ABSTRACT
Much is made of communicative language teaching. By itself, the concept seems rather odd to be controversial in any sense. After all, what does language teaching purport to do if not teach learners to communicate in any medium, graphic or aural, in another language? Nevertheless, a bit of reflection should provide some insight into the nature of the debate. Because a good deal of language teaching takes place in an academic context, the goals of the academic enterprise as a whole have surely influenced the formulation of the goals of language teaching. Stated simply, in both instances those goals must involve equipping students to cope with authentic written texts.
