Il metodo comunicativo o nozionale-funzionale

This study is an introduction to the communicative approach to the teaching of foreign languages (sometimes also called Notional Functional Method) from the point of view not only of the historical context in which it developed but also of its linguistic and psycholinguistic background. Based on the analysis of the functional and communicative potential of the language, this approach was developed in the 1970s–80s in both Europe and North America and it is still widely used. What is language, how we acquire it, how it is taught according to this method are some of the questions this work tries to answer. Various examples of teaching materials both in English and in French are taken into consideration.