Abstract
Despite its allegiance to French, language-in-education planning in Senegal has given top priority to English in its education system. In the 1980s, policy-makers shifted English language teaching pedagogy from the Centre de Linguistique Appliquée de Dakar (CLAD) [Centre for Applied Linguistics of Dakar] teaching methods to Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). However, this shift in pedagogy has not always worked successfully in Senegalese classrooms. Like all imported methods and policies, CLT is faced with contextual challenges, namely unequal access to and unavailability of authentic communicative teaching materials across all schools, shortage of English language teachers well-trained in communicative methods and cultural resistance due to localised socio-cultural sensitivities.