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 sentences so that they practice with new words and grammatical structure. They have the opportunity to ask questions as well as answer them.
Getting Students To Self-Correct: The teacher the 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, a 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 error. The student knows that the next word was wrogn.
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.
Fill-in-the-blank Exercise: This technique is already been discussed in the grammar translation method, but differs in its application in the Direct Method. 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.
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 checked their work.
Map Drawing: An Example: The students are given a map with the geographical features unnamed. Then the teacher gives the students directions such as the following, “Find the mountain range. Write the words “Toros Mountains” across the mountain range”. The teacher gives instructions for all the geopraphical features of Turkey so that students will have a completely labeled map if they follow the teacher’s instructions correctly. The students then instructs the teacher to do the same thing with a map he has drawn on the blackboard. Each student can have a turn giving the teacher instructions for finding and labeling one geographical sentence.
Paragraph Writing: On an example topic about geography the teacher may ask the students to write a paragraph in their own words on the major geographical features of Turkey. They can do this from memory, or they can use the reading passage in the lesson as a model.
There have been various objections to the Direct Method such as: “Although a child learns his own language naturally, it is not possible to learn a second language in the same way, since the theory of learning the native language and the foreign language as well as the psychology of learning them are different.” It is true that some conditions of learning the foreign language are different from those in which one learns one’s native language: environment, age, motivation, material, etc. are different in each case.
Some other objection to the Direct Method is that the Direct Method is valid insofar as the meaning can be dramatized. There are various situations that can not be dramatized or acted out. Especially with intermediate and advanced language material, dramatization in various cases becomes impossible, and wastes a lot of time because some teachers are excessively rigorous in applying the Direct Method and eliminate the native language completely. This can result in non-learning or very little learning. The student’s dissatisfaction in the long run causes and invalidates the classroom situation. In spite of these objections, the Direct Method has still been used and defended rigorously by various teachers in different parts of the world. It is true that the Direct Method is superior to the grammar translation method in many ways. It has brought in to language teaching a clear purpose, and more important, a technique both of which have been tremendous importance and benefit. We are not now at that point to reject the Direct Method as a hole, and it is not wise to ignore the advantages which it has introduced. It is superior to several of the older methods because it has emphasized the importance of language contact, and it is not only by the Direct Methodists that the idea of learning a foreign language for communication has been put forward.
Even though the Direct Method is not a functional or notional way of teaching it is quite a good method to teach general English. If the teacher is not native or nativelike he should certainly go to the class with a lesson plan to carry out the activities and to be successful with the Direct Method.
Özen, Ahmet. A Guide For Methodology and Practice Teaching. Ankara: Gazi Eðitim Ensitüsü Basýmevi, 1978.
Freeman, Diane L. Techniques And Principles In Language Teaching. Oxford University Press, 1986.
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