A Brief Review on Foreign Language Teaching

Introduction

A student who starts studying Methods will be puzzled by the variety of “methods” he may come across in books and journals and, of course, there are good grounds for this. At different periods, depending on the aims of teaching and learning a foreign language, new methods sprang up. In each case the method received a certain name; sometimes its name denoted logical categories, for example: the synthet­ic method (synthesis), the analytic method (analysis), the deductive method (deduction), the inductive method (induction), ² sometimes the method was named after the aspect of the language upon which attention was focused as in the cases of the grammar method, the lexical method, the phonetic method. A third set of methods received their names from the skill which was the main object of teaching. Among these are the translation method (translation), the oral method (oral language). Sometimes the method got its name from the psychology of language learning: in this category the following names occur: the intuitive method, the conscious method, the direct method. Finally, the meth­od was sometimes named after its inventor. Thus we find: the Amos Comenius method, the Jacotot method, the Gouin method, the Berlitz method, the Palmer (West, Fries) method.

In some cases the methods bear coupled names: they represent two sides of teaching, for example, the leading aspect of the language and the skill the pupils acquire (the grammar-translation method), or the name of the author and the language activity which is the main aim in teaching — “Fries oral method”, “the method of teaching reading by West”. We may find even such names as “hear-say-see-say- read-write method”³ and others.

It would be impracticable in a short chapter such as this one to give a classification of methods. All that one can hope to do is to select for comment those methods which have had a long history and have influenced the contemporary meth­ods of foreign language teaching, and live on in them. This brief review will deal with:

1. the grammar-translation method, the oldest method of teaching foreign languages which had its origin in Latin schools;

2. the direct method which began to be widely used in schools in the 1870’s;

3. contemporary methods.

The grammar-translation method

The grammar-translation method was widely used in teaching the classics, namely Latin, and it was transferred to the teaching of modern languages when they were intro­duced into schools, first as an optional and then as a compul­sory subject. In teaching a foreign language by means of the grammar-translation method attention was paid to the assimilation of grammar rules of the foreign language that pupils studied. The vocabulary was “tuned up” to grammar. Translation was extensively utilized both as a means of explanation of new words, grammar forms, and structures, and as a means of mastering the foreign language, all exer­cises for assimilating the language material being limited to translation from the mother tongue into the foreign lan­guage and from the foreign language into the mother tongue.

The distinguishing features of the grammar-translation method are (1) insistence upon grammatical analyses and

2. the assumption that grammatical categories can be de­fined in general terms with reference to meaning, the gram­matical categories being the common denominator of all languages. According to the grammar-translation method the best way to say a sentence in a foreign language is to start with a sentence in the mother tongue, analyze it gram­matically into such components as subject, i. e., one who performs the action, predicate, that which denotes the ac­tion, object, that which receives the action, etc. If neces­sary pupils go on with the analyses, for example, they name tense, mood, etc. Then the pupil is told to find the corresponding forms in the foreign language. Sounds, mor­phemes, words are always considered peculiar to one language alone, but the syntax, the patterns of language are thought of as universals that will allow the pupil to pass from one lan­guage to another. It is well known that many patterns of a foreign language do not conform to those of the native lan­guage, and these contrasting patterns have to be learned as "exceptions”, i. e., exceptions of the one language from the stand point of the other language.

The grammar-translation method in its orthodox form was practised in schools in the 18th and 19th centuries. The development of pedagogics, psychology and linguistics brought changes in the grammar-translation method. It was greatly modified at the end of the 19th century and in the 20th century, and, first of all, these modifications dealt with the approach to the relationship of “two grammars”. Instead of forcing the target language into the mold of the learner’s native language, the “grammars” are compared with the result of better comprehension and retention in all points of difference and interference.

The grammar-translation method is often mentioned even nowadays when one wants to emphasize a traditional ap­proach to foreign language teaching. The textbook is the essential teaching aid. The assumption is that proficiency in the language can be acquired by learning a set of grammat­ical rules, to which the language is supposed to conform, and that by mechanically applying these rules speed and fluency will grow with the use of the language. Primary objectives are mastery of the graphic skills, i. e., reading and writing, with secondary attention to hearing and speak­ing. Language performance in the classroom takes the form of reading, translating, and the working out of various exer­cises which require the application of grammar rules to se­lected data.