穨Review. Pdf

2.1.2.1 Appropriateness vs. Grammaticality 
The development of the evolving models on communicative competence played 
a vital role in the teaching of foreign language and thus challenged the pedagogical 
practice of many language teachers. Before Hymes’ invention of the term 

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communicative competence, most of the language teachers tended to focus on micro- 
manipulation of vocabulary, syntax, and discrete grammatical rules in language 
teaching. The so-called competence was therefore restricted only to a syntactic level 
(cf. Chomsky’s “grammatically correct sentences”). 
This microteaching on syntax in foreign language education resulted in 
producing learners without adequate competence to communicate successfully.
What Hymes tried to illustrate was that communicative competence should definitely 
go beyond grammatical level (Chomsky, 1963) and encompass discourse, context, and 
speech acts, as discussed and developed later by Canale & Swain (1980) and other 
researchers (Canale, 1983b; Celce-Murcia, Dörnyei, & Thurrell, 1995). 
The goals of the language class should include all of the components of 
communicative competence like grammatical, discourse, sociolinguistic, and strategic 
competence (Canale & Swain, 1980) and not restricted to grammatical or linguistic 
competence only. Form was not the primary framework for organizing and 
sequencing lessons. Function was the framework through which forms were taught, 
as proposed in the notional-functional syllabus (Wilkins, 1976; Berns, 1984).
The observation that many students failed to acquire communicative competence 
in the target language despite years of language learning prompted researchers and 
teachers to question the effectiveness of the long existing grammar-based instruction 
(Taylor, 1987; Wei, 1997; Yu, 1995). Therefore, the focus of language teaching had 
shifted from form-focused instruction of discrete grammatical structures to 
meaning-oriented interaction (Celce-Murcia, Dörnyei & Thurrell, 1995; Kern, & 
Warschauer, 2000).
As a reaction to the deductive teaching of grammar translation which focused on 
the analysis of isolated elements of language instead of the holistic function of 
meaningful communication, Celce-Murcia, Dörnyei, and Thurrell (1995) stated that 

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communicative language teaching should highlight the primary goal of language 
instruction, namely, to go beyond the teaching of the discrete elements, rules, and 
patterns of the target language and to develop the learners’ ability to take part in 
spontaneous and meaningful communication in different contexts, with different 
people, on different topics, for different purposes. These assumptions about 
language teaching corresponded to the guidelines of English curriculum in the current 
move of education reform in Taiwan (MOE, 2000). 
2.1.2.2 Fluency vs. Accuracy 
In addition to the highlight on appropriateness, communicative language 
teaching also outweighed fluency over accuracy in the process of language teaching 
and learning. As a contrast to accuracy, which referred to the ability to produce 
grammatically correct sentences, fluency signified the basic ability to produce 
continuous speech without causing comprehension difficulties or communication 
breakdowns. Sometimes being able to produce perfect sentences did not necessarily 
lead to effective communication.
The fluency/accuracy argument corresponded to Krashen’s acquisition/learning 
hypothesis in second/foreign language learning (Krashen, 1985). According to 
Krashen (1985), there were two independent systems of second language performance: 
the acquired system and the learned system. The acquired system or acquisition was 
the product of a subconscious process very similar to the process children undergo 
when they acquired their first language. It required meaningful interaction in the 
target language - natural communication - in which speakers were concentrated not in 
the form of their utterances, but in the communicative act. On the other hand, the 
learned system or learning was the product of formal instruction and it comprised a 
conscious process, which resulted in conscious knowledge about the language, for 
example, knowledge of grammatical rules (Krashen, 1985).

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Krashen (1985) thought that learning (accuracy) was less important than