In the first part of this paper several theories on the subject of communicative competence are examined. Part 2 is devoted to a discussion of how a teacher can test for communicative competence, and the practicality of this type of testing, in terms of class time, equipment required and objective grading, is emphasized. Part 3 summarizes a number of experiments conducted to determine the effectiveness of communicative competence training. The paper concludes with a detailed list of communicative exercises representing various levels of difficulty. (PMP)