Community Language Learning – a reappraisal

Community Language Learning is a method developed by Charles Curran during the 1950s at Loyola University. As part of the Confluent Education movement it enjoyed a brief period of vogue until supplanted by the Communicative Approach with its more sophisticated views of language and the language acquisition process. This paper seeks to reappraise the main procedure of Community Language Learning as a learner-centred ‘task’ within a current, task-based approach, drawing on present-day definitions and views of second language acquisition. Based on empirical research using the task, learner attitudes are also explored.