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Grammar translation method is also called Classical Method of teaching the English. GTM means teaching a target language by translating it into mother tongue. GTM is taught deductively; that is, students are given grammar rules and example and are told to memorize them, and then asked to apply the rules to other examples. There are some advantages and disadvantages of grammar-translation method. The one of the main advantage of GTM is that it develops reading and writing skills. Reading and writing are the primary skills of this method which need accuracy in applying. For example, the students read a text written in the target language, then students translate the passage of the text from the target language to their mother tongue. The translation text is useful to enhance reading skills and the grammar rules are useful for the student to develop the writing skill in foreign language. Another important advantage of GTM is that learners have no difficulties to understand the lesson as it is carried out in the mother tongue. Let's say this as an example, we are taking educational psychology lesson. There is a lot of unknown terminology such as ZPD (zone of proximal development) and we cannot understand the meaning of an unknown word unless we don't know the meaning of in our mother tongue. As a different advantage of GTM for the teachers according to other examples is that it doesn't require teachers to speak good English or make good lesson preparations. The one of disadvantage of GTM is that the students has less of listening and speaking skill, it is impossible to translate spoken language such as pronounciation, intonation etc. Also, there are some idioms cannot be translated. It prevents the students to think directly. The other disadvantage is that memorizing grammar rules and bilingual word lists does not motivate students to actively communicate in the target language. When we give some exercise about grammar rules that can be boring for the students. Finally, I mentioned about some advantages and disadvantages of grammar-translation method. While GTM is helping to develop reading and writing skills, it may not help to speaking and listening skills. On the other hand, we shouldn't regard advantages of grammar-translation method. That's all as my conclusion.
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