Professor Widdowson provides a critical review of the most prominent issues in language teaching today - among them the relevance of theoretical enquiry to practical pedagogy, and the relationship between grammar and discourse in communicative language teaching. He relates these issues to general perspectives on the nature of language and language learning.

Part One The theory and practice of language teaching
1. Introduction
2. Problems with solutions
3. The pragmatics of language teaching
4. Pedagogic research and teacher education

Part Two Aspects of language
5. Preliminaries: approaches to description
6. Grammar, and nonsense, and learning
7. The negotiation of meaning

Part Three Aspects of teaching
8. General perspectives on pedagogy
9. The problems and principles of syllabus design
10. Methodology for the teaching of meaning
11. The roles of teacher and learner