Helen Doron Method

456 Words2 Pages
. The Humanistic Principles in the Helen Doron Method HDM belongs to the Humanistic Approach of language learning and teaching for a number of reasons. The approach to HDM shares some characteristics with the Montessori Method but is primarily based on the work of Doman, Suzuki and Dennison. Yet, all these writers represent ideas common to the Humanistic Approach. Montessori had advocated many principles common to Humanism long before it gained prominence. Doman’s Gentle Revolution is rooted in the humanistic thinking since it dates back to the 1960s and exemplifies a movement for the fulfilment of human potential. Suzuki, described as an educator, humanitarian and musician, shows great concern for humanity and says that the goal of human development is becoming a whole person. As Legutke and Thomas (1991) point out Dennison together with Paul Goodman, the co-founder of Gestalt therapy, belonged to the Free School movement whose aim was a reform of the formal education system. The method itself fosters holistic, personalised and experiential learning. The learner is treated as a whole person since not only intellectual but emotional and physical development is considered important. Consequently, language learning is skilfully linked with music, artistic abilities and physical movement. Learning is personalized and meaningful in that the course content is adjusted to learners’ cognitive and affective needs. It is also multi-sensory and experiential as children learn through activation of all senses, through action and experience as opposed to explanation. What is more, learning is interpersonal in the sense that learners are assumed to learn from one another in heterogeneous age groups. At a more advanced level, learning may be also said to be self-initiated e.g. during the so called encoding session learners ask the teacher about words they do
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