WHY DO VIETNAMESE TEACHERS OF ENGLISH STILL USE GRAMMAR TRANSLATION METHOD IN TEACHING ENGLISH?

Since Vietnam conducted economics renovation and open policies to attract foreign investments, English becomes an important foreign language and is the compulsory foreign language in all schools in Vietnam. Learning English is a need for everyone and methods used in teaching English are controversial topics. Although English teaching methods have developed so far with many methods such as Direct Method, Audio Lingual Method, Communicative Language Teaching, Suggestopedia, Total Physical Response, etc, many Vietnamese English teachers still use the Grammar Translation Method (GTM) in teaching English. My paper, as a result, aims at pointing my views on three parts: reviews of some characteristics of the GTM, the reasons why teachers use the GTM, and the advantages and disadvantages of the GTM. The GTM has different names and language teachers have used it for years. At once time it was called the Classical Method since it was first used in the teaching of the classical languages, Latin and Greek (Chastain 1988, cited by Diane Larsen Freeman, 2000). The main purpose of this method is to help students read and appreciate foreign literature, memorize grammar rules and vocabulary. Through the study of target language grammar, students would be more familiar with their native grammar and that familiarity will be useful for their writing in target language. It was also thought that foreign language learning would help students grow intellectually. The GTM, the same as other methods, has its own characteristics used to distinguish the others in terms of teachers role, learners role, error treatment, language areas, interaction, etc. In the GTM, the teacher is the authority in the classroom. He/she controls all the learning activities in class and seems rather strict to students. As a result, students surely are passive learners who do what teacher asks them to do and learn what the teacher knows. They are considered as the followers. Secondly, there is no or little interaction between the teacher and the students in class. The one way interaction is from the teacher to the students. There is little interaction from students to teacher and students to students. Therefore, the atmosphere in the classroom is usually not very noisy. Thirdly, regarding to the language areas and skills, the GTM focuses on grammar and vocabulary. Students are asked to overlearn grammar rules and lists of vocabulary with first language equivalents. Reading and writing are paid much attention first and much less for pronunciation, listening and speaking. Fourthly, relating to the role of the students native 1

language and response to students errors, native language is used most of the time in class. Meaning of the target language is translated directly into mother tongue. Besides, if students make errors in learning English, teachers will correct or give the answers immediately. Lastly, students are taught to translate from one language to the other and vice versa, especially in reading literature works and writing. Grammar is taught in deductive way as the students are given grammar rules and examples first and students are asked to memorize and apply these rules to the other examples and exercises then. If students translate English and apply grammar rules perfectly, they are considered successful in learning English. Some of the characteristics above are the internal reasons that Vietnamese English teachers choose the GTM as a dominant method in teaching English. Most of the teachers who support this method have following reasons for their choice. Firstly, being much influenced by the traditional role of the teacher, they like to be the authority in class; all the activities in class are under teachers control, so they can conduct the lesson smoothly without any troubles from the students. Secondly, the use of mother tongue in teaching the target language helps teachers explain abstract vocabulary and grammar easily and they do not spend much time to use definitions, explanations, examples or visual aids to make the meaning clear, so translation is the best way and the preparation of teaching aids is not necessary. Thirdly, it is easy for teachers to design tasks for students like grammar exercises, reading comprehension, vocabulary lists with equivalent L1 meaning, and writing an essay. Teachers who use the GTM do not need to spend much time preparing lesson plans and exercises. They just prepare them once for future use. It seems that every one who knows English can teach this language by using the GTM. On the other hand, some external factors make Vietnamese English teachers use the GTM in teaching English. Firstly, as mentioned above there are many teaching methods but Vietnamese English teachers keep using the GTM because Vietnamese English teachers meet many difficulties in applying other methods such as the Direct Method, the Audio-Lingual Method and the Communicative Approach in teaching English. The application of these methods seems unrealistic and impracticable in Vietnamese settings (Canh, 1999). Teachers cannot use the above methods because of the large class size with mixed levels of the students, the lack of facilities for teaching, and the unsuitable arrangement of seating in all schools and universities in Vietnam. Secondly, most of the English tests in Vietnam mainly focuses on grammar, vocabulary and reading comprehension. Test is said to be the 2

nightmare for the learners as they cannot go to a higher grade without passing the certain ones. In Vietnam, two important exams that all students aim at are the high school entrance exam (for grade 9) and university entrance exam (for grade 12). Therefore, teachers and students spend a lot of time on grammar, vocabulary, reading and writing and the best method for teachers is the GTM. One more reason is that teachers often have big pressures from the school administration, pressure from the society community, and students parents if their students get low marks. Teachers are considered low qualified and will be sack if too many students in their class get low marks or fail the exams. Therefore, the GTM is the safe way chosen to help students get high marks on tests and please the school administrators and students parents. The reasons why teachers choose the GTM create advantages in English teaching and learning context in Vietnam. Firstly, the use of the GTM is useful for teachers and teachers labor is saved as the textbooks are taught through the medium of the mother tongue. Teachers may ask comprehension questions on the text taught in their mother tongue and students find no difficulty in responding to the questions in their mother tongue. Teachers can easily assess whether their students understand the lesson or not. In addition, teachers find it easy to explain grammar rules and abstract vocabulary by using mother tongue, so students can understand the teachers explanations easily. There are not any linguistic barriers between the teacher and students. Secondly, the GTM focuses on the application of grammar rules and correct sentence structures that will be very helpful for students to write the standard language and read in foreign language as Wilkins (1972) emphasized, Without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed. Moreover, by using the GTM the teacher will help students systematise the grammar points and memorise vocabulary better, that will be very useful for their tests, and students can get high marks on the exams. Every coin always has both sides, the use of the GTM also creates disadvantages in teaching and learning English in Vietnamese schools. First, the most disadvantageous point of the GTM is that it cannot help students use English communicatively because the GTM lays emphasis on reading and writing over speaking and listening. Thus, the students who are taught English by this method cannot even express themselves in spoken English. Moreover, the GTM is against the natural order of learning a language (the natural order is listening, speaking, reading and writing. It is like the way the child learns his mother tongue. The child 3

learns language naturally by listening to parents talking, then practicing speaking simple words and when they are old enough, they will learn to read and write the language). Conversely, the GTM starts with the reading and writing skill. This is also the reason why students cannot communicate in foreign language with the application of the GTM. Second, because of being heavily influenced by the GTM, teachers have difficulties in applying new methods in teaching English. For example, when teachers apply the Communicative Approach, teachers of English in Vietnam sometimes are incapable of teaching English communicating in their real classroom, and they spend much time explaining abstract grammar rules and guiding students in choral reading (Hall & Hewings, 2001). Third, the GTM will demotivate students interests in learning English because the teachers are very strict and they have a high demand from their students. They require students to master as much grammar rules and vocabulary as possible, and they are very strict to students errors in both reading and writing. Consequently, students will be stressed and afraid of making errors in producing the language. Fourth, the atmosphere of the GTM class is boring because most of the interactions in class are from the teacher to students. There are rarely interactions from students to the teacher and from students to students in learning English. Besides, the teachers use the mother tongue for most of the activities in class, so they do not need to use teaching aids or teaching materials to make the lessons interesting. Lastly, exact translation is impossible and a difficult task. In English, a word can convey many meanings. For examples, the word park has different meanings in some ways such as walk through the park , you cant park here, and the verb look has many meanings when it is used with prepositions like look for, look after, look out and look up, etc. Each language has its own grammar rules, idioms and usage, which are not similar in another language. Moreover, language relates to cultures, traditions, religions, characteristics of the people who use the language. Therefore, students are not able to translate exactly one language into another language if they do not understand the factors above. In conclusion, although the GTM is the traditional method which is used to teach students to read and translate literature works; it is still supported by Vietnamese teachers in teaching English for these reasons: the traditional role of the teacher, the use of the mother tongue in teaching and learning English, and easy to design tasks for students. The way teachers use the GTM creates more disadvantages than advantages in teaching and learning English. For examples, students are not able to use English verbally, teachers cannot apply the new methods, and the GTM demotivate students interests, its boring learning environment, and 4

impossibly exact translation. Because of many limitations in using the GTM, I would like to make some suggestions for the teachers and the administrators. First, the teachers of English in Vietnam should limit the use of the GTM. The GTM is just suitable for students who are major in translation and should be used to teach difficult and abstract vocabulary. Second, the administrators should hold seminars to introduce new methods to teachers in order to help students use English communicatively. Besides, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) should change the form of test to evaluate the students four skills and provide enough teaching facilities to apply the new method.

References Canh, L.V. (1999). Language and Vietnamese pedagogical contexts. Paper presented at the FourthInternational Conference on Language and Development, Hanoi, Vietnam. Retrieved june, 25, 2011 from http://www.languages.ait.ac.th/hanoi_proceedings/canh.htm. Hall, D.R., and Hewings, A. (Eds.) 2001. Innovation in English language teaching : a reader. London: Routledge. Larsen Freman. D. (2000) Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. Oxford: oxford university press Wilkins, D.A. (1972) Linguistics in Language Teaching. London; Arnold.