The Natural Approach
The Natural Method is another term for what by 1900 had became known as the Direct Method. It is described in a report on the state of the art in language teaching commissioned by the Modern Language Association in 1901 (“Committee of 12”): In its extreme form the method consisted of monologues by the teacher interspersed with exchanges of question and answer between the instructor and the pupil – all in the foreign language.... A great deal of pantomime accompanied the talk. With the aid of this gesticulation, by attentive listening and by dint of much repetition the learner came to associate certain acts and object with certain combination of the sounds and finally reached the point of reproducing the foreign words or phrases .... Not until a considerable familiarity with the spoken word was attained was the scholar allowed to see the foreign in print. The study of grammar was reserved for a still later period. (Cole 1931 : 58)