A foreign language teaching approach that develops communicative competence is described. Strategic interaction promotes a sense of community among students while involving both the individual learner and the teacher. The main organizational device of strategic interaction is the scenario, in which the teacher proposes a theme that challenges…

The open-ended scenario was developed to expand the role-playing technique by introducing new information into a predetermined situation so as to force decisions and alter the direction of the action. Suggests this method enables students to learn to make communication choices and develop verbal strategies consistent with own interaction styles.…

It is suggested that native speakers understand that narrative in literature is a form of transcript of full discourse, and students of English can learn the same clues of transaction and interaction in texts through exercises in plot analysis, plot mutation, and scenario derivation. (MSE)

Presents a proposal to bring literature into the basic program of instruction and make it a meaningful component of the learning process. A model lesson describes how literary texts can be perceived and studied as performances of a language. (CB)

The strategic interaction method is based on the principle that dramatic tension is the essential ingredient in second language learning, but unlike the drama built on audience spectatorship, classroom drama builds within each student involved in the interaction. Students take scenarios, thematically cohesive events, and create their own dialog as…

Proposes a taxonomy for the many roles a second language learner must play in real-life interactions. Three types of roles are established and illustrated via dialogs: social, emotive, and maturational. Students practice these roles, and in doing so, acquire the grammatical structures of the target language. (Author/PJM)

Two scenarios dealing with the themes of schedule conflict and mistaken identity were performed by a class of beginning students of English as a second language at the University of Delaware. The class was divided into groups of five or six students; each group was assigned either Role A or Role B of one of the two scenarios. As in standard…