Making Communicative Language Teaching Happen, Second Edition

by James F. Lee, Bill VanPatten

Praised for its fresh and informed discussion of language instruction and language acquisition, the first edition of Making Communicative Language Teaching Happen was recognized by the Modern Language Association as one of the twenty most influential methods textbooks. The authors are both internationally recognized scholars in the field of second language acquisition research and have also written numerous successful language textbooks. The guiding principle of Making Communicative Language Teaching Happen is the premise that communication is the expression, interpretation, and negotiation of meaning, and not simply oral expression. Following that framework, Making Communicative Language Teaching Happen helps instructors develop communicative classroom environments that blend listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

Genres: Teaching, Nonfiction, Linguistics, Language

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 26, 1995

Reviews

[Petter Nordal · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's a useful look at how audiolingual method teaching can be hyped into communicative language teaching, giving students more input and teachers more of a guiding role. I appreciated the firm grounding in published research, avoiding the anecdotal "inspirational" discourse which sometimes makes its way into teacher texts, and the emphasis on planning, making it clear that knowing a foreign language and speaking it to your students will not help them learn it as well as planning for their interests and their communication. The organization of the text is obnoxious, with gray boxes titled "Pause to consider . . " and rhetorical questions. There's also an annoying habit of providing elaborate examples of different kinds of instruction in lists such as "activity A" followed by "activity B" all the way through "activity d" and only then providing the through discussion of various aspects of the activities. Examples are obfuscatory when their arrangement impedes their use as illustrations of principles.