Diane Larsen-Freeman

14 Th e Grammar-Translation Method
hilt not
Jo hn put awa y it.
(beca use 'put away' is a sepa rab le two-word verb)
T he teacher went ove r the ho mework.
bnt no!
Th e teac her went the homework over.
(beca use 'go ove r' is an inseparable two-word verb).
After reading over the rule and the examples, the students are asked to tell
which of the follow ing two-word verbs, taken from the passage, are separa
ble and which inseparable. They refer to the passage for clues. If they
cannot tell from the passage, they use their dictionar ies or ask their
teacher.
turn up
run away
go away
wake up
fade out
break dow n
get on
layup
turn bac k
ta ke in
Finally, they are asked to put one of these phrasal verbs in the blank of
each of the ten sente nces they arc given. They do the first two together.
1 Mark Twain decided to__ because his parents wo uldn't let him
get a job on the river,
2 Th e sreamboatmen __ and discharge freight at each port on the
Mississippi River.
When the students arc finished with this exercise, they read the ir an swers
aloud.
At the end of the chapter there is a list of vocabulary items that
appeared in the passage. The list is divided into two pa rts: the first contains
words, and the second, idioms like 'to give someone the cold shoulde
r.' Next ro each is a Span ish word or phrase. For hom ework, the
teacher asks the students to memorize the Spanish translation for the first
twent y words and to write a sentence in English using each word.
In the two remaining lessons this week, the students will be asked to:
I Writ e out the tra nslation of the reading passage into Span ish.
2 State the rule for the usc of a direct object with two -word verbs, and
apply it to other phrasal verbs.
3 Do the remaining exercises in the chapter that include practice with
one set of irregular past participle forms. The students will be asked to
memor ize the prese nt tense, past tense, and past participle forms of this
irregular parad igm:
dr ink
sing
sW im
ring
begin
drank
sang
swam
rang
began
T he Grammar-Tran slation Method 15
drunk
sung
swum
rung
begun
4 Write a composition in the target language abo ut an amb ition they have.
S Memorize the remaining vocabulary items and write sentences for
each .
6 Take a quiz on the grammar and vocabulary of th is chapter. They will
be asked to translate a Spanish paragraph about steamboats into
English.
T HI NK I NG ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE
Thi s has been just a brief introduction to the Grammar-Translation
Method , but it is prohahly true that this met hod is not new to many of
you. You may have studied a language in this way, or you may he teaching
with this meth od right now. Whether this is true or not, let us see what
we have learned about the Grammar-Tra nslation Method. We arc able to
make a number of observations abou t the class we atten ded. Our observat
ion s will be listed in the left column; fro m them we will try to ident ify
the pr inciples of the Gramma r-Translation Method . Th e principles will
be listed in the right column . We will make our observations in order, following
the lesson plan of the class we o bserved.
Observations
1 The class is reading an excer pt
from Mark Twain's Life Oil the
Mississippi.
2 Srudcnrs translate the passage
from English to Spanish.
Principles
A fundamental purpose of
learning a foreign language is to be
able to read literature written in it.
Literar y language is superior to
spoken language. Students' study
of the tar get culture is limited to its
literatu re and nne arts.
An important goa l is for students
to be able to translate each
language into the oth er. Ifstudents
ca n rmnsla rc from one langua ge
into anot her, they are considered
successful language learners.