PART 2: THE DIRECT

METHOD
Characteristics and principles
 Direct Method
The Direct Method is named “direct” because
meaning should be connected directly with the
target language without translation into the
native language.
Concept/ Target
Meaning language

L1 Target
concept
language
1. Teacher’s goals:
Students learn to think in the TL
→ communicate in the TL

○ Some teachers say that: “English is to use, not to

test” , “speak.live.love”, “learn through doing and
speaking”
 2. The roles of teacher and
students
◊ Teachers direct the class activities
◊ Teachers and
students are
more like
partners
 ◊ Students
converse with one
another
 3. Teacher’s response to
students’ errors
○ The teacher tries to get
students to self-correct
whenever possible

○ Example: The teacher, by

asking the student to make
a choice, gets him to
correct his own error.
• Correct pronunciation
is emphasized.

• Students should
learn to think in the
target language as
soon as possible
4. Language focus
◊ Vocabulary is
emphasized over grammar.

◊ Language is primarily
spoken, not written.
○ The target culture, the history, the geography of the
country, and the daily lives of the native people are
studied.
 5. Teaching -
learning process
○ Teacher
introduces new
words by using
realia, pictures,
gestures,...

○ Never
translate the new
words into the
native language
→ students speak
as if they were in
real situations
 Grammar
is taught
inductively

○ Students
use new
words in
complete
sentences.
- There may never be
an explicit grammar
rule given.

• DO NOT GIVE RULES:

MAKE THEM FIGURE
OUT THE RULE.
 6. Techniques
a. Reading aloud:

- Students take turns reading sections of a

passage, play, or dialogue out loud.

- At the end of each student’s turn, the teacher

uses gestures, pictures, realia, examples, or
other means to make the meaning of the
section clear.
Demonstration Part
 Reading
• Country music is one of the most popular kinds of music in the United
States. It is popular because it is simple, but strong, human feelings. As life
becomes more and more difficult, it is good to hear about simple, ordinary
people.
• Country music comes from two kinds of music. One is the traditional
music of the people in the Appalachian Moutains in the eastern United
States. The other is traditional cowboy music from the American West.
• Today, country music is very popular everywhere in the United States
and Canada. There are more than a thousand radio stations that play
country music twenty-four hours a day. People in many countries around
the world also enjoy country music and they even sing it in their own
language.
 Questions
• 1. What is the main idea of the first paragraph
?
• 2. What is the second paragraph about ?
• 3. What can you learn from the third
paragraph ?
 Main ideas
• Paragraph 1: The reason why country music is
popular.
• Paragraph 2: The origin of country music.
• Paragraph 3: The popularity of country music.
B. Question and answer exercise:
- Students have the opportunity to ask questions
and answer them in full sentence so that they can
practice with new words and structures.

C. Conversation practice:
- The teacher asks individual students questions about
themselves a particular grammar structure.

- Later, the students ask each other their own questions

using the same grammatical structures.
 Speaking
1. What is your favorite type of music?
2. Why do you enjoy listening to that type of
music?
3. Which songs do you like ?
4. Who is the singer that you admire most?
like best ?
D. Fill-in-the-blank exercise:
- This technique is different from that in the GTM.
- All the items are in the TL; no explicit grammar rule
would be applied.
- The students would introduce the grammar rule
from examples and practice with earlier parts of the
lesson, and then they fill in the blanks.
 Answer
1. successful
2. countries
3. viewers
4. programme
5. global
E. Dictation:
.

- The teacher reads the passage three times:

+ The first time: at normal speech, students just
listen
+ The second time: with pauses, students write down.

+ The last time: at normal speed, students check their

work.
 Map drawing
• Listening comprehension practice is
involved here when Students are given a
map with unnamed geographical features,
and they have to name these features
while listening to the Teacher’s
directions.
F. Map drawing:
- Listening comprehension is involved here when the
students are given a map with unnamed geographical
features.
- They have to name these features while listening to
the teacher’s directions.
 Listening
Please listen to a passage and write down the
missing words in your paper.
 Writing:
• Write a paragraph about your favorite type of
music and explain why you like it.
* Conclusion:
- To use the DM in class, the teacher must be a native
speaker or have native-like proficiency in the TL.
- Its impracticality makes it become less and less popular
in the teaching-learning situation of Vietnam.
Students are able to use the TL communicatively
Teacher believe students need to:
 Overlearn the TL
 Learn to use it automatically without stopping
to think

Form the new habits in the TL and

overcome the
old ones of their native language
• Teachers directing Students’
language behavior
controlling
There are 2 interactions in class:
• Teacher Students

• Students Students
• Errors are to be avoided through the
teacher’s awareness of where the students
will have difficulty
• A great effort is made to prevent learners’s error
• Dialogue is the main feature of the audio lingual
syllabus. They provide learner an opportunity to
practice, mimic and memorize bits of language.
• Vocabulary is also contextualized in the dialogue,
however it is rather limited as the emphasis is
placed on the patterns of the language.
• Skills are taught in the following order: listening,
speaking, reading, writing.
• The skills of writing and reading is not neglected, but
the
focus throughout remains on listening and speaking.
 :
Imitation and memorization are used.
– Language is taught through dialogues with
useful vocabulary and common structures of
communication.
– Learners are made to memorize and mimic the
teacher or a tape listening carefully.
– Grammar is induced from the example given.
Imitation and memorization are used.
– Language is taught through dialogues with
useful vocabulary and common structures of
communication.
– Learners are made to memorize and mimic the
teacher or a tape listening carefully.
– Grammar is induced from the example given.
Reading and writing work is based on the oral
work students did earlier
5. Teaching- learning process :

• Imitation ( or mimicry ) and memorization are often used ,

based on the assumption that language is a habit formation.
• New vocabulary and structure are presented through the
dialogues which are learned through imitation and
repetition. Drills are conducted based on the pattern
presented in the dialogue. Student’s successful responses
are reinforced. Grammar is induced from the given
examples; explicit grammar rules are not provided. Students’
reading and written work are based on the oral work the did
earlier.
• `
6. Techniques

• 6a. Dialogues memorization:

• dialogues or short conversations between two people are often used to
start a new lesson .
• Students usually take one role and teacher takes the other.switch roles
 students try to memorize the lines.
• Another way of practicing the 2 roles is for half of class to take one role
and the other half to take the other.
• Finally , pairs of students might perform the dialogue before the rest of
the class.
 6b. Drills ( or pattern practice) :there are
usually 2 parts of a drill
• -the teacher provides a word or sentence as a stimulus or cue.
• -students make responses based on repetition , substitution , or
transformation.
• The drill used in the ALM are mainly mechanical ones. There are 7 kinds of
drills
– Repetition drill
– Substitution drill
– Transformation drill
– Combination drill
– Question-and-answer drill
– Chain drill
– Backward build- up drill
• 6c. Use of minimal pairs :
• + mainly used for practicing pronunciation.
• +students recognize the difference between the
2 words  say the 2 words
• 6d. Completing the dialogue :
• selected words are released or deleted from a dialogue students have
learn.
• Student complete the dialogue by filling the blank with missing words
• 6e. Grammar game:
• + designed to get student to practice a grammar point
• + students are able to express themselves
• + there is also lots of repetition

• Conclusion : the ALM is also mim-mem method since

mimicry (mim ) and memorization (mem) are the basic
principles. Accuracy is what the teacher wishes his students to
achieve because it shows that the students understand and
can use the language in order to obtain accuracy. Student
have to practice carefully controlled activities and materials
Demo
 Historic perspectives
• 1b
• -The list of principles belongs to the Berlitz
Method , a version of the Direct Method
dating back to the 19th century.
• Potential weaknesses : lack of tolerance of the
learner’s L1, absence of extended stretches of
oral language , lack of tolerance for error.
• 2.Chris- GTM
• Marina- The Silent Way
• Grahams-_Community language learning
• Evelyn- Total Physical Response (TPR)
• 3a
• Situational method-communicative approach-
task based language teaching/ multiple
intelligence ( both in 1990s)
 3b

1950s-1980s Audio-lingual Silent Way, Belief that new

Method; natural Approach, methods define ‘
Situational Total Physical best practice’ and
Method ; Response lead to
Communicative improvements
Approach
1990s-present Content-based Cooperative Methods no
interaction; task- learning , whole longer seen as a
based language language solution; teachers
teaching Approach can adapt
;Multiple different methods
Intelligence according to
needs

Theory of language
Theory of language learning
Syllabus
Learner and teacher role s
Instructional materials
Classroom techniques
Classroom practice
4
ALM Communicative Approach
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