"Teaching" language or allowing its acquisition through a "communicative approach"? : Strategies and roles of teachers in foreign language didactics

Lerntheoretische Erkenntnisse werden nicht immer gleich von der Praxis rezipiert. So wandelt sich der Begriff vom Lernen oft schneller als die Lehrkonzepte. Aber immer wieder entdeckt die Praxis auch intuitiv Methoden, die die Sprachlehrforschung erst im Nachhinein evaluieren kann.This article first of all provides a historical retrospective of preferred strategies for teaching foreign languages down to the present day. It touches on behaviouristic and cognitive theories all the way to strategies for communicative acquisition of foreign language and constructivist approaches. Because it is for the most part accepted in theory nowadays that foreign language skills are acquired by learners in a construction process, the notion of the foreign language teacher is also changing. Teachers are now being assigned more the role of a learning counsellor who creates learning “occasions” and provides feedback. This theoretical requirement is usually not covered by the field of practice, however: both skills models in training teachers as well as teaching material, academic books or continuing education programmes for people learning languages can still identify many instructive aspects of the teaching role. Finally, the article discussion the question of whether there is a special form of language acquisition for adults. It then forwards some recommendations for future research