Functional approach: -

* Functional approach: -
A structural approach classifies language in term of structures, while the functional approach classifies language in term of functions. This means that a functional approach breaks up language in terms of what people want to do with the language and what meanings they want to convey. People use language for various purposes like to greet, to invite, to respond, to invitation etc. they also use language to convey meanings such as time or space relationship i.e.:- to talk about the past, present or future. Those who learn these functions and notions should be able to use language as a skill to express what they want. Functional approach put emphasis on communicative competence. Communicative competence covered both linguistic and socio-linguistic. The assumption here is language is leant by using it. The focus is on use rather than usage.

In structural syllabus, the students are expected to learn the form of a language item, but they are not expected to know when to use, how to use, and for what purpose to use. Whereas in a functional syllabus the student focus on the content where they have to use language for a particular purpose and they learn to use different tenses and different sentence patterns which serve that particular purpose. So the focus of learning is shifted from the form of the language to the function it performs.

So there are many approaches and methods which are aimed at fostering L2 leaning process. Various approaches like the structural, the functional, the communicative and the task based approach are used in language teaching in many parts of the world, but Gujarat continued to follow the structural approach for over for decades, and now it has changed to functional syllabus.