Grammar Translation - Principles and Goals

Principles and Goals

There are two main goals to grammar-translation classes. One is to develop students’ reading ability to a level where they can read literature in the target language. The other is to develop students’ general mental discipline. As V. Mallison put it:

When once the Latin tongue had ceased to be a normal vehicle for communication, and was replaced as such by the vernacular languages, then it most speedily became a ‘mental gymnastic’, the supremely ‘dead’ language, a disciplined and systematic study of which was held to b indispensable as a basis for all forms of higher education.

The main principles on which the grammar translation method is based are the following:

1. Translation interprets the words and phrases of the foreign languages in the best possible manner.
2. The phraseology and the idioms of the target language can best be assimilated in the process of interpretation.
3. The structures of the foreign languages are best learned when compared and contrast with those of first language.