Grammar

Bab 1
Introduction

Grammar in difficult subject in english lesson to students.to teach grammar,teacher sould have good method to make students intresting to study about grammar.grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics, and pragmatics. Linguists do not normally use the term to refer to orthographical rules, although usage books and style guides that call themselves grammars may also refer to spelling and punctuation. And we are think the good method to study about grammar is a grammar translation method. was the off spring of German scholarship, the object of which, according to one of it’s less charitable critics, was “to know everything about something rather than the  thing it self” (W. H. D. Rouse, quoted in Kelly 1969: 53). Grammar Translation was in fact first know in the United States as the Prussian Method. (A book by B. Sears, an American classic teacher, published in 1845 was entitled The Ciceronian or the Prussian Method of Teaching the Element of the Latin Language [Kelly 1969].)
Bab 2
Discussion
Method
Classes were conducted in the native language. A chapter in a distinctive textbook of this method would begin with a massive bilingual vocabulary list. Grammar points would come directly from the texts and be presented contextually in the textbook, to be explained elaborately by the instructor. Grammar thus provided the rules for assembling words into sentences. Tedious translation and grammar drills would be used to exercise and strengthen the knowledge without much attention to content. Sentences would be deconstructed and translated. Eventually, entire texts would be translated from the target language into the native language and tests would often ask students to replicate classical texts in the target language. Very little attention was placed on pronunciation or any communicative aspects of the language. The skill exercised was reading, and then only in the context of translation.
The Grammar Translation MethodA number of methods and techniques have evolved for the teaching of English and also other foreign languages in the recent past, yet this method is still in use in many parts of India. It maintains the first language of the learner as the reference particularly in the process of learning the second/foreign languages. The main principles on which the Grammar Translation Method is based are the following:
1.Translation interprets the words and phrases of the foreign languages in the best possible manner.
2.The phraseology and the idiom of the target language can best be assimilated in the process of interpretation.
3.The structures of the foreign languages are best learned when compared and contrast with those of first language.
In this method, while teaching the text book the teacher translates every word and phrase from English into the learners' first language. Further, students are required to translate sentences from their first language into the target language. These exercises in translation are based on various items covering the grammar of the target language. The method emphasizes the study of grammar through deduction that is through the study of the rules of grammar. A contrastive study of the target language with the first language gives an insight into the structure not only of the foreign language but also of the first language.
Advantages
The grammar translation method has two main advantages.
1.The phraseology of the target language is quickly explained. 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 sort of accuracy in understanding synonyms in the source language and the target language.
2.Teacher’s labor is saved. Since the textbooks are taught through the medium of the first language, the teacher may ask comprehension questions on the text taught in the first language. Pupils will not have much difficulty in responding to questions in the first language. So, the teacher can easily assess whether the students have learned what he has taught them. Communication between the teacher and the learner does not cause linguistic problems. Even teachers who are not fluent in the target language can teach it using this method. That is perhaps the reason why this method has been practiced so widely and has survived so long.
Disadvantages
Along with its advantages, the grammar translation method comes with many disadvantages.
1. It is an unnatural method. The natural order of learning a language is listening, speaking, reading and writing. That is the way a child learns his first language in natural surroundings; but, in the Grammar Translation Method the teaching of the second language starts with the teaching of reading. Thus, the learning process is reversed. This poses problems.
2.Speech is neglected. The Grammar Translation Method places emphasis on reading and writing. It neglects speech. Thus, the students who are taught through this method fail to express themselves adequately in spoken English. Even at the undergraduate stage they feel shy of communicating using English. It has been observed that in a class, which is taught English through this method, learners listen to the first language more than that to the second/foreign language. Since language learning involves habit formation such students fail to acquire a habit of speaking English. Therefore, they have to pay a heavy price for being taught through this method.
3. 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 example, the meaning of the English word ‘table’ does not fit in such expressions as '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’, and ‘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. 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 learned through practice and not by just memorizing rules. The persons who have learned a foreign or second language through this method find it difficult to give up the habit of first thinking in their first language 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.
Criticism
The method by definition has a very limited scope of objectives. Because speaking or any kind of spontaneous creative output was missing from the curriculum, students would often fail at speaking or even letter writing in the target language. A noteworthy quote describing the effect of this method comes from Bahlsen, who was a student of Plötz, a major proponent of this method in the 19th century. In commenting about writing letters or speaking he said he would be overcome with "a veritable forest of paragraphs, and an impenetrable thicket of grammatical rules."Later, theorists such as Vietor, Passy, Berlitz, and Jespersen began to talk about what a new kind of foreign language instruction needed, shedding light on what the grammar translation was missing. They supported teaching the language, not about the language, and teaching in the target language, emphasizing speech as well as text. Through grammar translation, students lacked an active role in the classroom, often correcting their own work and strictly following the textbook.

Bab 3
Conclusion
The grammar translation method stayed in schools until the 1960s, when a complete foreign language pedagogy evaluation was taking place. In the meantime, teachers experimented with approaches like the direct method in post-war and Depression era classrooms, but without much structure to follow. The trusty grammar translation method set the pace for many classrooms for many decades.
1.    The goal of foreign Language is to learn a language in order to read its literature or in order to benefit from the mental discipline and intellectual development that result from the foreign-language study. Grammar Translation is a way of studying a language that approaches the language first through detailed analysis of its grammar rules, followed by application of this knowledge to the task of translating sentences and texts into and out of the target language. It hence views language learning as consisting of little more than memorizing rules and facts in order to understand and manipulate the morphology and syntax of the foreign language is maintained as the reference system in the acquisition of the second language” (Stern 1983: 455).
2.    Reading and writing and the major focus; little or no systematic attention is paid to speaking or listening.
3.    Vocabulary selection is based solely on the reading texts used, and words are taught through bilingual word lists, dictionary study, and memoriza. In a typical Grammar –Traslation text, the Grammar rules are presented and illustrated, a list of vocabulary items are presented with their translation equivalents, and translation exercises are prescribed.
4.    The sentence is the basic unit of teaching and language practice. Much of the lesson is devoted to translating sentence into and out of the target language, and it is this focus on the sentence that is a distinctive feature of the method. Earlier approaches to foreign language. But this was thought to be too difficult for the students in secondary schools, and the focus on the sentence was an attempt to make language learning easier (see Howatt 1984: 131).
5.    Accuracy is emphasized. Students are expected to attain high standards in translation, because of the “the high priority attached to meticulous standards of accuracy which, as well as having an intrinsic moral value, was a prerequisite for passing the increasing number of formal written examinations that grew up during the century” (Howatt 1984: 132).
6.    Grammar is taught deductively – that is, by presentation and study of grammar rules, which are than practiced through translation exercise. In most Grammar-Translation texts, a syllabus was followed for the sequencing of grammar points throughout a text, and there was an attempt to teach grammar in an organized and systematic way.
7.    The student’s native language is the medium of instruction. It is used to explain new items and to enable comparisons to be made between the foreign language and the student’s native language.