The Effect Of Grammar Translation Method On On-the-job English Education

With the introduction of conceptions like lifelong study and adult education, study no longer belongs to students at schools alone. Following the development of world economy and the deepening of reform and opening-up policies, China is developing a format which is fully-directional, multilevel and widely open to overseas. Under this competitive stress as well as the demands for international communications, a large group of workers keep studying while working side by side. Of the most popular courses being pursued, English is one of the hottest. Thus it has necessity and practical significance to find a feasible and effective foreign language teaching method for these job-experienced English learners.Grammar Translation Method (GTM) first came into being at the end of the 18th century in Europe, which, at that time, is a traditional method for teaching Latin and Greek. J.V. Meidinger and J.C. Fick are the earliest exponents for Grammar Translation Method. Zhang Qianzhong (1986), from our country, made the simplest definition of GTM:"a method to teach foreign language by mother language". GTM shows great vitality through adjustments and innovations in practice. Its teaching mode has shifted from a mono-type to a comprehensive one aiming to cultivate all four English skills on the basis of text. However, the features of GTM like emphasis on the memorization of vocabulary, monotonous repetition of grammar and dull classroom atmosphere etc. weaken the students'interest and enthusiasm in learning. Since the introduction of Communicative Approach into China in the late 1970s, it is widely adopted into practice. Communicative Approach is based on the concept that the main aim of language teaching is to develop students'communicative competence. As the job-experienced learners characterize with definite goals, lack of time, strong demand for practicability, Communicative Approach can compensate some shortcomings of Grammar Translation Method, thus the reformed teaching method, in which GTM forms the basis and adopts some features of Communicative Approach, can be served as an effective method to help job-experienced English learners develop communicative competence.In order to testify the above hypothesis the author chose two groups of subjects going through experiment, which was mainly dealt with classroom observation and individual interview. Of all the 110 subjects,92 are learners taking courses at Longre (Qingdao) training center and the remaining 18 are friends of the author who expressed their plan to study English. The situation of the first group is represented on checklist going through classroom observation which compares the effects before and after using the innovative teaching method. Besides, the checklist also records the following information needed for this paper, such as the subjects'motivation of learning English, attitude towards grammar, translation and mother language, etc. A questionnaire is designed for the second group to go through individual interview on issues like their learning customs and characteristics, which is in accordance with the author's intention to make research on whether it is appropriate to apply GTM reformed with Communicative Approach for the job-experienced English learners.The outcome of experiment shows that the job-experienced English learners are in favor of GTM under which framework they have learned English for many years. The innovative application of GTM reformed with Communicative Approach is beneficial to help learners memorize as well as put in to actual communication, hence achieve the goal of cultivating communicative competence.