In the 1970s and 1980s, however, these endemic problems of the direct method were bypassed by radical ‘new’ ideas. The so-called
natural approach
revived the notion—previously promulgated under exactly the same name in the nineteenth century!—that an adult learner canrepeat the route to proficiency of the native - speaking child. The idea was that learning wouldtake place without explanation or grading, and without correction of errors, but simply byexposure to ‘meaningful input’. This approach was based upon theorizing and research in SLAwhich purported to show that learners, whatever their first language, would follow an internallydetermined natural order of their own, and that neither explicit instruction nor consciouslearnmg had any effect.