THE DIRECT METHOD

INTRODUCTION
Direct method is also not new. It also have been applied by language teacher for many years. It was review when the goal of the instruction became learning how to use a foreign language to communicate since the Grammar-Translation-Method was not very effective in preparing student to use the target language communicatively, the Direct Method became popular.
The Direct Method has one very basic rules : No translation is allowed. In fact, The Direct Method receives its name fro the fact that meaning is to be conveyed directly in the target language through the use of demonstrations and visual aids, with no resources to the students’ native language (Diller 1978).

THE TECHNIQUE
There is many technique of the Direct Method you can adapt to your own approach to teaching. The following expanded review of the techniques to provides you with some details which will help you to teaching with the Direct method.

READING ALOUD
Students take turns reading sections of a passage, play, or dialog out loud. At the ends of each student turn, the teacher use gestures, picture, regalia, examples, or other means to eke the meaning of the section clear.

QUESTION AND ANSWER EXERCISE
This exercise is conducted only in the target language. Students are asked question and answer I full sentences so that the practice in new words and grammatical structures. They have the opportunity to ask questions as well as answer them.


GETTING STUDENTS TO SELF-CORRECT
The teacher of this class has the students self-correct by asking them to make a choice between what the said and the alternative answer that the teacher supplied. There are, however, other ways of getting students to get the self-correct. For example, a teacher might simply repeat what a student has just said using a questioning voice to signal to the student that something what’s wrong with it. Another possibility is for the teacher to repeat what the student said, stopping just before the error. The students knows that’s the next word has wrong.

CONVERSATION PRACTICE
The teacher asks the students a number of questions in the target language, which the students have to understand to be able to answer correctly. In the class observed, the teacher asked individual students question about themselves. The question contained a particular grammar structure. Later, the students were able to ask each other their own question using the same grammatical structure.

FILL-IN-THE-BLANK EXERCISE
This technique has already been discussed in the Grammar-Translation Method, but differs in its application in the direct method. All the items are in the target language; furthermore, no explicit grammar rule would be applied. The student would have included the grammar rule they need to applied fill in the blanks from examples and practice with earlier parts of the lessons.


DICTATION
The teacher reads the passage three times. The first times the teacher reads it at a normal speed, while the students just listen. The second time The teacher reads the passage phrase by phrase, pausing long enough to allow the students to write down what they have heard. The last time the teacher again reads at a normal speed, and students check their works.

PARAGRAPH WRITING
The teacher in this class asked the students to write a paragraph in their own words of the topic same as the passage. They could have done this from memory, or they could used the reading passage in the lesson as a model.

THE PRICIPLES
THE GOAL
Intend student to learn how to communicate in the target language. In order to do this successfully, students should learn to think in the target language.

THE ROLE FOR THE TEACHER AND THE STUDENTS
The teacher and the students are more like partners in the teaching/learning process.

THE CHARACTERISTIC OF THE TEACHING/LEARNING
Teacher who use the Direct Method believe students need to associate meaning and the target language directly. In order to do this, when the teacher introduces a new target language word or phrase, he demonstrates its meaning through the use of regalia, pictures, or pantomime; he never translates it into the student natives language.


HOW IS LANGUAGE VIEWED? HOW IS CULTURED VIEWED ?
Language is primary spoken, or written. Therefore, students study common, every day speech in the target language. They also study culture consisting of the history of the people who speak the target language, the geography of the countries where the language is spoken, and information about the daily lives of the speaker of the language.

HOW DOES THE TEACHER RESPOND TO STUDENT ERRORS?
The teacher, employing various techniques tries to get students to self-correct whenever possible.