How would you describe direct teaching ?

Direct teaching is where the lessons are scripted. The teachers has a particular line to say and signals the chidren to give a response which has been previously indicated.
Distar and Spelling through morphographs are examples of direct teaching (authors Siegfried Engelmann)If you go to the SRA website (SRA4kids) you can find egs. of direct teaching.

It’s often called “direct instruction” if we’re talking about the same thing.

However, it does NOT have to be scripted. There are commercial programs that are scripted, and that probably works best in groups, but most O-G programs (or at least the one I learned!) are not scripted but are verymuch direct instruction, in that the student is interacting and responding throughout, and you don’t assume something is being learned indirectly. Specifically, in reading programs, you don’t assume that if a student is calling out the right words, s/he is learning the phonics of reading and you don’t assume s/he’ll be able to transfer that skill.

There are many nice people who consider direct instruction to be anathema — some horrific fascist regulation of the teacher’s every breath. No surprise that when they are forced to do it, they don’t get good results, eh? They perpetuate some pretty perfidious propaganda (though, sadly, often with poor writing and spelling — but they don’t think it matters much, as long as you get their point, and only a fascist authoritarian type would care anyway).

http://www.resourceroom.net/readspell/mssl.asp has a few more thoughts about it.

One formulation of the nucleus of direct teaching:

I tell you; you tell me; I tell you where you’re wrong. Repeat.