Form-focused Instruction in Communicative Language Teaching: Implications for Grammar Textbooks

This article examines a number ofadult ESL grammar textbooks via an author-designed checklist to analyze how well they incorporate the findings from re-search in communicative language teaching (CLT) and in form1ocused instruction (FFI). It concludes that although afew textbooks incorporate some of the research findings in CLT and FFI, they are not necessarily those chosen by the teaching institutions. The Need for New Grammar It has long been accepted by practitioners and academics alike that commu-nicative language teaching (CLT) is the preferred way ESL should be taught (Savignon, 1991). Research in several CLT programs has, however, con-tinually uncovered serious limitations in the exclusive CLT model. Studies done in the 1980s and 1990s showed that French immersion in Canada, one of the best examples of true CLT as it exists today (Krashen, 1985), consistent-ly produced students who did not develop native-like abilities in written or oral production or sociolinguistic skills even after six or seven years o