Experience: Life On The Mississippi

Experience GRAMMAR TRANSLATION METHOD
As we enter the classroom, the class is in the middle of reading a passage in their
textbook. The passage is an excerpt entitled ‘The Boys’ Ambition’ from Mark Twain’s
Life on the Mississippi. Each student is called on to read a few lines from the passage.
After he has finished reading, he is asked to translate the few lines he has just read
into Spanish. The teacher helps him with new vocabulary items. When the students
have finished reading and translating the passage, the teacher asks them in Spanish if
they have any questions. One girl raises her hand and says, ‘What is paddle wheel?’
The teacher replies, ‘Es una rueda de paletas.’ Then she continues in Spanish to
explain how it looked and worked on the steamboats which moved up and down the
Mississippi River during Mark Twain’s childhood. Another student says, ‘No
understand “gorgeous”.’ The teacher translates, ‘primoroso.’
Since the students have no more questions, the teacher asks them to write the
answers to the comprehension questions which appear at the end of the excerpt. The
questions are in English, and the students are instructed to write the answers to them
in English as well. They do the first one together as an example. A student reads out
loud, ‘When did Mark Twain live?’ Another student replies, ‘Mark Twain lived from
1835 to 1910.’ ‘Bueno,’ says the teacher, and the students begin working quietly by
themselves.
In addition to questions that ask for information contained within the reading
passage, the students answer two other types of questions. For the first type, they have
to make inferences based on their understanding of the passage. For example, one
question is: ‘Do you think the boy was ambitious? Why or why not?’ The other type
of question requires the students to relate the passage to their own experience. For
example, one of the questions based on this excerpt asks them, ‘Have you ever
thought about running away from home?’
After one-half hour, the teacher, speaking in Spanish, asks the students to stop and
check their work. One by one, each student reads a question and then reads his or her
response. If the answer is correct, the teacher calls on another student to read the next
question. If the student is incorrect, the teacher selects a different student to supply the
correct answer, or the teacher herself gives the right answer.
Announcing the next activity, the teacher asks the students to turn over the page in
their text. There is a list of words there. The introduction to the exercise tells the
students that these are words taken from the passage they have just read. The students
see the words ‘ambition,’ ‘career,’ ‘wharf,’ ‘tranquil,’ ‘gorgeous,’ ‘loathe,’ ‘envy,’ and
‘humbly.’ They are told that some of these are review words and that others are new to
them. The students are instructed to give the Spanish word for each of them. This
exercise the class does together. If no one knows the Spanish equivalent, the teacher
gives it. In Part 2 of this exercise, the students are given English words like ‘love,’
‘noisy,’ ‘ugly,’ and ‘proudly,’ and are directed to find the opposites of these words in
the passage. When they have finished this exercise, the teacher reminds them that
English words that look like Spanish words are called cognates. The English ‘-ty,’ she
says, for example, often corresponds to the Spanish endings -dad and -tad. She calls
the students’ attention to the word ‘possibility’ in the passage and tells them that this
word is the same as the Spanish posibilidad. The teacher asks the students to find
other examples in the excerpt. Hands go up; a boy answers, ‘Obscurity.’ ‘Bien,’ says
the teacher. When all of these cognates from the passage have been identified, the
students are told to turn to the next exercise in the chapter and to answer the question,
‘What do these cognates mean?’ There is a long list of English words (‘curiosity,’
‘opportunity,’ ‘liberty,’ etc.), which the students translate into Spanish.
Figure 2.1 An example of a Grammar-Translation exercise

The next section of the chapter deals with grammar. The students follow in their
books as the teacher reads a description of two-word (phrasal) verbs. This is a review
for them as they have encountered phrasal verbs before. Nevertheless, there are some
new two-word verbs in the passage the students haven’t learned yet. These are listed
following the description, and the students are asked to translate them into Spanish.
Then they are given the rule for use of a direct object with two-word verbs:
If the two-word verb is separable, the direct object may come between the verb
and its particle. However, separation is necessary when the direct object is a
pronoun. If the verb is inseparable, then there is no separation of the verb and
particle by the object. For example:
John put away his book.
or
John put his book away/John put it away.
but not
*John put away it.
(because ‘put away’ is a separable two-word verb)
The teacher went over the homework.
but not
*The teacher went the homework over.
(because ‘go over’ is an inseparable two-word verb).
After reading over the rule and the examples, the students are asked to tell which of
the following two-word verbs, taken from the passage, are separable and which
inseparable. They refer to the passage for clues. If they cannot tell from the passage,
they use their dictionaries or ask their teacher.
Finally, they are asked to put one of these phrasal verbs in the blank of each of the 10
sentences they are given. They do the first two together.
1 Mark Twain decided to ____ because his parents wouldn’t let him get a job on the
river.
2 The steamboatmen ____ and discharge freight at each port on the Mississippi River.
When the students are finished with this exercise, they read their answers aloud.
At the end of the chapter there is a list of vocabulary items that appeared in the
passage. The list is divided into two parts: the first contains words, and the second,
idioms like ‘to give someone the cold shoulder.’ Next to each is a Spanish word or
phrase. For homework, the teacher asks the students to memorize the Spanish
translation for the first 20 words and to write a sentence in English using each word.
In the two remaining lessons of the week, the students will be asked to:
1 Write out the translation of the reading passage in Spanish.
2 State the rule for the use of a direct object with two-word verbs, and apply it to
other phrasal verbs.
3 Do the remaining exercises in the chapter that include practice with one set of
irregular past participle forms. The students will be asked to memorize the present
tense, past tense, and past participle forms of this irregular paradigm:
drink drank drunk
sing sang sung
swim swam swum
ring rang rung
begin began begun
4 Write a composition in the target language about an ambition they have.
5 Memorize the remaining vocabulary items and write sentences for each.
6 Take a quiz on the grammar and vocabulary of this chapter. They will be asked to
translate a Spanish paragraph about steamboats into English.

Experience: Life On The Mississippi

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Experience GRAMMAR TRANSLATION METHOD

Figure 2.1 An example of a Grammar-Translation exercise

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