The aim of this collection is to present ‘state of the art’ papers in language curriculum studies by writers who have been actively involved in shaping theory in this field and who, between them, have applied that theory in almost every part of the world and in a variety of contexts.

The idea of a ‘coherent language curriculum’ summarises the range of the papers included and the theme which unites them. ‘Curriculum’ is used in the British sense to include all the factors which contribute to the teaching and learning situation, while the term ‘coherence’ emphasises the interdependence of these factors and the need for mutually consistent and complementary decision making throughout the processes of development and evaluation.

To set this publication within the context of developments in language curriculum studies over the past twenty-five to thirty years, I would like to propose that applied linguistics, the theoretical arm of language teaching, has passed through two major phases in its brief history, and is now entering a third. The first phase was that of the communicative revolution when it was inspired by new ideas and iconoclastic zeal. Its main achievement was to demonstrate the inadequacies in theory and practice of the ‘ancien régime but much that was valuable fell into disrepute or neglect through a form of guilt by association. The first revolutionary phase came to an end with applied linguistics focused upon the new linguistic sciences, psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics, divorced from its structuralist/behaviourist past, and distanced, if not estranged from the mainstream of educational theory.