A critical look at the Communicative Approach (2)

This (the second of two articles) looks at some of the pedagogical aspects of the Communicative Approach, including the idea of a ‘semantic syllabus’ and the question of ‘authenticity’ in materials and methodology. It is argued that the Communicative Approach generally presents an over-simplified and misleading account of these issues, and that a sensible approach to language teaching involves integrating semantic and formal syllabuses and combining authentic with specially-written teaching materials. It is also suggested that the Communicative Approach fails to recognize the crucial role of the mother tongue in foreign language learning.