After reading the teaching method post written by junhaoLin, I knew that  Direct instruction is where teachers use explicit teaching techniques to teach a specific skill to their students, which is quite different from my teaching method – Inquiry-based Learning.

Glad to know that junhao had the experience of teaching English and I think during the period when he taught English, he could be more aware of the importance of the role of a teacher in learning a foreign language.  And I think the reason why he chose the direct instruction is that he believed learning a non-native language could be boring and dull and the guidance and help from the teacher is necessary and important.

Although I admit that his words were convincing, I think he exaggerated the role of the teacher a little too much. In my opinion, in the process of learning a foreign language, what a teacher can do is to provide learning methods and stimulate students’ interest in learning.  Whether students can make progress in learning a foreign language mainly depends on how much time and energy they put into it.  Not every teacher can provide targeted teaching for every different student. At most time, the limited teaching resources determine that students have to explore the different learning methods provided by their teachers and in that way, they need to explore a series of theories and methods and find the ones which are the  most suitable for themselves.