This paper considers communicative language teaching in relation to what Coyle (2005) describes as the "legacy" of the communicative approach--the dissolution of clearly defined parameters that frame and structure how individuals understand, discuss, and research language teaching in the context of the "communicative classroom." As Johnson (1995) argues, the term "communicative" has been subject to such overuse since first popularised in the 1980s that it often now means whatever the user construes it to mean. However, this paper goes beyond a review of the literature to highlight the well recognised polemic on the relationship between theory and practice in language teaching--education which have affirmed the significance of socially oriented research on teaching and learning after the work of Vygotsky, this paper proposes an alternative to existing conceptual frameworks for understanding the communicative classroom by reconceptualising the nature of teachers' work to be that of a "sociocultural activity" (Leontev, 1981; Vygotsky 1978, 1987). (Contains 4 figures.)