The reasons for choosing Direct English above all other courses are too many to list, but did
you know that there are at least four?
1 You are in charge
When you’re learning how to drive a car, you don’t expect to listen to long lectures about driving. Though you have a driving instructor, you really don’t expect to be taught at all. You expect to learn yourself by getting your hands on the steering wheel. Your instructor merely guides you, while you do the learning by assuming total responsibility.
If you think about this, you will conclude that just about everything you have ever learned has been the result of assuming personal responsibility. Learning English is a bit like learning how to drive a car. It is not about knowledge, but about performance. You want to be able to do things through language as quickly and as well as possible, so you are in charge right from the start.
2 You decide when you will study
The biggest disadvantage of attending a language school is that you have to be at a certain place at a certain time twice or three times a week with no end in sight. You are a busy person and this discipline rapidly becomes intolerable. In the end you give up, so you fail. You blame yourself, or you blame the school or you blame both.
Failure reinforces failure and low self-esteem. When learning from Direct English , you go at your own pace. You decide when and where to work and how much time and effort to devote to the task. You get out of the course exactly what you put in. You can never fail. You can only reach the level of your potential. And remember that taking responsibility for yourself doesn’t mean you are on your own. Direct English is backed by a massive customer support system, so there is always someone to turn to for help and advice when you need it.
3 How to speak English
All conventional courses claim that they will teach you to speak English within a certain time. The shortest claim I have ever come across is three and a half weeks (I like the ‘half’). The whole emphasis in teaching people how to speak is completely mistaken. You might learn to recite hundreds of phrases by heart, but if you can’t understand the answers, you are completely lost. Direct English trains you to understand English right from the start.
As your confidence in understanding builds up relentlessly, your ability to speak will follow.
There is always a recognized ‘silent period’ between understanding and speaking. Your ability to speak English will sooner or later be ‘released’ when your confidence in understanding has reached a point of no return.
4 A cyclical syllabus
No language course can be successful unless it is supported by a proper program of study: in other words a syllabus. A unique feature of Direct English is that it is based on one of the most detailed and comprehensive syllabuses ever attempted.
The syllabus is a highly refined version of the one that was developed for the successful TV English course ‘Follow Me’, so it has been thoroughly tried and tested. In Books 3-1, the syllabus trains you in nine important areas of communication:
1 About Myself
2 About Other People 3 Please (requests, etc.) 4 Where … ? 5When…?
6 Describe it!
7 I like/I don’t like …
8 I want/I don’t want … 9 Doing things.
This means that after only nine lessons you have covered some of the most important areas in human communication and are fully operational.
In Books 6-4, the entire field of English grammar is covered in a cyclical fashion. The accompanying methodology trains you in transaction and interaction so you
rapidly become fluent.
