Many teachers feel that the primary goal of language education is the development of communicative rather than linguistic competence. This shift in focus has affected syllabus design. However, no single syllabus appears satisfactory by itself. The grammatical syllabus is effective to instill in learners automatic production of accurate structural…

A functional approach to language teaching begins with knowing how students intend to use the foreign language for specific purposes and in specific situations. Instructors of medical Spanish can begin by determining the specific language functions that their students must be able to express when communicating with Hispanic patients, by means of a…