The present book viz., A Handbook to Teaching Communicative English (For Research students) is a successful attempt to teach English to ESL students through communicative approach. Several practical tasks are suggested to
practice speaking English in a normal class room by an English making learning
live and interesting. The communicative approach to teaching of English is
organized on the basis of certain communicative functions, such as apologizing,
describing, inviting, promising etc. that the ESL learners need to know. It
explains the language in terms of the functions it performs. This approach does
not ignore the role of grammar in the process of language learning, but it insists
that the grammatical rules are useless unless they are applied to real-life
situations Communicative approach focuses on the significance of language
functions because the learner needs knowledge of both meaning and functions.
It lays emphasis on functional, communicative and social interactive activities.
The basis of each lesson is a problem or a task and the conduct of the lessons
consists of setting the task, demonstrating ways of tackling it and, in the
process, giving some pupils a chance to attempt it, then getting all the pupils to
attempt and, finally giving each pupil a rough indication of the measure of his
success. The function of the task is to bring about a self-reliant effort by the
learners. Tasks consist of : interpreting a schedule, giving a set of directions,
deciding