Chapter I theoretical foundation of direct method

Chapter I Theoretical foundation of direct method.
1.1 Creation of direct method as the most effective teaching method
If we take a deeper look into direct method's philosophies, we can see that it’s something teachers want to try out it in their classroom.
Let’s begin.What’s the Direct Method?
Around the turn of the 19th century in England a method arose that served to right the shortcomings of the grammar-translation method—the most prevalent language teaching approach in those days.So it contrasts with the grammar–translation method & Bilingual method of teaching and other traditional approaches, as well as with C.J.Dodson's bilingual method. It was adopted by key international language schools such as Berlitz and Inlingua in the 1970s.
The direct method was developed as an antithesis to grammar-translation method. When the grammar-translation method’s weaknesses became apparent, the direct method expressly addressed those competencies scarcely touched by its predecessor. So what’s the grammar-translation method? Let’s review.
It’s the teaching method that puts grammar—its rules, morphology, syntax—at the forefront. Meaning, language is taught by analyzing the different elements of language and explicitly prescribing correct ways of combining those elements.
A teacher composing a sample sentence on the board, and then labeling the words as nouns, verbs and adjectives while explaining how they relate to each other, is using grammar-translation method to teach language. The approach is usually championed in textbooks where the different parts of speech have their own chapters and, at the end of each chapter, practice exercises abound.
The “translation” part of “grammar-translation” is embodied in the vocabulary lists that give the equivalents of words in the target language. Translation exercises where students are asked to translate words, phrases and sentences are often used.
The grammar-translation method is especially adept at developing writing and reading skills, which is very important in dealing with Latin and Greek—dead languages, but for which a wealth of preserved literature abounds. But when it comes to practical, modern, spoken languages, it hasn’t resulted in students with communicative ability to carry an interesting conversation in the target language. So now comes the direct method, a repudiation of its predecessor.⁷
As we shall soon see, grammar, which is at the core of the grammar-translation method, isn’t even expressly taught in this approach. There are no grammar exercises, no committing of rules to memory, no lessons on how to write the plural form of a noun or how to conjugate a verb. That’s why it’s also known as the “anti-grammatical method.”
And while the grammar-translation is taught using the students’ first language, the direct method uses only the target language. Imagine! In a Spanish class that uses this method, you’d only use Spanish to teach your students the language.
The direct method is also known as natural method because it looks to the process of first language acquisition to set the context and techniques for second language acquisition. When we learned our mother tongue, we didn’t go through grammar lessons and translation drills. It was developed as a reaction to the grammar translation method and is designed to take the learner into the domain of the target language in the most natural manner.
The main objective is to impart a perfect command of a foreign language. The main focus being to make the learner think in the targeted language in the same manner as the learning of his/her mother-tongue in the most natural way.
In traditional language-learning, pupil participation was found to be diminished as the teaching is perceived to be long and monotonous.
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.