Conclusion on chapter II To conclude, I will highlight the main differences between traditional and modern methodology. When comparing the names, we notice the basic difference. The traditional Grammar-Translation Method focuses on teaching rules and practises it in translating. The aim of modern Communicative Language Teaching is to teach the learner to communicate - simply put, to get the meaning through. The Grammar- Translation Method prefers routines and a limited number of methods, such as lectures, translation activities and drills. By contrast, Communicative Language Teaching consists of a great number of activities with different aims which are (or should be) balanced. The Grammar-Translation Method relies on memorizing rules and isolated items of lexis. However, Communicative Language Teaching employs more contextualized information and practice similar to re life situations, which is attractive for learners. The Grammar-Translation Method claims that students learn well if they listen to the teacher and do not make mistakes. In contradiction to that, the Communicative Language Approach suggests that one has to experiment with the language, to learn using it. These two methodologies used in Czech schools are very different. The next chapter will present the experience and opinions of teachers and students connected to the theory described in this chapter.
CONCLUSION The minority of teachers state that they prefer traditional methodology, and the majority believe that they are using modern methodology. This is a surprising point because there are many teachers who claim that they are using modern methodology while their colleagues are not. Also many students describe their teachers’ methods as traditional, in concordance with the theoretical definitions. The questionnaires indicate that the majority of our teachers suppose they are using modern methodology though their colleagues and students do not have this impression. This contradiction in opinions prompts a question whether do teachers fully understand the difference between the modern and traditional methodologies. After analysing the questionnaires and comparing them to the theory, we can see that the complete results correspond to the theoretical definitions. However, none of the teachers mentioned all the aspects of it. This incompleteness might be caused only by the form of the questions which were open-ended. However, since many features were only mentioned by one of the respondents, this might as well indicate that teachers have vague or incomplete notions about the traditional and modern methodologies.
Nevertheless, there is another notable issue concerning training and literature on traditional methodology. It was quite a problem to find literature on traditional methodology. Even teachers trained in traditional methodology were not able to give me names of popular authors or titles of well-known books on traditional methodology. They correspondingly claimed that they only had textbooks from their university professors which they studied in the library. It seems that there is much more material on modern methodology than on the traditional one. This is also connected to teacher training. Many teachers studied their subject but not methodology. In the Czech Republic there are also many teachers who changed their subjects to accommodate new circumstances, for example, from Russian to English etc. Therefore, they either did not have confidence in their own abilities, or were unfamiliar with modern methods. This might be the reason why they so often stood in front of the class or sat at the teachers’ table and were explaining something. The teacher wanted learners just to sit quietly in the classroom and pay attention to the subject matter. Concerning English lessons, teachers spoke their first language almost all of the time. If the target language was spoken, the message was translated into the first language immediately afterwards. This is probably the feeling of safety that was mentioned in one of the questionnaires. This lack of training and self-confidence might bring us back to the issue of the vague notions about what is traditional and modern among methods. It appears that most of the teachers use a mixture of both traditional and modern methodologies.
This situation may exemplify a current situation in schools which is a mixture of modern and traditional approaches. This indicates that students, exposed to this mixed approach, can have misshapen notions and expectations from each methodology; on the other hand, they might be equally receptive to each of them.
This point is important in my experiment. The groups in my experiment might have been equally receptive (at least in the beginning) to each kind of methodology. This indicates that my experiment is well balanced because the groups were not strongly oriented towards any of the methodologies
