ABSTRACT
Over the last decade or so, and in partial reaction to the deficiencies of audio-lingualism and traditionally-viewed teaching programmes, there have been increasing efforts to bring curricular objectives into alignment with language-functional aims. Letting language itself be at the centre of the pedagogical plan would seem at first glance to represent nothing new. It is incontestable that one cannot learn a language without direct contact with that language. This chapter offers a few comments on methodology as it relates to a grammar-centred curriculum. Language is used for thought, for problem solving, for play, for dreaming, for displays of group solidarity, for deception, for certain specialized literary modes such as represented speech, and possibly to fulfill an instinctive need for symbolic behavior. Since exposure of the learner to crucial data should not occur with either randomness or rigidity, the important task of curriculum design with regard to data availability thus turns out to be a rather sophisticated one.
