Microsoft Word metod t10. doc

The method is called direct because in teaching a foreign language an 
attempt is made to establish a direct connection between a foreign word and 
the thing or notion it denotes without the aid of the native language.
The "No 
Translation" 
rule can become an issue. Teachers complain that it 
is sometimes time consuming to mime vocabulary, when a simple translation 
would do. And some words are difficult to mime. Students become frustrated 
when some members of the class do not understand the teacher's explanations 
and when the whole class is held up untill the meaning becomes clear to all.. 
While monitoring carefully the amount of your students' native language you 
use in class, you should use your common sense in this question of translation. If you 
judge that your students are not getting the point, or the meaning of a particular word, 
if you think that your lesson straying from its objectives, and if you know the word in 
your students' language, then give a translation and get on with your lesson. 
Many of the textbooks based on the Direct Method, most of which are by now 
quite dated, were written for Western school children. This can be problematic since 
the method is heavily dependent on the text and the texts are not guarantied to be 
culturally accessible. A textbook used in Francophone Africa describes children 
having cornflakes for breakfast, putting on their Wellington boots because it is raining, 
and catching a double-decker bus to go to school. It is not difficult to transfer this 
lesson into a cultural context that your students will understand, but it is an additional 
barrier for your students to overcome. And your role in this process will be to provide 
the necessary cultural translation. 
Summary
1. Lessons begin with a brief anecdote or dialogue in the target 
language, and in modern conversational style. 
2. The material is first presented orally with actions or pictures. 
3. The mother tongue is never , never used.(i.e., there is no translation). 
4. The preferred type of exercise is a series of questions in the target 
language based on the anecdote or dialogue, and answered in the target 
language. 
5. Grammar is taught inductively: rule generalization comes only after 
experience. 
6. Verbs are used first and systematically conjugated much later. 
7. Advanced students read literature for comprehension and pleasure; literary 
texts are not analyzed grammatically. 
8. The culture association with the target language is also taught 
inductively. 
At the end of the XlX-th and in the beginning of the XX-th century there 
appeared several varieties of the direct method which differed only in some details. 

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The most orthodox advocates of the Direct Method were F. Gorin, 
M.Berlitz, M.Walter, and B.Eggert. The teachers, who accepted the method, 
involve the pupil from the first step of learning a new language in 
conversation and supply meaning by referring directly to objects and picture charts; 
they act out the meaning of sentences in order to make themselves understood. 
The direct method found ready seepporters. At stimulated enormously the 
pupils’ curiosity to learn and make progress. But there were too many difficulties 
in the use of the method, the main of them being the following; 
1. No scientific principles were applied to selection of study material and 
vocabulary in particular. The only principle applied was the topical one, the 
material was arranged in topics. As a result of such arrangement of 
vocabulary, the pupil had to assimilate a great number of words. For 
example, in textbooks compiled according to F. Gouin's system the 
vocabulary listed 8.000 words. 
2. School conditions did not favour the development of pupils speech habits
(too few periods a week, overcrowded classes, lack of visual materials, 
etc.). 
3. In the hands of un experienced and ill-equipped teachers the direct 
method did not work and the teachers had to return to the old grammar-
translation method. 
However during the period between the two wars it became possible to 
revive the main principles of the direct method; 
a) by careful experimentation ; b) by taking note of the new developments in the field 
of linguistics (Ferdinand de Saussure) and psychology (Thorndike); c) by insisting 
that clear statements he made as to the aims of objectives of teaching. This was 
done by Henry Palmer and M. West, prominent English methodologists. 
The main points in Palmer's method are: 
1. In learning a foreign language the pupil must tread the path he has 
followed in acquiring the mother tongue, i.e. starting with oral language. 
2. The teaching of a foreign language must be based upon carefully 
selected material. H.Palmer was one of the first methodologists who tried to work 
out the principles of vocabulary selection on a scientific basis. A Special 
Research Institute was established in Tokyo and H.Palmer headed this Institute. 
The results of the work were 3000 word minimum vocabulary list. 
3. Great attention should be given to the rationalization of a study 
material to make the assimilation of a foreign language easier. 
Henry Palmer compiles a series of study guides for teaching