An extreme example of the synthetic approach is the grammar translation method favored up until the mid-1960s, in which students learned lists of vocabulary, verb paradigms, and grammatical rules. Learners translated passages from
the target language into their native language. The teacher typically conducted class in the students’ native language, focusing on the grammatical parsing of texts, and there was little or no contextualization of the language being taught.
Reading passages were carefully constructed to contain only vocabulary and structures to which learners had already been exposed, and errors in translation were corrected on the spot. Learners were tested on their mastery of rules, verb
paradigms, and vocabulary. The students did not use the target language very much except in reading translated passages aloud.