The Teaching of English and Notions about communications

Abstract

Recent proposals about a 'communicative' approach to language teaching are examined as (1) enlarging the options available in principled course-construction (by opening up possibilities other than a structural organization), (2) extending the scope of language-instruction (by bringing into it the communicative value of language forms and the rhetorical structure of texts), and (3) constituting a methodological innovation (by shifting emphasis from practice with forms to preoccupation with meaning and message). The problem of reconciling learners' known needs in regard to grammatical competence with the newly-discovered needs in terms of communicative competence is then discussed, and a major pedagogic claim implied by recent proposals - viz. that communicative activity is a more effective means of imparting grammatical competence than practice with the forms of language - is identified as a possible basis for such a reconciliation. The implications of the truth or falsity of the new pedagogic claim are analyzed.