Prabhu does not view this model as leading directly to communicative competence but "the expectation is, rather, that success in reasoning activity will support sustained engagement in such activity [critical reasoning] and that sustained engagement is a condition favorable to the development of grammatical competence" (p. 53). Project planners, therefore, never viewed task-based teaching as an end in itself, but as the most effective means possible of developing an internal system of grammatical competence at the level of usage rather than conscious rule articulation. This is so, Prabhu argues, because language coherency (grammatical competence) is invariably linked to the quest for meaning making. Because the "rules" of language are so complex, they cannot be effectively learned through an overt teaching of them, which requires an abstraction from authentic language use. Rather, with the instructor acting as a critical bridge between current abilities and mastery of new knowledge, connections are made within the subconscious mind that result in quantum leaps of new learning. Those familiar with the whole language theory of Frank Smith (1985) will easily recognize this position, whether or not they agree with it.

The pedagogical assumptions supporting the theoretical foundations of the project are most fully developed in chapter four, titled Learning. What makes this chapter particularly important is that the assumptions on second language acquisition articulated by Prabhu extend well beyond the task-based methodology of this particular model which, as stated previously, was an accommodation to the expectations of students in a classroom setting.

Central to his support of the communicative competence theory is his belief that concentrated effort of meaning-making leads to subconscious assimilation of form, which remains an important dimension of effective communication. Such attention to meaning-making and subconscious processing is not meant to suggest that any attention to language forms or rules is irrelevant, only that they should be presented in the context of solving real problems. Mastering them is satisfying, moreover, not because there is something in the rules themselves that bring coherency, but because they represent responses to needs identified by students in the process of grappling with real issues.