| Sumario: |
In Costa Rica since 2003 the teaching of English was redesigned to follow the principles of the Communicative
Approach, whose foundation is meant to provide students with classroom opportunities for interaction in a pleasant
and cooperative environment to reach communicative competence. In order to achieve communication, professors
must be aware of the teaching-learning strategies, direct and indirect, as part of the mediation process. Aspects such
as classroom management, the materials to be used, the learning environment, and the assessment proposed by the
Communicative Approach, as well as the methodological strategies used, are aspects that influence the second
language teaching learning process, whose aim is the negotiation of socio-cultural meaning to have, both, competent
and fluent English speakers. This case study is focused on analyzing the application of the principles of the
Communicative Approach by high school teachers. The findings of this research revealed that the application of the
approach has been misled by three aspects which are the misconceptions of the teaching of grammar, the overuse of
reading comprehension to train students to pass the standardized test and the lack of understanding that each student
is different in terms of particular needs, strengths and weaknesses. In the light of the results, a group of
recommendations is given to second language high school teachers and authorities to deal with the situation.
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