Communication in the English Classroom : the Current Status of Communicative Language Teaching in Japan

In the Faculty of Social Inforrnation Science we are concerned with many aspects of the society in which we live. In any society，language is of fundarnental importance in that it allows hurnan beings to cornrnunicate with one another and to develop and maintain social relationships. Today，no language is more irnportant than English，which is the medium for the exchange of an enormous amoount of information throughout the world. In Japan，it is now realised that there is a need for people who are at ease with the spoken language，and the Ministry of Education has introduced a more communicative language-teaching syllabus into the school classroom. This reflects the world-wide trend towards a communicative language teaching approach which places emphasis on increasing the ability of learners to use the language appropriately. The airn of this paper is to give an overview of the current status of communicative language teaching and to discuss the problems of adopting such an approach in Japanese classrooms.