ARHIVELE OLTENIEI - Universitatea din Craiova

184Isabel FernándezThe Direct Methodology is used by Berlitz Academy nowadays. Itseems that the origin of this method arised due to the necessity to teach Englishto a big amount of people who arrived in the United States at the beginning oftwentieth century. It is based on the Natural Approach, with this approach wecan learn a language in the same way we learnt our mother tongue, throughlistening, observation and inference. The student will have to repeat somestructures until assimilating them. To achieve this aim the method uses rolegames, games with filing cards and songs, so that the student memorizeseverything apparently without effort. This type of games using “drills” werealready designed by the structuralists in the seventies. However, thismethodology is a little asystematic, since the proffessor must have a lot ofimagination and he leaves the students to set the pace for the class, and sometimes it can be a problem when the professor has to organize the program of thelessons at the beginning of the semester.The oral skill has much more importance than the writing one, and thetheorethical classes usually start from a text commentary. The grammar contentsare never presented in a direct way, they will be appearing from the propositionson the texts, little by little. Real material will be the starting point of theactivities, from wich the students will have to investigate why those expressionsare used and, by using the inductive methodology, to conclude and formulate thegrammar rules. But, what is the most important is that the student by himselfcarrys out this inductive exercise. In the example: “la niña tocaba cada tarde suacordeón con dulzura”, “su madre la contemplaba detrás del almendro”, thestudent should have to reflect on the verbs in imperfect “tocaba/contemblaba”…What is the difference he perceives in contrast to the simple past “tocó”“cantó”? The proffessor will give a lot of examples for the student to realizeabout the differences in the context when one or the other kind of verb are used,so that finally the student can infer the conclussion. In this way, we aretransfering the grammar content to the text, and not to propose the gramar first,so that the student can follow the inductive methodology; examples first,conclusion after. In this way, the active learning is being improved, and teachingwill became something interactive between teacher and student, similar to aconversation with some disgressions. To draw a parallel between classes andreal conversation, when someone asks a real native speaker a doubt on their ownlanguage, he will have to stop to think of his own language, and the real use ofit, “parole” in Saussure terminology. When the student will be able to formule alot of propositions without even thinking he may be ready – and interested – indeeping on the linguistic structures.On the other hand, I will now mention the didactic used being teachingSpanish to emigrants in Spain. I think it can be interesting to explain themethodology since in Romania there are some students who come to the countryas Erasmus students, or to work – as my case is – and it is very important to havesome notions on the language, but not to deep so much on grammar issues, atleast, at the beginning of the stay. First of all, it is essential for them to get the