The bilingual method, however, advocates two revolutionary principles based on the results of scientifically controlled experiments in primary and secondary schools.
Also, from the outset meanings are conveyed bilingually as utterance equivalents in the manner of the sandwich technique, thus avoiding meaningless and hence tedious parroting of the learning input.
[3] Dodson’s experimental data – several modes of presenting dialogues were tested – have been confirmed by subsequent research, for example by a school-year long experiment of teaching French to Dutch learners (Meijer 1974), which compared the bilingual method with an audiovisual approach.
[4] However, Butzkamm & Caldwell (2009) have taken up Dodson’s seminal ideas and called for a paradigm shift in foreign language teaching.
This call was repeated by Hall & Cook in their state-of-the-art article (2012: 299): "The way is open for a major paradigm shift in language teaching and learning"[5] Students become functional bilinguals When the students aim to become fully bilingual in terms of language learning, this method is considered to be the appropriate one.
When the mother tongue is firmly established in the minds of the students, by the age of 7 or 8, it becomes easy to learn difficult words and grammar.
Thus, this method helps to save time by not creating artificial situations unnecessarily to explain or convey meanings in English.