English is the most widely learned second language globally.
Millions of people try to learn it every year, and there are different approaches which start from different aspects of the nature of language-learning in people. Within this context, some experts claim that the Communicative Approach is the best way to learn English, which I agree with, provided it has limitations.
First of all, this approach is highly effective for fluency
developing. It will be very rewarding for any student to find he/she is able to express ideas, to answer questions properly, etc. This shall be achieved first and the student might develop accuracy progressively later by focusing on language-oriented methods practising them.
On the other hand, the communicative approach is not the only
way to learn english succesfully. Methods and procedures derived from this approach should be complemented by othermethods such as TBL and grammar-translation. In this way the student will become a constant learner by trying to translate the words he uses in his native language into english and also link life-experiences and goal-achievement to the language usage and learning.
All in all, the communicative approach is great as a way to
trigger motivation in beginners, but it must be complemented by other methods nonetheless.