GRAMMAR TRANSLATION

Question 1

In ___ teacher ___ courses in which the ‘___’ is ___, it all began with ___. And it was __! In fact, neither claim – that Grammar-Translation was the __ method, and that it was __ wrong – is entirely ___.

Answer 1

1. most
2. preparation
3. history of methods
4. reviewed
5. Grammar-Translation
6. bad
7. first
8. inherently
9. true

Question 2

When I was a student of __ at __ school in ___ in the
1960s, the curriculum was based on a ___ called ___ (Horan & Wheeler 1963). The story-line followed the (___) life of the __ family, dramatized as short ___, but the syllabus was organized around a ___ list of ___ structures, __ or __ per unit. The English ___ of these structures were provided, along with a list of ____ words. Exercises involving ___ sentences from __ into __, and then the ___, provided the __ of the practice

Answer 2

1. French
2. secondary
3. New Zealand
4. textbook
5. A New French Course
6. fairly uneventful
7. Ravel
8. dialogues
9. graded
10. grammatical
11. one
12. two
13. equivalents
14. thematically-related
15. translating
16. French
17. English
18. reverse
19. bulk

Question 3

All this will be ___ to many language learners, especially those who
have studied __ languages at school. This is ___ surprising, perhaps, since the approach was originally devised to meet the needs of school children in the early ___ century, an ___ for whom the ___, text-based methods of classics ___ were simply ___. At one time called ‘the ___’, because it was ___ and ___ in what is now __, the __ focus on ___ and __ was a legacy of the study of ___ (i.e. ___) languages. It was part of a __ tradition that included the detailed __ – or ‘___’ – of literary texts (see chapter 8). But the preference for ___ sentences, rather than ___ texts, was an ___. It was felt that the ___ focus could be ___ controlled and ___ this way. That the sentences were ___, and often ___, was ____ – and would eventually serve to __ the method (_____). Here, for examples, are sentences for translation from Ollendorf’s Nuevo Método (1876):

Answer 3

1. familiar
2. modern
3. hardly
4. 19th
5. age-group
6. self-study
7. scholars
8. not appropriate
9. the Prussian Method
10. developed
11. refined
12. Germany
    13, twin
13. grammar
14. translation
15. classical
16. dead
17. long
18. analysis
19. construing
20. individual sentences
21. whole
22. innovation
23. grammar
24. more easily
25. delimited
26. invented
27. bizarre
28. unfortunate
29. discredit
30. dubbed Grammar-Translation by its detractors)

Question 4

Since Grammar-Translation had originally been designed for
___, it adapted ___- to the needs of a growing ___ middle class who needed __ languages for trading __ and __, but were __ in the __. The __ component of Grammar-Translation was kept ___, with __ use of ___. However, over time, the __ to include more and more grammatical ___, in the form of detailed ___ and long lists of __ to rules, became ___. This was in __ part motivated by the ___ in which grammar was held: __ course, published in __ in 1825, posted the following quotation (by a certain John Horne Tooke) on its title page:

I consider Grammar as __ in the search for ___ truth, and I think it no less necessary in the most important questions concerning __ and __ society.

Answer 4

1. school children
2. relatively well
3. cosmopolitan
4. foreign
5. goods
6. ideas
7. not versed
8. classics
9. relatively simple
10. minimal
11. terminology
12. temptation
13. padding
14. explanations
15. irresistible
16. large
17. reverence
18. one
19. Spain
20. absolutely necessary
21. philosophical
22. religion
23. civil

Question 5

The ___ century witnessed an __ growth in the production of ___ of English, with grammarians ___ with one another to __ the grammar cake into ever __ portions, and this ___ was reflected in its __ texts. It was further compounded by the fact that the __ model for grammatical __ was still __ and __, and the very __ grammar of English was __ to comply with these __ models. Nevertheless, for the teaching of __ languages like __ or __, the ___ approach seemed to make ___ – even if, as Kelly (1969) notes, ‘language __ was ___ with the ability to __ and __’.

Answer 5

1. 19th
2. unprecedented
3. grammars
4. vying
5. slice
6. smaller
7. pedantry
8. teaching
9. default
10. description
11. Greek
12. Latin
13. different
14. forced
15. classical
16. highly inflected
17. French
18. German
19. more sense
20. skills
21. equated
22. conjugate
23. decline

Question 6

My __ course was __ or __ typical: the ___ elements of the___ lesson include a statement of the __ in the learner’s __; a ___ list of __ items, chosen so as to make a __ fit with the __ point; followed by __ exercises __ and __ of the __ language. Eventually, the student might __ __ texts – especially for __ purposes. __ elements might include __ or __ that __ the syllabus items, as well as __ for a ‘___’ using the same items. But the focus is very much on the __ language, on __ and on the __ of rules.

Answer 6

1. French
2. more
3. less
4. obligatory
5. Grammar Translation
6. rule
7. L1
8. translated
9. vocabulary
10. good
11. grammar
12. translation
13. in
14. out
15. target
16. translate
17. whole
18. assessment

Question 7

My __ course was __ or __ typical: the ___ elements of the___ lesson include a statement of the __ in the learner’s __; a ___ list of __ items, chosen so as to make a __ fit with the __ point; followed by __ exercises __ and __ of the __ language. Eventually, the student might __ __ texts – especially for __ purposes. __ elements might include __ or __ that __ the syllabus items, as well as __ for a ‘___’ using the same items. But the focus is very much on the __ language, on __ and on the __ of rules.

Answer 7

1. French
2. more
3. less
4. obligatory
5. Grammar Translation
6. rule
7. L1
8. translated
9. vocabulary
10. good
11. grammar
12. translation
13. in
14. out
15. target
16. translate
17. whole
18. assessment
19. Optional
20. dialogues
21. texts
22. contextualize
23. prompts
24. conversation
25. written
26. accuracy
27. memorization

Question 8

How teachers actually __ this material is very much up to them, since there is __ any __ provided as to how a Grammar-Translation lesson is realized in __. In that sense, Grammar-Translation is a __ without a __. The default approach is to work with the class in ‘__’ (i.e. as one group), with individual learners taking turns to __ lines of text aloud, and to __ sentences when called upon.

Answer 8

1. negotiate
2. seldom
3. guidance
4. practice
5. method
6. methodology
7. lockstep
8. read
9. translate

Question 9

Given that Grammar-Translation was originally conceived as a means of
cultivating __ skills in the __ language, including the ability to
appreciate its ___, it would be ___, perhaps, to judge it on its
capacity to develop __ fluency. Certainly, in the case of my French, it
didn’t. The __ focus on __ forms, on __ grammar, and on __, means that – unless teachers incorporate ___ activities into the lessons – there is __ preparation for spoken fluency. However, it’s not hard to ___ a __ version of grammar-translation, where these ___ are ___, or even __ altogether – where the syllabus is ___, mediated by a __ of __ and __ texts, and with tasks that develop ___.

Answer 9

1. literacy
2. target
3. literature
4. unfair
5. spoken
6. almost exclusive
7. written
8. sentence-level
9. accuracy
10. free speaking
11. zero
12. envisage
13. rehabilitated
14. weaknesses
15. counterbalanced
16. eliminated
17. more comprehensive
18. balance
19. written
20. spoken
21. communicative competence

Question 10

One of Grammar-Translation’s __, however, is that, as Guy Cook
(2010) points out, ‘it may be particularly __ to those teachers who
are themselves ___ in the language they are teaching
and/or ___ to undertake __ preparation’. In a sense, Grammar-Translation teaches itself, and this may be one of the main reasons for its __ appeal.

Answer 10

1. merits
2. well suited
3. not wholly proficient
4. too overworked
5. extensive
6. enduring

Question 11

It’s __ that, of the __ defining features of Grammar-Translation, the
__ syllabus has __, indeed __, while translation has
been __ – ___ – __ (even if it has been practised __). Yet __ has perhaps been __: the direct method mantra that, in order to speak an __ you have to think in it (with the __ that, in order to think in it, you have to be __ in it) has become an __. But perhaps the real __ of Grammar-Translation was its (____) use of translation, as a means of conveying __ and of testing __, and as a way of ___ the L2 __ and __. Recent evidence from the field of ___, including the use of __ techniques, seems to show that the languages of ___ are __ located in the brain; rather, they share a __ space. This fact alone might support a ___ of the role of ___ in the process of becoming __.

Answer 11

1. ironic
2. two
3. grammar
4. survived
5. flourished
6. consistently
7. often vehemently
8. discouraged
9. covertly
10. translation
11. unjustly denigrated
12. L2
13. corollary
14. submerged
15. unshakeable dogma
16. strength
17. admittedly, somewhat pedestrian
18. meaning
19. understanding
20. grammar
21. vocabulary
22. neurobiology
23. neuroimaging
24. bilinguals
25. not differently
26. common
27. re-evaluation
28. translation
29. bilingual