The Quest for Communicative Competence in Foreign Language Learning in English Schools, 1968-2010

Abstract

This chapter looks to identify the role of communicative competence as an objective for language teaching through the different periods and methodologies which have marked language learning in England over the author's thirty-five years as a middle school language teacher and researcher. As an autobiographical account it therefore focuses on Cuban's second level in the multi-layered curriculum: the teacher 'deciding what to teach and how to present it'.1 Cuban's curriculum model is particularly relevant to this paper's exploration of how the intended curriculum, the official framework within which modern foreign languages are taught, is subject to a range of different influences. The development of intensive language programmes to supplement classroom language learning demonstrates how teachers can respond to an identified problem, here the difficulty of developing productive language skills that are essential for communicative competence.