Towards the Communicative Approach in the Teaching of German

Abstract

Over the years, so much emphasis has been on the direct, audio-visual and audio-oral teaching methods in the acquisition of foreign languages in Nigerian institutions of higher learning and particularly at the University of Nigeria Nsukka, with German as one of them. It will be of interest to us then to note that in today's world, the communicative approach in the teaching of foreign languages to non native speakers, which stresses competence in situations of communication is gaining much grounds, especially with the French, given their aggressive linguistic expansion policy. The Germans too are not left out, given the number of pedagogical materials harvested in this direction in the last few years.

This paper will therefore seek to explore the usefulness of this approach in meeting the demand of the moment as contained in the philosophy of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at U.N.N, which is to produce at the end of four years in the university, those who will possess a good mastery of the languages taught and therefore express themselves appropriately therein wherever and whenever the situation arises.