ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the notion of theme-centred interaction on the work of the educational psychologist Ruth C. Cohn. In applying Cohn's model to language learning indebted to Breen and Candlin whose notion of a communicative classroom comes very close to a model of theme-centred interaction. In an exploration of the specific contributions of the social reality of the classroom to the process of language development, Breen offers a metaphor of classroom as culture. Several authors have pointed to the central significance of such spontaneous interaction as part of the communicative process. Allwright has pointed out that even in teacher-centred language teaching, learners participate indirectly in interaction scenarios by asserting influence on five different areas of interaction management. The interaction with process materials and the responses to teacher/fellow learner interventions will propel the process. In Cohn's efforts to create a learning space within which theme-centred interaction can unfold the teacher can employ communicative tasks and task scenarios.
