Includes bibliographical references (pages 275-283) and index.

"What Is This Book About? What does it mean to communicate in a language? Can communication take place in the language classroom? What roles should instructors and students assume in order to make classrooms communication rich? What kinds of tasks are appropriate for developing communicative abilities in second language learners? What is an appropriate role for grammar instruction in communicative classes? For reading and writing? Making Communicative Language Teaching Happen is a book in which we examine these and other questions. Starting from the perspective that communication is not simply oral expression - we intend Making Communicative Language Teaching Happen to be a guide to help instructors develop communicative classroom environments that blend listening, speaking, reading and writing. What you will find in this book are explorations of various topics that lead to concrete suggestions for implementing communicative language teaching. Among the topics are:
a new classroom dynamic in which the instructor and language learner take on new roles and responsibilities
the important role of comprehensible, meaning-bearing input in second language acquisition and suggestions for making classrooms input rich
an approach to grammar instruction based on structured-input and structured-output activities that help learners connect meaning to grammatical forms
an examination of classroom oral communication and suggestions for redirecting oral communication toward information-exchange tasks
contemporary approaches to teaching reading and writing
suggestions on how to build toward proficiency goals
three separate chapters on testing that explain a variety of testing principles and make recommendations for adapting classroom activities to use on tests." (Preface, p. ix)

Preface

I PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS IN COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING
Chapter 1 On Roles and Tasks -- Chapter 2 Research Insights -- Chapter 3 Comprehensible Input -- Chapter 4 Listening Comprehension

II GRAMMAR IN COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING Chapter 5 Grammar Instructions as Structured Input -- Chapter 6 Structured Output: A Focus on Form in Language Production -- Chapter 7 Suggestions for Testing Grammar

III SPOKEN LANGUAGE Chapter 8 Spoken Language and Information-Exchange Tasks -- Chapter 9 Suggestions for Evaluating Spoken Language

IV READING AND WRITING Chapter 10 Comprehending Written Language -- Chapter 11 Writing and Composing in a Second Language -- Chapter 12 Issues in Testing Reading and Evaluating Writing

V A LOOK FORWARD Chapter 13 Building Toward a Proficiency Goal

Epilogue