|
| The Grammar Translation Method |  The grammar translation method appeared as soon as people of the western world wanted to learn such foreign languages as Latin and Greek. It is focused on learning grammatical rules and learning vocabulary and language declensions and conjugations by heart. Characteristic classroom activities and homework comprises text translation and written exercises.
Traditional teachers from the grammar translation schools coming into class would insist to their students to get it right from the beginning. They highlight speech, but are disinclined to let their students use it impulsively. The reason is that they are anxious about their students shaping bad, unattractive habits that they cannot break. Since habits are hard to break, it is better to stop them. So the method lies in the teacher’s presenting a grammar translation class in the student’s native tongue, and students are not actively confident to use the target language in class.
The teacher gives complicated explanations of the grammatical details of the target language, and frequently concentrates on the form and intonation of words. Accuracy takes delivery of a great deal of stress. Vocabulary study takes the form of learning lists of frequently isolated words, and the rules of grammar offer the proposal for putting words together. Students start early to read classical texts, which are treated as exercises in grammatical analysis. There is little stress on the content of those texts.
Grammar translation classes remained in the West until well into the 1970s, and the method is still used in some schools, particularly in less-developed countries.
Students learning by this method obviously did better when communicative activities were added to their lessons. As a result many adults have a preference of these structure-based methods despite their limitations.
|
|
