DIRECT METHOD AND AUDIOLINGUAL METHOD Maurício Oliveira Coelho Marques
Although there are several theories and methodologies about language acquisition and learning, a best teaching method does not exist because the students do not learn in the same way. None is infallible, but there are two methodologies that will help me as a future teacher, which are Direct Method – also referred as Natural Method – and Audiolingual Method (hereinafter referred to as “DM” and “AM”, respectively). Henri Gouin in his The Art of Learning and Studying Foreign Languages, published in 1880, was one of the precursor of modern language teaching methods with its naturalistic approach. However, the credit for popularizing the DM usually goes to Charles Berlitz, who marketed it as the Berlitz Method. This method consists, as Brown (2007, p. 21) states, of “lots of oral interaction, spontaneous use of the language, no translation between first and second languages, and little or no analysis of grammatical rules”, like the learning of the mother tongue. The AM is derived from “The Army Method”, so called because it was developed through a U.S. Army program devised after World War II to produce speakers proficient in the languages their allies and enemies as quickly as possible. In this method, grounded in the habit formation model of behaviorist psychology and on a Structural Linguistics theory of language, the emphasis is on memorization, therefore an AM’s classroom consists of “oral language drills which were designed to help students unlearn old ‘habits’ (their L1 [first language]) and develop new habits in the L2 [second language]” (KECK; KIM, 2014, p. 9). To put in simple words: the DM gives the students the ability to communicate quickly because they are encouraged to be creative during practice. It gives, by far, the widest range of capability to understand what another person says to you and in developing your capability to speak.
And the AM also allows the learner to
communicate quickly but within the limited range that the repetition allows. It improves comprehension only if the speaker uses phrases that the learner has studied.
I believe that I could combine those two methods – or at least variants and adaptations of them – in order to teach the first levels of a foreign language, in this case, English. What could possibly be those adaptations? To be more comprehensible to the learner, for example, instead of teaching one hundred percent in English, the target language, I may explain in Portuguese, the student’s native language, depending on the situation, such as an idiom that they never heard about it or even the grammar. To avoid what the Harvard psychologist Roger Brown found in his studies: “He described his frustration in observing a teacher performing verbal gymnastics in an attempt to convey the meaning of Japanese words, when translation would have been a much more efficient technique to use” (RICHARDS; RODGERS, 2014, p. 13). In my own experience as a monitor at Cursos Livres de Língua Estrangeira (UFPA), I noticed some learning problems with the students which, of course, can be happen to anyone. First, I saw that are very afraid, and therefore they have difficult of speaking in English rather than practicing the other three skills listening, reading and writing. This happens even in the last level. As teachers, we need to improve the oral communication skills, one of the principles of DM, in the early stages in order to minimize the future difficulties of our students (TIWARI, 2010). We have to be aware that in a class of adults, for instance, some of them will not have so much time to study and practice outside the classroom, especially their speaking, so it is important to them to develop this skill in their English course. The second problem is, for what I see, when Brazilians students are learning English, they want to express their age using the verb “have” instead of the verb “be”. This is common because they learned on previous lessons that the verb “have” is “ter” in Portuguese. This is the first language interfering on the second language learning process and in AM if an error occurs, it must be always correct. In this case, if the students say “I have twenty years old”, the teacher will immediately correct them in order to avoid the fossilization – which may be defined as “The point at which no further learning appears possible, with the student’s performance apparently impervious to both exposure to English and explicit error correction (i.e.: ‘set in stone’)” (BARROS, 2010), and in this way, the mistake or error will not continue.
Then it can be followed up by reinforcement so that the correct behavior will become a good habit. Paiva (2015) reproduces two pages of the book English 900 by Collier Macmillan (1964) and we are able to see that this book inserts intonation exercises followed by structure exercises. This author affirms without a doubt that with this method, the oral skills were developed since the first day of the course. However, the only problem was the drills were too artificial and did not match with the student’s reality. In order to avoid that, I could show to the students, for example, drills of a Brazilian breakfast instead of show them an American breakfast because we need to bring the exercises into the students’ reality. “Breakfast in the classroom” is a good example to use DM because the teacher may induce the students to ask questions about what are the foods on the breakfast table, in other words the teacher would force them to speak. Other example of the use of the DM is talking about family members. This classroom can be in English language all the time. The teacher starts to talk about his own family, the learners will understand within the context and then, the teacher will ask questions about their family. Mart (2013, p. 182) states “conversational activities hold an important place in this method. Through using language in real contexts, students stand a better chance of thinking, and speaking in the target language”. The author continues that, in this way, the learners will acquire fluency and affirms: [...] as long as the classroom instruction is conducted in the target language students will benefit a lot from the use of this method. Though this method was criticized for not teaching listening strategies systematically, there is no question that students’ listening development relies on listening to the target language continuously. Students who listen to the target language constantly tend to develop their listening skills.
Another point that this author not mentioned is that the problem of DM – and also AM – is little or no analysis of grammar, but we can be assured that students who are speaking in the target language are able to write small compositions and will not have problems with grammar, since they will learn it inductively. In conclusion, both DM and AM are still important even today. Those exercises still appear in textbooks, especially at the first levels. The AM is use as individual
lessons rather than as the foundation of the course. Today, the DM is mostly use in online English programs such as Direct Language Lab and Talk to Canada.
REFERENCES BARROS, L. O. Fossilization in language learning. Available <http://www.luizotaviobarros.com/2010/08/fossilization-language-learning.html>. Access on: 26.aug.2017
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BROWN, H.D. Teaching by Principles. An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. New York: Longman, 2007. KECK, P.; KIM, Y. Pedagogical Grammar. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2014. MART, C. T. (2013). The Direct-Method: A Good Start to Teach Oral Language. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences. vol. 3, n.11. p. 182-184. 2013. PAIVA, V.L.M.O. Como se aprende uma língua estrangeira? In: ANASTÁCIO, E.B.A.; MALHEIROS, M.R.T.L.; FIGLIOLINI, M.C.R. (Orgs). Tendências contemporâneas em Letras. Campo Grande: Editora da UNIDERP, 2005, p. 127-140. RICHARDS, J. C.; RODGERS, T. S. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. TIWARI, S. R. Teaching of English. New Delhi: APH Publishing, 2010.