“Although the movement began as a largely British
innovation, focusing on alternative conceptions of a syllabus,
since the mid-1970s the scope of Communicative Language
Teaching has expanded. Both American and British proponents
(…) see it as an approach (and not a method) that aims to (a)
make communicative competence the goal of language teaching
and (b) develop procedures for the teaching of the four language
skills that acknowledge the interdependence of language and communication. Its comprehensiveness thus makes it different in
scope and status from any of the other approaches and methods
(…)”.
(RICHARDS, J.C. & RODGERS, T. Approaches and
Methods in Language Teaching: A description and
analysis. Cambridge: CUP, 1986, p. 66).