The grammar-translation method
The grammar-translation method The grammar-translation method of foreign language teaching is one of the most traditional methods, dating back to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was originally used to teach 'dead' languages (and literatures) such as Latin and Greek. As Omaggio comments, this approach reflected "the view of faculty psychologists that mental discipline was essential for strengthening the powers of the mind." (Omaggio 89) Indeed, the emphasis on achieving 'correct' grammar with little regard for the free application and production of speech is at once the greatest asset and greatest drawback to this approach. As Howatt (1984) says, "the original motivation of this method was reformist." Before this method, the traditional scholastic approach suggested a reading knowledge of foreign language by studying grammar and applying this knowledge to the interpretation of texts. Later, the traditional text was repl...