Communicative competence is the ultimate goal of College English Teaching ( CET), which has become unanimously accepted. Yet, there has long been the practice that in college English classrooms what teachers focus on is describing language, which marks a diverge from the goal. For such practice contributes only to the development of students' linguistic competence, and, to some extent, neglecting the development of their communicative competence. It has turned out that students taught this way can't be expected to deal with contingencies in communication in this constantly changing world, hence their failure to meet the requirements of the society. They may have learned a great number of words, phrases and sentences by heart, knowing the meaning. In classes, they can analyze the forms of the language, and even can tell how to use these language terms. Yet, when it comes for them to communicate in the language, frustration occurs. They get at a loss as to when and what terms to employ. There is always absence of off-hand response. This paper is meant to explore the root of such practice, its result, trying to manifest that communication should be attached great importance to in cultivating students' communicative competence, and how to conduct communication- oriented language classes, getting CET to better serve its mission.
