Grammar-translation method-Reflection
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1) The passage discusses a grammar translation activity where students translated a literary passage from English to their native language of Malay. 2) Some strengths of this method are that it uses both the native and target languages, making it easier for students to understand. It also improves students' grammar in both languages. However, not all words can be directly translated. 3) Weaknesses include an inability to translate some words exactly and a neglect of speaking skills, since the focus is on reading and writing in the native language.
Grammar-translation method-Reflection
- 1. REFLECTION<br />My group had demonstrated “Translation of a Literary Passage” as one of the activity which uses the grammar translation method in language teaching. According to Peter Newmark (1982), translation is a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a written message and/or statement in one language by the same message and/or statement in another language. Thus, this method has been introduced as one of the method in teaching English language through the usage of the native language as well.<br />Basically, translation of a literary passage is a technique used whereby the students would first read a literary passage which is in the target language, provided by the teacher. Then, they are required to translate the target language (English) to their own native language (Malay). Therefore, this method focuses on learning the rules of grammar and their application in translation passages from one language into the other. From here, vocabulary of target language is learned through direct translation from the native language. <br />As we demonstrated the activity, I found out that there are several strengths and weaknesses of this method of language teaching. Firstly, one of the strength of this method is the usage of two languages, English as target language and Malay as the native language. By using native language, it is easier for the students to pick-up the learning as they could understand faster and more. It is easier for the teacher to explain the meaning in their native language and thus time saving. A lot of time is wasted if the meanings of lexical items are explained through definitions and illustrations in the second language (Paerwarno,2006). In addition to that, students would also become more familiar with the grammar of their own native language and this familiarity would help them speak and write their native language better. Therefore, the usage of two languages is certainly the strength of this activity as the students killed two birds with one stone where they learn the target language easier and improve on their native language to a higher level .<br />Besides that, the strength of this activity would be the few requirements of specialized skills on the part of the teacher. This is because understanding literary texts is the primary focus of the activity and there is little need for a speaking knowledge of the language. In short, very little teaching is done in the target language. Instead, reading in the target language are translated directly and then discussed in the native language, often precipitating in-depth comparisons of the two languages themselves. Then, grammar is taught with extensive explanations in the native language, and only later applied in the production of sentences through translation from one language to the other. Therefore, even teachers who are not fluent in English can teach English through this method. Students on the other hand are also less stressful as they could respond in their mother tongue rather than the target language. The teacher would not have problem in controlling the class as he/she could easily communicate with the student in their mother tongue.<br />Despite of those two strengths, I do realise of the weaknesses of this activity as well. The obvious drawback for this activity would be not possible to translate the target language exactly to native language. Goethe (1813) stated that translation is impossible, essential and important. A language is the result of various customs, traditions, and modes of behaviour 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. Thus, this would be one of the weaknesses of this activity as not all words in the target language could be translated directly to the native language.<br />The other weakness of this activity would be the neglect of speaking skills in the students. As this activity emphasis on reading and writing skills, speech is eventually neglected. Thus, the students who are taught English through this method fail to express themselves adequately in spoken English. They are used to the translation of target language to their mother tongue and rarely practice the target language. This would hinder their chances in speaking out the target language as they only focus on the reading and writing skills only. In short, this activity fails to encourage the students’ communicative competence in the target language.<br />In order to improve this activity, a few aspects should be noted and given more attention. The first one would be by exposing the grammar rules to the students before conducting this activity. This is to ensure that the students would understand that exact translation is not possible for all languages. They should be acknowledged that each language have their own rules and thus allow them to anaylse and understand the construction of target language sentences, which preventing their misinterpretation. Besides that, enrichment of vast amount of vocabulary should also be implemented by the teacher to ensure the correct translation of target language. The students should be exposed to wide varieties of vocabulary as well as their meaning to enrich their understanding of different words they encountered. Words by words translation could be conducted in the midst of this activity as the students learn the usage of each words and not directly translating the whole sentences as once.<br />Generally speaking, the medium of instruction for this activity is the mother tongue, which is used to explain conceptual problems and to discuss the use of a particular grammatical structure. It all sounds rather dull but it can be argued that the grammar translation method has over the years had a remarkable success. Millions of people have successfully learnt foreign languages to a high degree of proficiency and, in numerous cases, without any contact whatsoever with native speakers of the language (Tim Bowen).Thus, this method should stay and practice by language teacher as it is proven practical in school.<br />