Communicative Method, really?

Having been a TA at MSU and now at UW Madison, one thing hasn't changed: the "Almighty" Communicative Method.

"Our goal is COMMUNICATION. Our students should be able to express their wants, needs, and desires."

Well, ok then. That sounds good to me, quite honestly. Oh but wait, we're not going to assess them with communicative assessments? Something seems fishy here...

"Oh, well we put everything in a context to facilitate learning."

Oh ok. So we're going to take them to markets, restaurants, stores, etc. to have them interact with native speakers? Wow, we're pretty progressive! Oh, wait...we're not doing those things? Then what's our context?

"Laura just moved to NYC and is talking to a friend about the move. Fill in the blanks with the appropriate vocabulary."

Um, how is that a context? Just because we slapped a little story on it does not a context make. And what about other acceptable answers? A half point? Is that supposed to mean it's only "half acceptable" in normal discourse?

As you can tell, I'm pretty irritated by the whole "We teach using the communicative method" mumbo jumbo. I've never understood this concept and how teachers, professors and TAs can not only hide behind this facade, but also seem to think it's appropriate!! Why, if we have language coordinators, are these people not REQUIRED to have a background in education?! Doesn't that just seem logical?

For the brand new TAs who have never written a lesson plan, dealt with classroom rapport, or graded an oral exam, why do we consider a 4-day "orientation" and a required methodology class the first semester as adequate????? And then they graduate and end up teaching lower level language classes at X university, still not really ever having learned how to work in a classroom. Ugh.

It really depresses me that this is the state of our post-secondary language system. Haven't we learned yet that we're SO INCREDIBLY far behind the rest of the world, especially for the teaching of languages? And why do the SLA researchers consistently fair to apply their research discoveries to the classroom? A place, I may add, where the majority of language learning occurs in the US.

Maybe, in another four years after a I graduate, I can take over the language world...

-L