It was, however, at about the time that the audio-lingual method was declared nonviable, that the eminent sociolinguists Hymes in the United States and Halliday inEngland began speaking and writing about the importance of semantics and of the theory of communication. These theories, humanistic theory in psychology which underscored the importance of students as human beings, and a new cognizance of the affective factors and personality traits that influence learning gave rise to a series of hypotheses, methods, approaches, and techniques. Attention to semantics gives the learner a variety of behavioral, linguistic, and paralinguistic alternatives (gestures, sounds, stance, etc.) for conveying a message. Humanistic psychology has brought back the pivotal importance of motivation and personality factors in language learning and the necessity for making the learner feel valued by teachers and group-mates in the classroom.