Grammar translation vs CLT method

A Teacher

The teaching-learning scenario of English in Bangladesh has assumed a new beginning.

Grammar-translation method had been practiced for a long time in the English Language
Teaching context. Since 1998 in the secondary and higher secondary levels grammar-
translation method has been replaced by Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). The
Grammar-Translation method and the Audio-Lingual approach were the methodologies that
were in vogue before CLT. These methods involved repetition and memorization of forms.
Mere memorizing of grammar rules and studying literary texts are considered somewhat
irrelevant. Nowadays ability to use the language to meet practical ends has become the major
goal of learning English. In other words we can say that to be successful in leaning English
means ability to get the meaning across while communicating.

With the appearance of CLT second language teaching faced a dramatic change in the
method of teaching the language. The main reason behind this change is that the educators
began to realize the goal of foreign language teaching is the communicative ability achieved
by the learner. In the 1970s in Europe there was an influx of immigrant population who had to
lean English quickly to find employment. The drills of the Grammar-Translation method and
the Audio-Lingual approach did not help the workers to communicate with their employers.
'British applied linguists began to call into question the theoretical assumption underlying the
Situational Language Teaching ( Jack C. Richards 153). Since the mid-1970s the scope of
CLT has expanded. Both American and British proponents now see it as an approach and not
a method that aims to make communicative competence.

In this era of global communication, the purpose of learning English should be stretched from
the grammatically accurate written productions of compositions and translations to the multi-
dimensional oral communication in multi-faceted situations. Grammar Translation method
demands the utmost grammatical accuracy which involves time, carefulness and is a slow
process. To satisfy the immediate needs CLT is practiced by the learners. Communicative
competence in CLT is a linguistic term which refers to a leaner's ability to form correct
utterances in the second language and know how to use these utterances appropriately.

The teacher's role had been outright authoritative in the Grammar Translation Method. Such a
teacher-orientated authority used to make the students completely dependent on the teachers
and devoid of the practice of speaking skills making the students to be tongue-tied during the
spoken communicative production. The student's role in the overall Grammar Translation
Method in the English Language Teaching situation of Bangladesh had been by no means
passive and a kind of inactive. They were supposed to remain silent during the instruction of
the lessons and were to be active in a limited way only during the written production of
grammatical problem solving tasks and translations when they were used to be instructed to
do so. Such inactivity during the maximum time of the lesson was used to make the students
incompetent in communication in English. The CLT now reverses the ideas. Now classes are
dominated by students. Students' talking time is greater than that of Teacher Talking Time.
Equal importance is given to speaking skill which remained totally neglected in GTM.

The teachers used to present the lessons in lecture-based ways. As it is already mentioned,
the participation of the students was very limited during the lessons. They used to get an
opportunity of participation by directly asking the teachers only when they used to fail to
understand certain things. The more the class had been found silent the more the teacher
used to be satisfied of having been conducted a successful class. Peer discussions as well as
other kind of activities of peer co-operation had been far beyond the expectations.

Thus a gap between the students and the teachers and also gaps at the levels of competence
and proficiency among the peers were used to be created of which the teachers and the
students used to remain oblivious during the conduct of the lessons.
But in CLT teachers work as facilitators and behave friendly with the learners narrowing the
gap between them. Hence, teaching learning takes place in a non-threatening environment.

In Grammar-Translation method grammar had been taught deductively emphasizing on the

meticulous rules and the grammatical output of the students were used to be considered
based on the problem -solving tasks of the isolated sentences.

In CLT only the essential grammatical elements are taught through the context-based
inductive tasks and activities emphasizing not on the meticulous accuracy but on the overall
linguistic negotiation of meaning.

GTM is lecture-oriented; in the CLT the lessons are action-oriented. Thus in GTM there had
been only isolated written grammatical and problem-solving tasks and activities of translations
to be individually done by the students. In CLT, activities like pair works, group works as well
as collective works besides individually done by the students and in CLT activities as
collective works besides individual performances are to be conducted in almost every lesson
ensuring the integration of four major language skills.