Language is seen as a system for communicative purposes and as such it involves more than just a structural organization. Indeed this view of language considers different kinds of competence which make communication really meaningful: linguistic, sociolinguistic discourse, and strategic. Linguistic competence is what we usually regard as the basis of grammatical structures; sociolinguistic competence has to do with the social context in which language is used; discourse competence refers to the relationship between the elements of language and their proper combination to convey meaningful outcomes; strategic competence relates to the ways we deal with communication appropriately. On the other hand, language learning is viewed as the result of the process of using language communicatively. The proponents of this approach believe that in order to learn a language, students should be in contact with meaningful and authentic language most of the learning time. (Contains 1 figure.)