Kurs ishi the role of integrated approach to teaching english to a2 level students contents

Conclusion of the chapter
To sum up the direct method of teaching was developed as a response to the Grammar-Translation method. It sought to immerse the learner in the same way as when a first language is learnt. All teaching is done in the target language, grammar is taught inductively, there is a focus on speaking and listening, and only useful ‘everyday’ language is taught. The weakness in the Direct Method is its assumption that a second language can be learnt in exactly the same way as a first, when in fact the conditions under which a second language is learnt are very different. The teacher and the students are more like partners in the teaching/learning process. Teacher/student interaction became fuller, guessing of context or content, completing fill-ins, and doing “cloze” exercises were the order of the day. The teacher is as the facilitator of the language and the students is the active learners who are active in learning and exploring the target language.
The main focus lies on communication in this method. Here a special emphasis is given to spoken language rather than writing. Although active and passive skills are furthered there is a certain bias in favor of speaking. Grammar is not dealt with deductively, but students are expected to develop an intuitive feeling inductively. There is a clear stress on fluency, pronunciation is trained from beginning. As condition for this talking in free speech there is another stress on vocabulary rather than on grammatical structures. Pupils learn to communicate in the language but do not get deeper information about the language.
As an outcome we can expect that learners who are taught by this method or rather fostered in their acquisition will quickly develop a good command of the target language in means of communication, will be better in oral production and comprehension than in writing and reading, will only later achieve knowledge about grammatical structures of the language, but will develop an unconscious feeling of grammatical correctness. Possibly they may have problems in writing or analyzing complicated texts, as reading is not a focus of this method and texts used in the lessons are rather narrative than expository.

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