Communicative Language Teaching

Abstract

The term communicative language teaching identifies new pedagogical orientations that have grown out of the realization that knowledge of grammatical forms and structures alone does not adequately prepare learners for effective and appropriate use of the language they are learning. The inevitable outcome of increased attention to language use has been a proliferation of approaches to language teaching that claim to be communicative and of new terminology to refer to notions and concepts not addressed in previous form-oriented approaches. Understanding the nature of communicative language teaching and establishing a principled basis for its assessment depends upon familiarity with terms associated with it. Thus, the examination of communicative language teaching undertaken in this chapter begins with a review of the terms notion and function, and functional-notional syllabus.