Callan method
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The Callan Method is a direct method of teaching English. Direct methods are usually viewed in opposition to communicative methods. The Callan Method is especially popular in Poland and Brazil. It requires the teacher to ask high speed questions twice and feed the answer of the question to the student piece by piece. It was invented by Robin Callan who lives at the Orchard in Grantchester. The Callan School in Central London, on Oxford Street, is reputed to be the largest English Language School in London and the UK. Callan Teachers only need to be trained in the method and do not need an extensive knowledge of grammar, teaching techniques or a TEFL qualification as the method provides for these elements of learning in planned out textbooks.
It is the express will of Robin Callan that the method remain unchanged. This means that regardless of the merits of the methodology, the materials are very dated and do not take advantage of modern developments in descriptive grammar. This means that some of the utterances produced are quite unnatural; eg Callan presents sentences such as "I've a <name of thing>" (in place of "I've got/I have") and "I haven't a <name of thing>" (in place of "I don't have/I haven't got a <name of thing>").
