The Direct Method

In everyday life people do not pay attention to how they communicate

with each other. Being able to speak it is thought as something unique and
characteristic only to people. It is one of the most valuable abilities for
human kind. From the first day of our lives we are involved in the endless
process of learning language.

Today, one of the most important tasks of school is to prepare children for
their future life, therefore parents, teachers and authorities should not
forget how important it is to learn at least one foreign language.

Students foreign linguistic development has been an area of many

researchers investigation for the last few centuries. Over the years, a
number of the approaches have been formulated, but none of them have
not provided a simple answer to the question of how to teach children a
foreign language.

Over the years, more and more approaches and methods in foreign
language teaching were developed. In the nineteenth century the
Grammar Translation Method was the most popular approach in foreign
language learning. Since the main purpose of learning a second language
at that time was being able to read foreign books, students were taught
through translating fragments of books from the original to their native
language. Then, years later, the reasons for learning a foreign language
had changed and the ability to speak freely became new teaching goal.
The Grammar Translation Method was replaced by The Direct Method. As a
result, the new approach became more student-cantered and highlighted
the importance of the learners speaking and listening skills. The
educational method itself was based on few rules and principles.

First of all, the language instruction was provided only in the target
language. As far as teaching foreign languages to young learners is
concerned, this principle seems reasonable. Young students are very
sensitive to the environment which surrounds them, they like to make
noises and play with objects. Childhood is the unique time to start building
and developing of language skills, because in this period of life children
are very tolerant to the unknown. They are clever, eager and motivated to
experiment, discover and learn new things or languages even if they dont
understand everything.

Secondly, the chosen learning material should be connected to everyday

language and be built up carefully. Teachers should gradually introduce
new teaching material, to start with simple lessons and then proceeding to
the complex ones. Moreover the new material was introduced orally in the
target language. The material itself was taught through the use of
demonstration, objects and pictures. The use of visual aids is extremely
important in working witch children, because it supports theirs new
vocabulary comprehension and make the learning process more student-
friendly.

Thirdly, the grammar was taught inductively. In the same time the
pronunciation and grammar correctness were emphasised. On the one
hand this principle fulfils the requirements of early language classroom,
because during well-organized lessons young students may
unconsciously learn a lot of language chunks or patterns, which later on
may set the base for proper grammar learning. On the other hand teacher
who corrects every childrens mistake may make the foreign language
learning process difficult and demotivating.

Taking everything in to consideration, the Direct Method may be

considered as an enormous change in language teaching in comparison to
the Grammar Translation Method. Some of the Direct Method principles
may, if carefully organised and introduced, be applied even in the early
foreign language classroom.