REFLECTION

My group had demonstrated “Translation of a Literary Passage” as one

of the activity which uses the grammar translation method in language teaching.

According to Peter Newmark (1982), translation is a craft consisting in the attempt to

replace a written message and/or statement in one language by the same message

and/or statement in another language. Thus, this method has been introduced as

one of the method in teaching English language through the usage of the native

language as well.

Basically, translation of a literary passage is a technique used whereby

the students would first read a literary passage which is in the target language,

provided by the teacher. Then, they are required to translate the target language

(English) to their own native language (Malay). Therefore, this method focuses on

learning the rules of grammar and their application in translation passages from one

language into the other. From here, vocabulary of target language is learned through

direct translation from the native language.

As we demonstrated the activity, I found out that there are several

strengths and weaknesses of this method of language teaching. Firstly, one of the

strength of this method is the usage of two languages, English as target language

and Malay as the native language. By using native language, it is easier for the

students to pick-up the learning as they could understand faster and more. It is

easier for the teacher to explain the meaning in their native language and thus time

saving. A lot of time is wasted if the meanings of lexical items are explained through

definitions and illustrations in the second language (Paerwarno,2006). In addition to

that, students would also become more familiar with the grammar of their own native

language and this familiarity would help them speak and write their native language

better. Therefore, the usage of two languages is certainly the strength of this activity

as the students killed two birds with one stone where they learn the target language

easier and improve on their native language to a higher level .

Besides that, the strength of this activity would be the few requirements

of specialized skills on the part of the teacher. This is because understanding literary

texts is the primary focus of the activity and there is little need for a speaking

knowledge of the language. In short, very little teaching is done in the target

language. Instead, reading in the target language are translated directly and then

discussed in the native language, often precipitating in-depth comparisons of the two

languages themselves. Then, grammar is taught with extensive explanations in the

native language, and only later applied in the production of sentences through

translation from one language to the other. Therefore, even teachers who are not

fluent in English can teach English through this method. Students on the other hand

are also less stressful as they could respond in their mother tongue rather than the

target language. The teacher would not have problem in controlling the class as

he/she could easily communicate with the student in their mother tongue.

Despite of those two strengths, I do realise of the weaknesses of this

activity as well. The obvious drawback for this activity would be not possible to

translate the target language exactly to native language. Goethe (1813) stated that

translation is impossible, essential and important. A language is the result of various

customs, traditions, and modes of behaviour of a speech community and these

traditions differ from community to community. There are several lexical items in one

language, which have no synonyms/equivalents in another language. Thus, this

would be one of the weaknesses of this activity as not all words in the target

language could be translated directly to the native language.

The other weakness of this activity would be the neglect of speaking

skills in the students. As this activity emphasis on reading and writing skills, speech

is eventually neglected. Thus, the students who are taught English through this

method fail to express themselves adequately in spoken English. They are used to

the translation of target language to their mother tongue and rarely practice the

target language. This would hinder their chances in speaking out the target language

as they only focus on the reading and writing skills only. In short, this activity fails to

encourage the students’ communicative competence in the target language.

In order to improve this activity, a few aspects should be noted and

given more attention. The first one would be by exposing the grammar rules to the

students before conducting this activity. This is to ensure that the students would

understand that exact translation is not possible for all languages. They should be

acknowledged that each language have their own rules and thus allow them to

anaylse and understand the construction of target language sentences, which

preventing their misinterpretation. Besides that, enrichment of vast amount of

vocabulary should also be implemented by the teacher to ensure the correct

translation of target language. The students should be exposed to wide varieties of

vocabulary as well as their meaning to enrich their understanding of different words

they encountered. Words by words translation could be conducted in the midst of

this activity as the students learn the usage of each words and not directly translating

the whole sentences as once.

Generally speaking, the medium of instruction for this activity is the

mother tongue, which is used to explain conceptual problems and to discuss the use

of a particular grammatical structure. It all sounds rather dull but it can be argued

that the grammar translation method has over the years had a remarkable success.

Millions of people have successfully learnt foreign languages to a high degree of

proficiency and, in numerous cases, without any contact whatsoever with native

speakers of the language (Tim Bowen).Thus, this method should stay and practice

by language teacher as it is proven practical in school.