9.-) THE GRAMMAR TRANSLATION METHOD

The method used to teach it overwhelmingly bore those objectives in mind, and came to be known (appropriately!) as the Classical Method. It is now more commonly known in Foreign Language Teaching circles as the Grammar Translation Method.It is hard to decide which is more surprising - the fact that this method has survived right up until today (alongside a host of more modern and more "enlightened" methods), or the fact that what was essentially a method developed for the study of "dead" languages involving little or no spoken communication or listening comprehension is still used for the study of languages that are very much alive and require competence not only in terms of reading, writing and structure, but also speaking, listening and interactive communication. How has such an archaic method, "remembered with distaste by thousands of school learners" (Richards and Rodgers, 1986:4) perservered?
According to Prator and Celce-Murcia (1979:3), the key features of the Grammar Translation Method are as follows:
a) Classes are taught in the mother tongue, with little active use of the target language.
b) Much vocabulary is taught in the form of lists of isolated words.
c) Long elaborate explanations of the intricacies of grammar are given.
d) Grammar provides the rules for putting words together, and instruction often focuses on the form and inflection of words.
e) Reading of difficult classical texts is begun early.
f) Little attention is paid to the content of texts, which are treated as exercises in grammatical analysis.
g) Often the only drills are exercises in translating disconnected sentences from the target language into the mother tongue.
h) Little or no attention is given to pronunciation.


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