The notion of a communicative approach has developed considerably since it first began to influence teaching practice and as teacher-researchers have refined their understanding of the concept of communicative competence. At present, adopting a communicative approach has two aspects: (1) it means formulating teaching/learning problems in terms of the uses which speakers make of the language, the "communicative" use being important but not the only use; and (2) it means formulating these problems in terms of language users. Language users are understood to be persons learning to use the language and who are able to play the pragmatic roles which will allow them to achieve their eventual objectives. This concept of the language user emphasizes the fact that communication is a process which is not merely mechanical, since it has to be renewed and reconstructed by the participants in every interaction. Some of the methodological implications of this approach are described and examples of teaching strategies are given. (Author/AMH)