| Summary: | This thesis reports an evaluation of an innovative language teaching project in South India, known as the Communicational Teaching Project (CTP). A review of the relevant areas of applied linguistic, psychological and educational literatures (Chapters 1 and 2) suggests an approach to program evaluation in which external validity is accorded priority over internal validity, and practical uses that can be made of the evaluation with reference to future programs take precedence over attempts to contribute to theories of language learning. Shaped by the review chapters and by a critical analysis of the literature surrounding the project (Chapter 3), 4 databased chapters (4, 5, 6 and 7) examine the project from different perspectives. Chapter 4 reports a comparison of the effects of CTP teaching and the prevailing structure-based method. Chapters 5, 6, and 7 retrospectively explore what took place in CTP classrooms, looking at levels of implementation, teachers' concerns, and the treatment of error. The data and the analyses are presented in such a way as to facilitate extrapolation by potential users of the CTP from the present study to other circumstances.
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