This article discusses the incompatibility between the goal of communicative competence (defined more narrowly as minimal approximative communicative competence) and current practices of syllabus design, and suggests more relevant alternatives. Foreign language instruction is still dominated by the teaching of language structure for its own sake, and syllabus design practices give too central a place to structural features of language. Syllabus design comprises two phases, selection of appropriate items and ordering of the items. As far as selection is concerned, it is suggested that semantically based categories, modal categories, and categories of social function should be used, rather than features that refer strictly to linguistic form. Textual syntactic features, such as topicalization and focusing, are important indicators of how language is being used, and should also be considered. As far as ordering is concerned, four directions can be followed in judging the relative simplicity of pedagogical sequences: (1) frequency and utility of given forms, (2) intralingual analysis, (3) language acquisition universals, and (4) learner systems. (CLK)