The Picardic-Flemish "Livre des Mestiers" was first drawn up around1370, supposedly in Bruges. It is the oldest conversation manual to be handeddown in the Dutch language area. It stands at the beginning of an age-oldtradition of such manuals, all of which try and teach the reader foreign languagesby presenting dialogues, conversations and vocabulary lists in two or morelanguages. Following a short introduction concerning the socio-economiccontext in which these conversation manuals came about, I will focus ontheir didactics. In the 14th century, the study of grammar was still restrictedto Latin. Manuals for learning the vernacular used a method that resembleswhat is now called "communicative language teaching": even back then theemphasis lay on concrete, everyday dialogues, interlocutions, example sentencesand texts, collocations, and vocabulary. Information on grammar was addedgradually through the centuries.
