The National Core French Study had the objectives of defining and developing four syllabuses and assessing their applicability in Core French classes in Canadian elementary and secondary schools. The communicative/experiential syllabus reported on here reflects real-life language use needs. The first chapter is introductory. The second elaborates on the principle that an individual in interaction with his or her environment develops a store of experiences, some of which are communicative in nature. Chapter three reviews and synthesizes research on non-analytic teaching and experiential learning. The fourth chapter outlines proposed syllabus objectives. Each global objective is coordinated with two general objectives (one for each dimension of the syllabus, one experiential and one communicative), and terminal and intermediate objectives are listed for each of the two dimensions. Possible themes for curriculum content are presented in chapter five, scope and sequence are specified in chapter six, and teaching approaches are discussed in the seventh chapter. Chapter eight discusses the need for new testing procedures for communicative/experiential learning, for evaluation of both skill and content learning. The contributions of the four syllabuses to an integrated multidimensional curriculum are examined in chapter nine, and some issues in professional development are discussed in the final chapter. A 45-item bibliography is included. (MSE)