Review – October 17, 2006.THE GRAMMAR-TRANSLATION METHOD Derived from the Classical Method, means of teaching Latin since 15th century, the Grammar-Translation Method shares all its char
Trang 1Review – October 17, 2006.
THE GRAMMAR-TRANSLATION METHOD
Derived from the Classical Method, means of teaching Latin since 15th century, the Grammar-Translation Method shares all its characteristics: focus on grammar rules, memorization of vocabulary and of various declensions and conjugations, translation of text, doing written exercises With grammar translation, English is taught as an isolated object, out-of-context, thus, makes it impossible for
learners to use it in real life
Prator and Celce-Murcia (19979:3) listed 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 listed 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
(Brown, 1994:53)
Key Facts
Translation
Memorization of vocabulary and equivalents
Memorization of grammar rules
Elaborate grammar explanations
Students’ abilily of reading foreign language literature
Trang 2rationales for being out carrying in the class
Instruction: Refer to the principles of the Grammar-Translation Method, can you tell what the
purposes are for a teacher to carry out each of these activities
1 Students translate a reading passage from the target
language into their native language
2 Students answer questions in the target language based
on their understanding of the reading passage
3 Students are given one set of words and are asked to
find antonym/synonym in the reading passage
4 Students are taught to recognize cognates by learning
the spelling or sound patterns that correspond between
the languages
5 Students learn grammar rules with examples and are
asked to apply them to some other examples
6 Students are given sentences with blanks and are
asked to fill in the blanks with new vocabulary items
or with items of particular garmmar type
7 Students are given a list of target language vocabulary
words and their native language equivalents and are
asked to memeorize them
8 Students make up sentences in which they use the new
words
9 Students are given a topic to wrtie about in the target
language
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