For decades, the communicative approach to second or foreign language teaching has been widely adopted in different countries. Among other contexts in Asia, Macao also witnesses an increasing use of the communicative approach in the English language classroom. While a lot of secondary English teachers attempt to apply communicative theories and implement communicative methodologies in their teaching, there is a need for some teachers to revisit the communicative approach and to rethink about what communicative language teaching entails in real classroom settings and what it means in the Macao context. Based on class observations and interviews with practising English teachers from secondary schools in Macao, the present study reviews some of the concerns faced by teachers when they adopt communicative teaching in their classroom. It also examines a number of underlying problems in teachers’ conceptualisations of the communicative approach, as reflected in their lesson procedure and activity design. While addressing the concerns and problems of communicative teaching in Macao, this paper ends with some clarifications about the roles of a communicative language teacher and gives suggestions on how to make better use of the communicative theories in the English classroom so as to bring about more effective language learning.