Direct Method (DM) or Natural Method (NM) or Francois Gouin's Series Method

Abstract

Direct Method (DM), appearing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, developed from Natural Method (NM). Like the NM, it emphasized the learning of speech, acquiring meaning in environmental context, and learning grammar through induction. DM theorists believe that by applying scientific knowledge from psychology and linguistics, language learning can be made more efficient, with the result that students will learn faster than they would under the spontaneous and unplanned lessons of NM. Harold Palmer (1922) is perhaps its most articulate and eminent advocate.