Functionalist and cognitive approaches in teaching and describing languages: advantages for less spoken languages

After a brief presentation of some functionalist and cognitivist approaches to language, the paper discusses some practical question on language teaching to adult. Taking into consideration some common mistakes, it aims at presenting possible techniques for better understanding efficient ways of presenting those parts of grammar that are specific of the language that is taught. In the paper we suggest that functional approach is very useful when language knowledge is still small, while cognitivism can offer powerful explanations to the students that already master the language.