Three points are basic to communicative teaching. First, we do not know how language is learned and so cannot follow rigidly any one procedure in teaching a language. Secondly, teaching is not the obverse of learning. Teaching can be controlled, and the relationship between teachers and learners is more than simple input leading to output. Third, language use is dynamic, an interaction between persons; its use necessitates negotiating agreed cultural values. The teacher can provide the "tokens" of the language, but learners themselves must learn to use it, to adapt it to situations they have not chosen themselves, to say what they have not been explicitly taught to say. To respond to a learner's need to use language in natural situations, teachers must develop group-work techniques, create an environment and situations in which students can be free to use the basic patterns and vocabulary they have learned in ways they use their native language. With regard to syllabus, any syllabus can become communicative with a methodology that promotes dynamic language activity. The advantage of a notional-functional syllabus is that it requires the teacher to become sensitive to the range of things to be done in the foreign language and familiar with settings in which students could use the language they are learning. (AMH)