Studies in Second Language Acquisition: Volume 3 -

Communicative Ability and Syllabus Design for Global Foreign Language Courses
Albert Valdman
Published online by Cambridge University Press:

07 November 2008, pp. 81-96
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As Kelly (1969) reminds us, the development or an art – and foreign language (FL) teaching is assuredly an art rather than a science – is cyclical. Viewed from a short-term perspective, say, the last two decades, FL teaching doctrine appears to have taken a dialectical course: the audiolingual method may be viewed as an antithetical reaction to grammar-translation-reading (GTR). In turn, the so-called cognitive-code approach of the late 1960s constitutes a rejection of overemphasis on outward form and of the behavioral model of learning. Finally, stress on communicative competence developed from a broadening of the narrow focus on linguistic structure shared by both structural linguists and generative-transformational grammarians.

Studies in Second Language Acquisition