ABSTRACT
All courses based on functional/notional models must take as their starting point that communication must be taught and is therefore the primary objective, not merely the bi-product of other objectives. The significance of the second is that it prefaces one of the first textbooks to break ranks with the prevailing structural organisation, adopting instead a syllabus organised round communicative functions and semantic notions, and, in so doing, helped popularise what would become known as communicative language teaching (CLT). The marketisation of education and its associated concepts of the knowledge economy, learning outcomes and accountability have shifted the focus from communication to commodification; in such an educational climate, students are increasingly seen as customers seeking a service and schools and teachers are, as a consequence, seen as service providers. More recently, cite research that suggests that an explicit instructional focus combined with overt error correction compensates for the risks of an approach that focuses on communication alone.
