Direct method

Direct method

The goals of the teachers who use direct method intend that student learn how to communicate in the target language. Although the teacher directs the class activities, the student role is less passive than in grammar translation method. In order to do this, when the teacher introduces a new target language word or phrase, he demonstrate 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 situations.
The initiation of the interaction goes both ways, from the teachers to students and from the students to the teacher, although the latter in often teacher directed. The also study culture consisting of the history of the people who speak the target language. Vocabulary is emphasized over grammar. Although work on all for skills occurs from the start, oral communication is seen as basic. The student native language should not be used in the classroom.
The teacher, employing various techniques, tries to get students to self-correct whenever possible. The teacher reads the passage three times and students take turns reading sections of passage, play, or dialog out loud. Students are asked questions and never in full sentences so that they practice new words and grammatical structures.
The teacher of this class has the students self-correct by asking them to make a choice between what they said and an alternative answer he supplied. The teacher asks student a number of questions in the target language.
Fill in the blank exercise has already been discussed in the grammar translation method, but differs in its application in direct in the direct method. The class included one examples of a technique used to give listening comprehension practice. 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.