Grammar Translation method of language teaching

In the 18th and 19th centuries Grammar Translation (GT) was the dominant method for teaching languages. The approach started in Europe, and was used in public education in the United States until as recently as the 1960s, eventually to be replaced by the Audio-Lingual method. The approach was often used for Latin and Greek, and focused on the written language, while hardly any attention was paid to speaking or listening. Student's mother tongue was used to teach the language, often through word for word translation. Students had to memorize bilingual word lists and grammar rules.