ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief history of the place and role of translation in second language education. Today the method continues to be used in situations where the primary focus of foreign language study understands literary texts. So, Grammar Translation has stood the test of time and proved to be remarkably resilient to the innovations that have been introduced in language teaching. In contrast with the prevailing paradigm, the methods adopted by the early reformers laid emphasis on monolingual versus bilingual instruction, meaning versus form, oral versus written skills and inductive versus deductive learning. In the early 1920s, Harold E. Palmer combined the Direct Method with the applied linguistic approach of the Reform Movement and devised the Oral Method. Towards the end of the 1960s, Audiolingualism came to be considered an inadequate methodology in the light of the new emphasis that was placed on the functional and communicative potential of language.
