2017م - 1444هـ
English Teaching Practical Hints

INTRODUCTION

The Direct Method

Many "methods" have been inflicted upon a long suffering line of language students across the centuries. The simple idea of teaching students to speak a language by getting them to actually try to speak in that language was a long time coming. The idea of having the teacher speak only that language (in class) was added and that, basically is what is termed "the direct method". It is now pretty much accepted as a good idea across the board and, if somewhat démodé on its own, in various ways and in combination with other ideas is still slowly penetrating even the most hidebound bastions of teaching tradition as national curriculums come around to more pragmatic assessment of the results of language teaching courses.

Often it is not applied much in class because of the class sizes which teachers in state schools often have to deal with. Rather than do everything in the target language it seems quicker to translate words and explain grammar in the students' own language. This, however, tends to give a false impression of what has been learned. The word or even the grammar structure "explained" will probably have been understood but that doesn't mean the student can apply it in practice. I remember learning at school a list of all the French verbs conjugated with ‘être’ instead of ‘avoir’. The list was written in such a way that it even rhymed! I still know it and ocasionally surprise my French students by coming out with it - usually to indicate the relative uselessness of this kind of learning. After all, as I tell them, they certainly can’t give me a list like that - and yet they never make a mistake with these words when they speak French. Which is more than I can claim!