Efl teaching grammar

The Reform Movement paving the way for a new method
As one method lost ground, linguists and educationalists sought new approaches, which in turn would seem so convincing and self-evident that they could form new method(s). We can call his process a shift of paradigm; it has happened to all methods of language teaching, and there is nothing to indicate that it will not continue.
Why a method loses ground, allowing the shift of paradigm, is a good question to ponder on. Sometimes new insight through research, and at other times new needs, provide new situations where the “old” method falls short (as we later will see several examples of). The GTM was no exception.
A movement called the Reform Movement provided the impetus needed to considerably weaken the GTM. At the end of the nineteenth century, teachers turned to linguists because they believed the science of linguistics would offer them new ideas needed to develop new methods of teaching. Indeed, linguists started reflecting on children’s L1 learning, and questioned whether L2 learning is distinctively different from L1 learning. When we learn our L1, we do not have to get instruction in it; even though we lack any conception of the grammar of the L1, we progress remarkably in learning to speak it fluently. At the same time as these ideas were discussed, the International Phonetics Association was established in 1886, Sweet’s book The Practical Study of Languages(1899) offered principles on teaching methods, and the German linguist Viëtor promoted phonetics. The time was ripe for an oral approach.
The material used by the proponents of the GTM was criticized as being unauthentic. Hence, sentences were to be presented in context. Moreover, because of the naturalistic view of language learning, abstract grammar learning was considered unnecessary. Grammar was to be taught inductively, i.e. through sentences and text presented to the learner from which s/he would infer grammatical rules. A last important point concerning the Reform Movement is its opposition to translation. Out of this reforming approach, came a new method which was to be called the Direct Method (Richards and Rodgers 1986).