The Direct

Method
Group 2
1. Dewi Maharani
2. Elfira
3. Raulan
4. Reza Asmaniarti
5. Rizki Yuni Chaniago

The Direct Method

In the nineteenth-century, Gouin who the first man, who built a
methodology arround observation of child language learning-called
natural method. Natural method was using for the learners to
learn the seceond language alike the first language. However, this
method did not take a long term, because there was an argument
that told a foreign language could be taught without using
translation.
The next generation made a new method, which provided the
natural language learning as the foundation-called Direct Method,
that refers to the natural method.

The History of Direct method

Franois Gouins premise concerning of children language
learning, which is known as naturalistic has become a basic of a
method that well-known as direct method lately second
language learning should be more like first language learning.
In the 16th century, L. Sauveur came afterward with using
intensive oral interaction in the target language in language class
in school. He applied natural principles soon became referred to as
the Natural Method.
In 1884, F. Franke provided a theoretical justification for a
monolingual approach to teaching a language could best be
taught by using it actively in the classroom.

The principles of the Direct Method by Richards and Rodgers (1986:9-10) :

1. Classroom instruction was conducted exclusively in the target language.
2. Only everyday vocabulary and sentences were taught.
3. Oral communication skills were built up in a carefully traded progression
organized around question-and-answer exchanges between teachers and
students in small, intensive classes.
4. Grammar was taught inductively.
5. New teaching points were taught through modeling and practice.
6. Concrete vocabulary was taught through demonstration, objects, and
pictures; abstract vocabulary was taught by association of ideas.
7. Both speech and listening comprehension were taught.
8. Correct pronunciation and grammar were emphasized.

Those principles are seen in contemporary Berlitz school:

Never translate: demonstrate
Never explain: act
Never make a speech: ask questions
Never speak with single words: use sentences
Never speak too much: make students speak much
Never use the book: use your lesson plan
Never go too fast: keep the pace of the student
Never speak too slowly: speak normally
Never speak too quickly: speak naturally
Never speak too loudly: speak normally
Never be impatient: take it easy.

This method was quite successful in private language school,

such as Berlitz chain, where the client was given by the high
motivation and also using the native-speaking teachers.
One of the best known of its popularizers was Charles Berlitz
(who never used the Direct Method, he use his own method that
called Berlitz method). To this day Berlitz ia s household word;
Berlitz language schools are thriving in every country in the world.

The Direct Method did not take a long term because a lot of the
drawbacks of the method itself, such as:
1. The constrains of budget,
2. Classroom size,
3. Time,
4. Teacher background made the method difficult to use.
Required
teachers who were native speakers or who had native alike fluency in
the foreign language.
5. Overemphasized and distorted the similarities between naturalistic first
language learning and classroom foreign language learning.
6. Failed to consider the practical realities of the classroom.
7. Lack of rigorous basis in applied linguistic theory.
8. Largely dependents on teachers skill rather than on a textbook.
And also the Direct Method was criticized for its weak
theoretical foundation. The overplus of the Direct Method are the
skills and the personality of the teacher.

By the end of the first quarter of the twentieth century, the

utilizing of the Direct Method was decline. Most language returned
to the Grammar Translation Method or to a reading approach,
which is emphasize the reading skills in foreign laguages. But it is
interesting in the middle of the twentieth century, the Direct
Method was revived and reconstructed or redirected to the most
visible of all language teaching revolutions in the modern erathe Audiolingual Method.