b. Lessons begin with dialogs and anecdotes in modern conversational style.
c. Actions and pictures are used to make meanings clear.
d. Grammar is learned inductively.
e. Literary texts are read for pleasure and are not analyzed grammatically.
f. The target culture is also taught inductively.
g. The teacher must be a native speaker or have nativelike proficiency in the language.
3. Reading Approach (a reaction to the impracticality of the direct approach; reading was viewed as the most usable skill to have in a foreign language since ordinary people traveled abroad around 1930; also, few teachers could use a foreign language well enough to use a direct approach in class).
a. Only the grammar useful for reading comprehension is taught.
b. Vocabulary is controlled at first (based on frequency and usefulness) and then
expanded.
c. Translation is once more a respectable classroom procedure.
d. Reading comprehension is the only language skill emphasized.
e. The teacher does not need to have good oral proficiency in the target language.
4. Audiolingualism (a reaction to the reading approach and its lack of emphasis on oral-aural skills; this approach became dominant in the United States during the 1940s, 19505, and 1960s; it takes much from the direct approach but adds features from structural linguistics and behavioral psychology).
a. Lessons begin with dialogs.
b. Mimicry and memorization are used, based on the assumption that language is habit
formation.
c. Grammatical structures are sequenced and rules are taught inductively.
d. Skills are sequenced: listening, speaking-reading, writing postponed.
e. Pronunciation is stressed from the beginning.
f. Vocabulary is severely limited in initial stages.
g. A great effort is made to prevent learner errors.
h. Language is often manipulated without regard to meaning or context.
i. The teacher must be proficient only in the structures, vocabulary, etc. that s/he is
teaching since learning activities and materials are carefully controlled.
5. Situational Approach (a reaction to the reading approach and its lack of emphasis on oral-aural skills; this approach was dominant in Britain during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s; it draws much from the direct approach but adds features from Firthian Linguistics and the emerging professional field of language pedagogy).
a. The spoken language is primary.
b. All language material is practiced orally before being presented in written form
(reading and writing are taught only after an oral base in lexical and grammatical forms
has been established).
c. Only the target language should be used in the classroom,
d. Efforts are made to ensure that the most general and useful lexical items are presented.
e. Grammatical structures are graded from simple to complex.
f. New items (lexical and grammatical) are introduced and. practiced situation ally (e.g., at
the post office, at the bank, at the dinner table).