Grammar translation method

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The grammar translation method is a language learning method (see also foreign language didactics ) in which foreign language texts are either analyzed grammatically and translated ( analytical - inductive method) or, after practicing the rules, sentences are translated from or into the target language ( synthetic - deductive method). Your goal is to gain a thorough knowledge of the vocabulary and the system of grammatical rules. The grammar translation method is exclusively geared towards the written use of the foreign language .

history

Until modern times , foreign language teaching generally focused on the written use of the target language. Thus the limited medieval instruction in foreign languages, mainly in the monasteries took place, often on translating Bible texts and on naming the rules of grammar. A famous textbook for Latin grammar, which was to the 19th century is in use already in n fourth century BC.. Incurred Ars Grammatica , especially the part de partibus orationis ars minor by Aelius Donatus which the grammatical main phenomena - not unlike many later revision works - compiled.

The resulting grammar translation method, first known as this in the 19th century, is the foreign language didactic method that prevailed into the 20th century, both in the old and in the new languages that were only added to the general subject canon of higher schools in the early 19th century .

At the time, foreign language teaching was set against the background of a classic educational ideal and neo-humanism , but the modern-language reform movement, including Wilhelm Viëtor, led to a paradigm shift . If knowledge and knowledge about languages ​​and the contrastive consideration had been preferred to their practical application before, the newer languages ​​split off and language acquisition for the purpose of communication became the focus. Because ancient language teaching is not aimed at speaking skills, the exclusively cognitively oriented grammar translation method still dominates in Latin, Greek and Hebrew classes today .

Features of the GÜM for teaching English

Vocabulary :

  • bilingual vocabulary equations (boy - boy)
  • Vocabulary is matched to reading, i.e. H. all vocabulary in the text to be treated is given
  • Exercise by translating isolated sentences (the boy is nice; the classroom looks nice. Etc.)

Grammar :

  • deductive grammar teaching
  • The grammatical structures described according to the Latin tradition were decisive
  • Each word class was given with the inflection according to person, gender, number, case, tense and mode in the foreign language and in German

Text work:

  • cultural, historical texts
  • Letters and poems of the 18th century
  • Shakespeare's Sonnets, Milton: Paradise Lost
  • no dosage of language difficulties
  • no reference to grammar sections
  • no tasks related to the text
  • Texts form templates for class discussions, i. This means that free speech should only ever take place within a semantically predetermined framework

Classroom language:

  • German (teacher even asks questions in German, students answer in a foreign language)

Social form:

  • Frontal teaching

Priorities of the desired skills:

  • Reading comprehension, ability to translate, only then speaking and writing skills

Media:

  • Teachers are not in a position to present longer English texts in an exemplary manner, since they only had training as classical philologists and had not learned English either at high school or at university.

Procedure and content

A wide variety of texts are used in lessons: fictional such as factual texts , prose and later - albeit less often - poetry . These are analyzed semantically and syntactically and transferred to your own language. Furthermore, single sentences are used to deduce and practice grammatical aspects. Another exercise that is less often carried out is translation into the foreign language.

literature

  • Friedrich Glauning: Didactics and methodology of English teaching. CH Beck, Munich 1895.
  • Werner Hüllen: A Brief History of Foreign Language Learning. Erich Schmidt, Berlin 2005.
  • Lous G. Kelly: 25 Centuries of Language Teaching: an inquiry into the Science, Art, and Development of Language Teaching Methodology 500 BC-1969. Newbury House, Rowley, Mass. 1969.
  • W. Mangold: Solved and unsolved questions of methodology in the field of newer foreign languages. Berlin 1892.
  • Arnold Ohlert: General methodology of language teaching in a critical justification. Hanover 1893.
  • Wilhelm Viëtor : Language teaching must turn around! (A contribution to the question of overburdening). From Quousque Tandem . Henninger, Heilbronn 1882.