English Language Teaching

1. DIRECT METHOD FOR
LANGUAGE TEACHING
KALSOOM JAHAN
LECTURER IN ENGLISH
LAHORE GARRISON UNIVERSITY

2. BACKGROUND
• Throughout the history of education, especially
teaching languages, there have been many
approaches and teaching methods used. During the
nineteenth century, the Direct Method (or Natural
Method) was developed as an antithesis to the
popular grammar-translation method, which many
believed was failing in the goal of effective
communication in a second language.

3. DIRECT METHOD
• The direct method focuses on full immersion in the
classroom environment where not one word of the
students’ native language is spoken. The focus is not on
grammar but instead on learning through listening and
speaking. When using the natural approach, we don’t
focus on the rules, we allow for mistakes, and we aim for
excellent oral communication with our target words and
language.

4. THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF THE DIRECT METHOD
APPROACH ARE
• Teach language inductively: In this method, we don’t
explain the rules to the students; we let them figure it
out for themselves. We challenge them and guide them
to the correct use of the language, but we also force
them to think through things as they learn. We can do
this by showing them objects and even calling the
objects by the wrong color, so they will figure out what
the object is NOT as well as what it is.

5. ONLY USE THE TARGET LANGUAGE
• Our goal is to not have the students translating from
their mother tongue but to learn instead to think in the
foreign language. When a person learned their first
language, there was no translation from another
language; they had nothing to base it on. The direct
method approach believes in trying to mimic first
language acquisition.

6. ORAL COMMUNICATION IS THE MAIN
OBJECTIVE
• The direct approach focuses on speaking far more than the
importance of reading and writing. This practice is the
complete opposite of the grammar-translation approach,
where students learn all of the rules of a language but often
cannot speak or communicate effectively in the second
language. Using the direct method, we encourage our
students to speak, even to make grammatical mistakes, so
they can get their point across and put into practice what they
are learning in their classrooms.

7. TEACHINGSTYLES USED IN THE DIRECTMETHODAPPROACH ARE:
• Showing or using multiple examples of a word or
concept
• Props and TPR (total physical response)
• Listening and repetition
• Speaking
• Make sure to have a non-threatening environment

8. ADVANTAGES
• 1. The focus is on Oral Practice. Therefore, the pronunciation improves.
• 2. In teaching vocabulary such as words, idioms, this method is good.
• 3. As there is direct relation between thought and expression, it helps the
learners in having good fluency. Using direct method, a teacher helps
students having good command over English.
• 4. In this method, the teacher proceeds from particular to general and from
concrete to abstract.

9. ADVANTAGES
• 5. It makes the teaching English easier and more pleasant. A
teacher uses various images/ pictures to illustrates his/her point.
• 6. This method creates the suitable environment for
learning English Language.
• 7. As the unit of speech in Direct Method is a sentence, students
learn to speak complete sentences without any hesitation. So they
get confidence with command over good English.

10. DISADVANTAGES
• 1. Owing to over-emphasis on oral practice, the other skills
namely reading and writing are ignored to a great extent.
• 2. Average and below average students, especially from rural
background, find difficulty to grasp the things taught via this
method.
• 3. This is an expensive method as the teacher is to use some
aids for teaching.

11. DISADVANTAGES
• 4. For this method, competent teachers must be there. But there is
the dearth of good English teachers in the country. Incompetent
teachers can't use this method successfully.
• 5. In the early stage of learning, this method is completely
unsuccessful.
• 6. The background at home must also be foreign language friendly
for this method. The students whose parents can speak English well
get more benefit from this method.

12. CONCLUSION
• The direct method of teaching English originated as a
reaction to grammar translation method. In this method
English is taught to the students directly without interference
of any other language. The central idea of this method is the
association of words and sentences with their meanings
through dramatization, demonstration, pointing etc. Though
it has many disadvantages but it can be better to utilise in
language classroom with little modification.

13. Thank You