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Language translation method:

Before the 18th century were way little teaching and learning theorical foundations and little
research on languageacquisiton. On that time learning and teaching a language; a foreign language
was based on latin, greek and dead languages, those languages were important because texts and
classical literature were on those languages, and the main purpose to learn them was because of
academic issues and intellectual pursuits. For teaching and learning latin and greek was used a
mthod called “Classical method” which was focused on grammar rules, memorization of vocabulary
and conjugations, translating texts and written exercises.

As was mentioned before, Latin and Greek were no taught to learn oral communication, for example
if you wanted to buy apples at the market you could not because there was no one to speak with, no
one spoke latin or greek. Learning language outside the classroom mattered little.

Over time, many other languages became important, like French, Italian, English and Spanish, and It
called people’s attention, and they started to see the utility of those languages, so people started to
them and the classical method was a model and a standard to teach these emerging languages, and
was a more practical way of learning a language because the language was used in different ways,
like: business, travel, entertainment and politics, and not only for reading texts and for writing,

In the ninth century the classical method came to be known as the language translation method,
nowadays it is still practiced in some educational contexts.

The main characteristics of the language translation method are: Classes and instructions are given
in the other language with a little active use of target language, Huge lists of vocabulary are
remembered, so vocabulary is so important. Long grammar explanations are given in the class,
reading of difficult classical texts, little attention is paid to the content of texts and readings, and no
attention is given to pronunciation.

Some important traits of this method Is a fully teacher-centered method, because the teacher is the
authority of the class and the students are passive all the time, even they don’t interact with the
teacher and with the other students.

The two skills implemented by the method are: writing and reading.

We can say these method is still used at some schools and academic institutions and is popular
because it requires few specialized skills on teachers and because of the tests, tests of grammar are
easy to score

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