Oral/aural skills (1) are a major vocational requirement for a student graduating in the language field, (2) are an essential, academically valid element in the language learning process, and (3) enhance the student's overall intellectual development. If a communicative language curriculum is designed carefully, it will integrate all of these elements and meet both the social and the academic needs of the modern university curriculum. The language teaching profession should proceed to develop a communicative methodology, gradually creating a research base where it is lacking. (MSE)