I believe that general foreign language courses are student-centre, as many institutions try to keep the number of learners in the classroom small, so the teacher can focus on the process of each of them. Also, these language courses are focused on helping the learner to develop skills to "survive" in a foreign context.
However, when the students already speak the foreign language and are doing a univeristy programme, we think that it is more difficult to find ways to develop those skills. Many programmes focus on advanced grammar, and other concepts that may not apply to real life situations.
a while ago, when I started teaching reading and writing in a Spanish degree, I noticed that sometimes the limitations are not fluency in the language, but the ability to transfer skils. Those same students that were learning with me to write essays, were also doing other academic writing courses and they did not seem to able to apply what they learned in one course in the other. I think it is here where the system is failing.
Academic institutions have missions, visions, objectives for their graduates, but how are those really guiding the specific objectives of the individual programmes or courses? are we aiming at the same?
What I like most about this approach is that the teacher needs to become reflective, stop focusing on the contents and reflect on how from our own courses we are educating competent citizens that will need to build the society after they leave our classrooms. I reflect a lot, I like when my students find real life uses for the things that they learn in my courses,