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In the Classroom: The Grammar Translation Method

We begin a series of end-of-chapter vignettes on classroom applica­tions with a language teaching "tradition" that, in various manifes­tations and adaptations, has been practiced in language classrooms worldwide for centuries. A glance back in history reveals few if any research-based language teaching methods prior to the twentieth century. In the Western world, "foreign" language learning in schools was synonymous with the learning of Latin or Greek. Latin, thought to promote intellectuality through "mental gymnastics," was until relatively recently held to be indispensable to an adequate higher education. Latin was taught by means of what has been called the Classical Method: focus on grammatical rules, memorization of vocabulary and of various declensions and conjugations, translation of texts, doing written exercises. As other languages began to be taught in educational institutions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Classical Method was adopted as the chief means for teaching foreign languages. Little thought was given at the time to teaching oral use of languages; after all, languages were not being taught primarily to learn oral/aural communication, but to learn for the sake of being "scholarly" or, in some instances, for gaining a reading proficiency in a foreign language. Since there was little if any theoretical research on second language acquisition in general, or on the acquisition of reading proficiency, foreign languages were taught as any other skill was taught.

Late in the nineteenth century, the Classical Method came to be known as the Grammar Translation Method. There was little to dis­tinguish Grammar Translation from what had gone on in foreign lan­guage classrooms for centuries, beyond a focus on grammatical rules as the basis for translating from the second to the native lan­guage. But the Grammar Translation Method remarkably withstood attempts at the outset of the twentieth century to "reform" language teaching methodology, and to this day it remains a standard methodology for language teaching in educational institutions. Prator and Celce-Murcia (1979: 3) list the major characteristics of Grammar Translation:

1. Classes are taught in the mother tongue, with little active use of the target language.

2. Much vocabulary is taught in the form of lists of isolated words.

3. Long elaborate explanations of the intricacies of grammar are given.

4. Grammar provides the rules for putting words together, and instruction often focuses on the form and inflection of words.

5. Reading of difficult classical texts is begun early.

6. Little attention is paid to the content of texts, which are treated as exercises in grammatical analysis.

7. Often the only drills are exercises in translating discon­nected sentences from the target language into the mother tongue.

8. Little or no attention is given to pronunciation.

It is remarkable, in one sense, that this method has been so stal­wart among many competing models. It does virtually nothing to enhance a student's communicative ability in the language. It is "remembered with distaste by thousands of school learners, for whom foreign language learning meant a tedious experience of memorizing endless lists of unusable grammar rules and vocabulary and attempting to produce perfect translations of stilted or literary prose" (Richards & Rodgers 1986: 4). In another sense, however, one can understand why Grammar Translation is so popular. It requires few specialized skills on the part of teachers. Tests of grammar rules and of translations are easy to construct and can be objectively scored. Many standardized tests of foreign languages still do not attempt to tap into communicative abilities, so students have little motivation to go beyond grammar analogies, translations, and rote exercises. And it is sometimes successful in leading a student toward a reading knowledge of a second language. But, as Richards and Rodgers (1986: 5) pointed out, "it has no advocates. It is a method for which there is no theory. There is no literature that offers a rationale or justification for it or that attempts to relate it to issues in linguistics, psychology, or educational theory." As we continue to examine theoretical principles in this book, I think we will under­stand more fully the "theorylessness" of the Grammar Translation Method

Some FLT methodology experts say that there are not only 4 skills in the process of learning the language (reading, writing, listening and speaking) but 5, and the fifth is translation. I agree with this. What Heinrich mentioned is a very useful tool in class, a lot of teachers use it, but it is also very old, and quite boring. I once did a survey among English teachers in Hungary. Most of them use translation in their Enlgish classes according to the old Grammar-Translation method. Others, mostly young teachers, use more or less the Communicative approach, so they try not to use L1 in the class, and that also means they do not translate in class. I think these two are extremes, and the solution should be somewhere in the middle. As far as I can see, many students finish secondary school with a medium level English, some even pass an exam. After school, whether studying at a college or working somewhere, if they use their English at all, most of the time it is NOT communicating with native speakers, but reading something for their studies/work, and translating it for themselves or for the others. By translation here I do not mean producing a proper, final text to be published that most of us do here on this site. But they still translate for themselves, for their colleagues etc. However, if we do not teach them the basic skills of translation, they will not be able to do this. Let me give you an example. I teach in a technical secondary school. Our students, when they graduate, became "technicians", some kind of middle-level experts in electronics. And they have to understand/translate Enlgish texts, e.g. description of different devices. But when they open a dictionary, they don't know that they should check all the meanings of a word, and choose the best one according to the context, they simply use the very first meaning given. This is something we should teach them in school. And there are a lot of other, important sub-skills like this that are lost in the fashionable new methods today. Since most of the coursebooks are published in Britain, for world-wide use, they cannot be language-specific. If the teachers are aware of the linguistic differences between L1 and L2, they can avoid these problems. But I am not sure they are. I