Direct method

The direct method of teaching foreign languages, sometimes called the natural method, refrains from using the learners' native language and uses only the target language. It was established in Germany and France around 1900. Characteristic features of the direct method are
• teaching vocabulary through pantomiming, real-life objects and other visual materials
• teaching grammar byusing an inductive approach (i.e. having learners find out rules through the presentation of adequate linguistic forms in the target language)
• centrality of spoken language (including a native-like pronunciation)
• focus on question-answer patterns
• teacher-centering
|Contents |
|[hide] |
|1 Principles|
|2 Historical context |
|3 See also |
|4 References |

[pic][edit] Principles
1. Classroom instructions are conducted exclusively in the target language.
2. Only everyday vocabulary and sentences are taught.
3. Oral communication skills are built up in acarefully graded progression organized around question-and-answer exchanges between teachers and students in small, intensive classes.
4. Grammar is taught inductively.
5. New teaching points are introduced orally.
6. Concrete vocabulary is taught through demonstration, objects, and pictures; abstract vocabulary is taught by association of ideas.
7. Both speech and listeningcomprehensions are taught.
8. Correct pronunciation and grammar are emphasized.
9. Student should be speaking at least 80% of the time during the lesson.
10. Students are taught from inception to ask questions as well as answer them.
[edit] Historical context
The direct method was an answer to the dissatisfaction with the older grammar translation method, which teaches students grammarand vocabulary through direct translations and thus focuses on the written language.
There was an attempt to set up conditions that imitate mother tongue acquisition, which is why the beginnings of these attempts were called the natural method. At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, Sauveur and Franke proposed that language teaching should be undertaken within the target-language system,which was the first stimulus for the rise of the direct method.
The audio-lingual method was developed in an attempt to address some of the perceived weaknesses of the direct method.
[edit] See also
• language education
• second language acquisition
• Callan method
[edit] References
• Bussmann, Hadumod (1996), Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics, London/NewYork, s.v.Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
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irect method
• Krause, C. A. (1916), The Direct Method in Modern Languages, New York.
• Societe Internationale des Ecoles Inlingua (1973), Inlingua English First Book, Berne Switzerland.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_method_(education)"
Categories: Language education

A first language (alsonative language, arterial language, L1, or mother tongue) is the language a person has learned from birth[1] or speaks the best, and is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity.[2]
By contrast, a second language is any language that one speaks other than one's first language.

|Contents |
|[hide]|
|1 Terminology |
|1.1 Mother tongue |
|2 Significance |
|3 On multilinguality |
|3.1 Defining mother tongue...