Grammar-Translation Method

Definition : The grammar translation method is a method of teaching foreign languages derived
from the classical method of teaching Greek and Latin.

Procedures : The following procedure of teaching the target language through the GTM is
adapted from Larsen-Freeman (2000: 15-17).

1. The class reads a text written in the target language.

2. Student translate the passage from the target language to their mother tongue.
3. The teacher asks students in their native language if they have any questions, student ask
questions and the teacher answer the questions in their native language.
4. Student write out the answers to reading comprehension questions.
5. Student translate new words from the target language to their mother tongue.
6. Student are given a grammar rule and based on the example they apply the rule by using the
new words.
7. Student memorize vocabulary.
8. The teacher asks students to state the grammar rule
9. Student memorize the rule.
10. Errors are corrected by providing the right answers.

Techniques : These are descriptions of some common/typical techniques closely associated with
the Grammar Translation Method.

1) Translation of a literary passage

Students translate a reading passage from the target language into their native language. The
reading passage focuses on several classes: vocabulary and grammatical structures in the
passage. The passage may be excerpted from some work from the target language literature, or a
teacher may write a passage carefully designed to include particular grammar rules and
vocabulary. The translation may be written or spoken or both. Students should not translate
idioms and the like literally, but rather in a way that shows that they understand their meaning.

2) Reading comprehension questions

Students answer questions in the target language based on their understanding of the reading
passage. The questions are sequenced so that the first group of questions asks for information
contained within the reading passage.

3) Antonyms/synonyms
Students are given one set of words and are asked to find antonyms in the reading passage.
Students could also be asked to find synonyms for a particular set of words. Students might be
asked to define a set of words based on their understanding of them as they occur in the reading
passage.

4) Cognates
Students are taught to recognize cognates by learning the spelling or sound patterns that
correspond between the languages. Students are also asked to memorize words that look like
cognates but have meanings in the target language that are different from those in the native
language.

5) Deductive application of rule

Grammar rules are presented with examples. Exceptions to each rule are also noted. Once
students understand a rule, they are asked to apply it to some different examples.

6) Fill-in-the-blanks
Students are given a series of sentences with words missing. They fill in the blanks with new
vocabulary items or with items of a particular grammar type, such as prepositions or verbs with
different tenses.

7) Memorization
Students are given lists of target language vocabulary words and their native language
equivalents and are asked to memorize them. Students are also required to memorize
grammatical rules and grammatical paradigms such as verb conjugations.

8) Use words in sentences

In order to show that students understand the meaning and use of a new vocabulary item, they
make up sentences in which they use the new words.

9) Composition
The teacher gives the students a topic to write about in the target language. The topic is based
upon some aspect of the reading passage of the lesson. Sometimes, instead of creating a
composition, students are asked to prepare a précis of the reading passage.

Benefits : The Advantages (Merits)

1) The target language is quickly explained in GTM.

Translation is the easiest way of explaining meanings or words and phrases from one language
into another. Any other method of explaining vocabulary items in the second language is found
time consuming. A lot of time is wasted if the meanings of lexical items are explained through
definitions and illustrations in the second language. Further, learners acquire some short of
accuracy in understanding synonyms in the source language and the target language.

2) Teacher and students are easy to communicate/It does not need native language.
Teacher’s labour is saved. Since the textbooks are taught through the medium of the mother
tongue, the teacher may ask comprehension questions on the text taught in the mother tongue.
Pupils will not have much difficulty in responding to questions on the mother tongue. So, the
teacher can easily assess whether the students have learnt what he has taught them.
Communication between the teacher and the learners does not cause linguistic problems. Even
teachers who are not fluent in English can teach English through this method. That is perhaps the
reason why this method has been practiced so widely and has survived so long.

3) The students easy to understand because of grammatical lessons.

ESL students taught successfully under the grammar translation method will have the ability to
translate even difficult texts from their native language into English. They possess a thorough
knowledge of English grammar, including verb tenses. These students will be familiar with
several classical pieces of English literature, which are used for grammatical analysis and
exercises.
This method requires few specialized skills on the part of teachers. Grammar rules and
Translation Tests are easy to construct and can be objectively scored. Many standardized tests of
foreign languages still do not attempt to test communicative abilities, so students have little
motivation to go beyond grammar analogies, translations and other written exercises.

Weaknesses : Disadvantages (Demerits)

1) No Scope for Effective Communication and Very Tedious for Learners

Direct translation is widely regarded as an inefficient way of becoming fluent in any language.
For example, translating a sentence word-for-word from Spanish to English might not result in a
sentence with the same meaning because so little attention is paid in class to listening and
speaking. Students with years of English lessons through this method are often unable to hold
even a basic conversation in English because classes with this method are usually taught in a
lecture style, with the teacher mostly speaking the students’ native language rather than English,
class can be dull and cause students to lose interest.

2) Ineffective Method
It is a teaching method which studies a foreign language in order to read its literature
focusing on the analysis of its grammar rules, and to translate sentences and texts into and out the
target language. In the Grammar Translation Method the teaching of the second language starts
with the teaching of reading. Little attention is paid to the content of texts, which are treated as
exercises in grammatical analysis. Thus, the learning process is reversed.

3) More Importance on Grammar Rules than on Meaning

Exact translation is not possible. Translation is, indeed, a difficult task and exact translation from
one language to another is not always possible. A language is the result of various customs,
traditions, and modes of behavior of a speech community and these traditions differ from
community to community. There are several lexical items in one language, which have no
synonyms/equivalents in another language. For instance, the meaning of the English word ‘table’
does not fit in such expression as the ‘table of contents’, ‘table of figures’, ‘multiplication table’,
‘time table’ and ‘table the resolution’, etc. English prepositions are also difficult to translate.
Consider sentences such as ‘We see with our eyes’, ‘Bombay is far from Delhi’, ‘He died of
cholera’, He succeeded through hard work’. In these sentences ‘with’, ‘from’, ‘of’, ‘through’ can
be translated into the Hindi preposition ‘se’ and vice versa. Each language has its own structure,
idiom and usage, which do not have their exact counterparts in another language. Thus,
translation should be considered an index of one’s proficiency in a language.

4) Slow Learning Rate and Making Learners Think in L1

It does not give pattern practice. A person can learn a language only when he internalizes its
patterns to the extent that they form his habit. But the Grammar Translation Method does not
provide any such practice to the learner of a language. It rather attempts to teach language
through rules and not by use. Researchers in linguistics have proved that to speak any language,
whether native or foreign entirely by rule is quite impossible. Language learning means
acquiring certain skills, which can be learnt through practice and not by just memorizing rules.
The persons who have learnt a foreign or second language through this method find it difficult to
give up the habit of first thinking in their mother tongue and then translating their ideas into the
second language. They, therefore, fail to get proficiency in the second language approximating
that in the first language. The method, therefore, suffers from certain weaknesses for which there
is no remedy.

community language learning method

Definition : Community Language Learning methods takes it is principle from the more general
Counseling-Learning approach developed by Charles A Curran studied adult learning for many
years. Curran believed that a way to deal with the fears of students is for teacher to become
language counselors.
It is language teaching method in which students work together to develop what aspect of a
language which they would like to learn. Also based on counseling-approach in which teacher
acts as a counselor and a paraphraser, while the learner is seen as client and collaborator. So we
can think like teacher as a consular, students as a client, learning as counseling.

Procedures : Types of learning and teaching activities

As with most methods, CLL combines innovative learning tasks and activities with conventional
ones. They include:

1. Translation. Learners form a small circle. A learner whispers a message or meaning he or

she wants to express, the teacher translates it into (and may interpret it in) the target
language, and the learner repeats the teacher’s translation.
2. Group Work. Learners may engage in various group tasks, such as small-group
discussion of a topic, preparing a conversation, preparing a summary of a topic for
presentation to another group, preparing a story that will be presented to the teacher and
the rest of the class.
3. Recording. Students record conversations in the target language.
4. Transcription. Students transcribe utterances and conversations they have recorded for
practice and analysis of linguistic forms.
5. Analysis. Students analyze and study transcriptions of target language sentences in order
to focus on particular lexical usage or on the application of particular grammar rules.
6. Reflection and observation. Learners reflect and report on their experience of the class, as
a class or in groups. This usually consists of expressions of feelings – sense of one
another, reactions to silence, concern for something to say, etc.
7. Listening. Students listen to a monologue by the teacher involving elements they might
have elicited or overheard in class interactions.
8. Free conversation. Students engage in ´free conversation with’ the teacher or with other
learners. This might include discussion of what they learned as well as feelings they had
about how they learned.
Techniques : humanistic techniques (Moskowitz 1978). Moskowitz defines humanistic
techniques as those that blend what the student feels, thinks and knows with what he is learning
in the target language. Rather than self-denial being the acceptable way of life, self-actualization
and self-esteem are the ideals the exercises pursue. [The techniques] help build rapport,
cohesiveness, and caring that far transcend what is already there... help students to be
themselves, to accept themselves, and be proud of themselves... help foster a climate of caring
and sharing in the foreign language class. (Moskowitz 1978: 2)

Another language teaching tradition with which Community Language Learning is linked is a set
of practices used in certain kinds of bilingual education programmes and referred to by Mackey
(1972) as “language alternation.” In language alternation, a message/lesson/class is presented
first in the native tongue and then again in the second language. Students know the meaning and
flow of an L2 message from their recall of the parallel meaning and flow of an L1 message. They
begin to holistically piece together a view of the language out of these message sets. In CLL, a
learner presents a message in L1 to the knower. The message is translated into L2 by the knower.
The learner then repeats the message in L2, addressing it to another learner with whom he or she
wishes to communicate. CLL learners are encouraged to attend to the “overhears” they
experience between other learners and their knowers. The result of the “overhear” is that every
member of the group can understand what any given learner is trying to communicate (La Forge
1983: 45).

Benefits : Advantages of CLL: Works well with lower level students who are struggling in
spoken English, lower students anxiety and overcome threatening affective filter, it create a
warm sympathetic and trusting relationship between teacher and learners, train students become
independent, counselor allow to learners to determine types of conversation.

Weaknesses : Disadvantages of CLL: Some learners find it difficult to speak on tape, in order to
student become independent, teacher might neglect the need for guidance, teacher has t be highly
proficient in target language and in the language of students, it is time consuming to carry out,
translation is an intricate and difficult task.