Now what does this mean?

On the teaching of Latin at the Academy of St. Gregory the Great in Pennsylvania, a traditional Catholic high school:

In the same way, the Latin course at St. Gregory’s was taught according to the Direct or Nature Method. Here, as with the natural world, the object of study was approached with respect for what it truly is, rather than with an eye to its seeming mastery by confining it within the limits of a predatory rationality. Thus, since Latin is a language, and language is first a spoken and heard phenomenon that is assimilated as it unfolds within the dramatic story of our lives, Latin was presented to the students in that way. Contrasted to this is the standard, although not traditional, method of Latin instruction in which the language is reduced to the spatial world of a text, and the text presented for decoding with aid of a dictionary.

Source: History and Vision of St Gregory the Great Academy