Recognizing that teachers are often involved in planning and developing courses as part of their responsibilities, the authors of this book have set out to describe the factors which must be considered in constructing courses and materials. They cover: the fact-finding stage, establishing realistic goals, surveying existing programmes, realizing goals through instructional plans, selecting the shape of the syllabus, and considerations involved in constructing communicative curricula and syllabuses. All of these aspects are considered against current theories of language learning.