Linguistic Theories

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.

Traditional grammar is one of the most significant grammar teaching, this kind of grammar was influenced by the Greek scholars of the fourth and fifth century BC. Its views on language is prescriptive according to rules of correctness. For example, “ I did not do nothing” this sentence is exactly incorrect because in traditional grammar, one negative cannot overlap another negative. In nineteenth century, language was considered diachronically. Also, it is refer to Biology; language can be dead or alive it was the open-system which can be changed all the time as same as life’s development. Traditionalist believed that the current languages were considered to be degenerate; thus, studying language should be looked at the ancestor because it was a purest form. Also, written language should be studied more than spoken language because spoken language could be variously changed overtime. Some words were gone but some still exist. Therefore, traditionalist assumed that written language is more constant. In addition, traditional grammar analyzed feature of language as parts of speech or eight word classes: noun, v...

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...e Audio-Lingual Method is good at pronunciation practice, it may be inappropriate for some learners who do not know those meanings. They just imitate a text or dialogue; thus, there is no thinking. Another drawback of the structuralism is it emphasizes too heavily on the pattern (Slot and Filler); hence, the meaning is ignored.

According to the stated above, there is no evidence shows that which method is the best way to learn L2. When the purpose is teaching grammatical rules and writing accurately, the grammar-translation method will be appropriate. On the contrary, if a teacher would make learner speak fluently, the audio-lingual method should be used. Thus, language teaching should depend on the particularly purposes. Or else, both two methods ought to be adapted in order to improve all of important skill for language teaching efficiently.