Grammar Translation Method or Communicative Approach
CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND
Introduction
The new implemented curriculum which is K to 12 demands teachers to introduce and teach English in the simplest way that learners will easily adopt and learn naturally the second language. With this, teaching grammar must be embraced by ESL (English as Second Language) teachers as it is included in the program. Relevantly, grammar is defined as a “set of rules that define how words or parts of words are combined or changed to form acceptable units of meaning within a language” (Penny, 2000.) That is why it is so pivotal to learn grammar in teaching the second language to non-native speakers like Filipinos. Consequently, teachers are
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Considering the early and modernized practice, two methods transcended and had been very popular in teaching foreign language or second language. The two most common methods that EFL (English as First Language) and ESL teachers utilized were known as Grammar Translation Method and Communicative Approach.
The development of Grammar Translation Method (GTM) is triggered by
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Particularly, it attempted to find out how Grammar Translation and Communicative Approach differed from one another. The following specific questions aided the researchers in answering the main problem:
1. What is the profile of the participants in terms of gender?
2. What is the level of English proficiency of the participants when subjected to :
2.1. Grammar Translation Method?
2.2. Communicative Approach
3. Is there a significant difference on the English proficiency between students who are subjected or based to:
3.1. Grammar Translation Method and Communicative Approach
3.2. Gender of the respondents
Hypothesis
There was no significant difference on the English proficiency between students who were subjected to Grammar Translation Method and Communicative Approach.
Scope and
Much research was completed for the making of this article. It was found that ELL’s need time to develop oral English proficiency, teachers need to use ongoing authentic formative assessments throughout the year due to
Children were taught to speak in a proper manner and because they were taught to speak correctly they wrote in a proper way as well. As technology evolved and texting came more profound grammar was becoming a lost art. In Dana Goldstein’s article ,‘Why Kids Can’t Write’, she talks about what teachers are doing about grammar. The teachers are not doing much about the grammar issue in schools.
...r they had all received the same language instruction for three years (kindergarten, first and second grade). These finding conclude that English language proficiency at the time of entering school does not matter. A good early literacy program works for both L1 students and ESL students who enter school at the kindergarten age. Students at that age are very susceptible to learning new languages quickly. The ESL children had difficulties in kindergarten, but by second grade they had caught up and were right on track with the L1 students and some of them even surpassed the L1 students.
Due to the rise in immigration and the demographics of classrooms in America are changing. As a result, English Language Learners are becoming more common in schools. English Language Learners make up one of the largest demographics in the American Classroom (Flynn & Hill, 2005). These students have been observed to have a major achievement gap because many of these students are placed in mainstream classrooms with basic literacy skills. Many English Language Learners are born in the United States (Goldenberg, 2008). These students have only attended the school system in America. However, the achievement levels are nowhere near the level of their peers. According to Calderon, Slavin, and Sanchez (2011) “these students, who have been in U.S. schools since kindergarten, are still classified as limited English proficient when they reach middle or high school— suggesting strongly that preschool and elementary programs are not adequately addressing the needs of English learners.” The achievement gap between English Language Learners and native English speaking students is extremely high. English Language Learners tests scores are low. According to the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress, “fourth grade ELLs scored 36 points lower than their peers on the reading section of the test and 25 points below their peers in math. The results in eighth grade were worse with a difference of 42 points in reading and 37 points in math” (Goldenberg, 2008). The gap between ELLs and non-ELLs are three to eighteen points larger then students from low-income households.
Nassaji, H., & Fotos, S. (2011). The role of context in focus on grammar: Teaching Grammar in Second Language Classroom (pp.121-134). New York and London: Routhdge
It is not uncommon to say that grammar instruction plays an important role in language teaching. Regarding the status and importance of grammar teaching, a variety of opinions have been made. Batstone (1994) states that “language without grammar would be chaotic: countless words without the indispensable guidelines for how they can be ordered and modified” (p. 4). More vividly, Wang (2010) makes two similes. She compares grammar to the frame of a house, which is a decisive factor to ensure the solidness of it. Additionally, she regards grammar as a walking stick, whose function is to help and support students to learn English. Thus, the nature of grammar instruction manifests its own significance as it helps students enhance their overall language proficiency by integrating grammar into other aspects of learning, like listening, speaking, reading and writing.
Language proficiency can achieved through grammatically correct and effective use of language structure. Therefore, a sound of knowledge of the fundamental rules of grammar is essential for the acquisition of language competence.
Grammar has two primary approaches—prescriptive and descriptive. Prescriptive grammar is the general approach of right versus wrong, and historically the kind of approach overzealous English teachers apply to their students. Popular culture has lovingly deemed the rigid prescriptive grammarian the “Grammar Nazi,” which actually refers to the grade school graduate who clings tightly to the Latin based traditional rules and enforces those rules online. Due to these perspectives and due to various studies performed in classrooms, many have been rebuffing the study of grammar in schools. Some critics suggest that understanding grammar is ineffective and harms more than it helps writing.
Machine translation is incredibly difficult. And to prove that, I will now write this introduction again, after it’s been sent through Google’s translator - currently one of the best in the world - and then translated back into English.
Focusing too much on grammar: - This is the most common mistake that many learners make while they are in the early phases of the English learning process. As per the researches, it has been known that grammar study hurts English speaking ability of the learners. This is because English grammar is too complex to memorize
History of language teaching has long begun in the middle ages and its development is a never ending course. The chronology of language teaching shows a continuum of teaching forms from traditional (teacher-centeredness) to modern (student-centeredness). It starts with Grammar-translation, a primary methodology when the study of Greek and Latin in public schools was significant back then. This form of language teaching concentrated on “memorizing the grammatical rules and lexical items of the target language” (Knight, 2001). It also occupied learners to translate the target language, hence keeping one into both their native language and the target language to and fro. Grammar-translation method presents a very traditional way of learning whereby learners studied grammar rules deductively, and thus explaining the use of drilling in classroom. Learners were directed to be focusing on solely writing and reading skills. In other words, the method seems to be monodirectional because there was not much of interaction and exchange of information and knowledge.
In the article, “Current Developments in Research on the Teaching of Grammar” by Hossein Nassaji and Sandra Fotos two main issues had been discussed. The first one is whether grammar teaching make any differences to language learning where the questions raised are whether grammar should be taught or not. The second issue is what kinds of grammar teaching have been suggested to facilitate second language learning. If grammar should be taught, how much and should it be implicit or explicit grammar teaching? Lastly, the article discussed on the current approaches to grammar teaching in which formal instruction can be integrated with communicative activities which are processing instruction, interactional feedback, textual enhancement, task-based
In the past, the study of grammar has been investigated for centuries, it was also significantly role in language teaching and learning. The reasons for teaching and learning are different in each period. In some eras, a major aim of teaching and learning was making learners to be able to communicate. In others, it was essentially taught for the purposes of reading and writing. For these reasons, the studies of two linguistic theories, the traditional grammar and the structuralism were created. They can be viewed differences by views on language, language learning and teaching as well as strengths and weaknesses as follows.
The Direct Method teaches language in the identical way in which the child first learns his mother tongue. The language is prepared through illustration and conversations in surroundings. As Direct Method put stress on speech, students obtain flow in speech. They think directly in English without the involvement of the mother tongue. They are fast at comprehending spoken English. The Direct Method learners also have good pronunciation of each word. Students who are learned through this method speak in English with great potential. In Direct Method language is taught through presentation. The Direct Method makes use of audio-visual cooperation. The use of these cooperation promote learning and makes lesson fascinating. It promotes reading and writing. Learners can speak in flow, they also write impartially quickly and rightly. In classrooms that allow students to up and down between languages, thinking in English is dejected in difference, a classroom that engages students in English demands them to do more thinking in English. By using the Direct Method, students are able to understand what they learn, think about it and then express their own ideas in correct and even ask question about words they are enable to understand and knows English about what they have read and learnt. Classes who have few students, so the power of the learning process can be enhanced. In direct method translation cannot be used. The interaction goes from both ways like teacher to student and from student to
I divided them in to 2 groups , the first group use the early learning and teach technique and the seconde group learn and teach English since fourth grad (10 years and up).