Skills development

3. Need for integration

To support the view that there is a need for integrating the four skills of we want them to develop, and practising them is not a waste of time I have considered three things.

First, according to Nunan (1989), classroom tasks are generally justified in either "real-world" or pedagogic terms. Tasks with a real-world rationale require learners in class the sort of behaviours required in the world outside the classroom. Tasks with a pedagogic rationale, on the other hand, require learners to do things which they are unlikely to do in the real world. These pedagogic tasks, however, may stimulate internal processes of acquisition. This can justify the place of practising skills in the classroom, either in a separate way or in an integrated fashion, I believe.

Second, it is veru often true that one skill cannot be performed without another. It is impossible to speak in a conversation without listening as well, and people seldom write without reading - they read at least what they have just written.

Third, people use different skills when dealing with the same subject. Someone who reads a newspaper article may discuss it with his friend or colleague, etc.

In my teaching I am making attempts to reflect the above. When students practise reading, I usually use that reading as the basis for practising other skills. When students are involved in an oral communicative activity, they often have to do some writing or reading in order to accomplish the task which the activity asks them to perform. In other words, skills are practised mainly in an integrated fashion in my classrooms but selective practice also takes place, the reason for wich I wish to explain in more details later.

4. Selecting materials

A major consideration in practising skills may be the selecion of materials. In my opinion, this will be particularly true of texts we use to develop the receptive skills: reading and understanding, and listening and understanding.

Harmer (1991) distinguishes authentic and non-authentic material. The former is designed for native speakers while the latter has been written especially for language students.

In the classroom teachers mainly use non-authentic material since we normally follow coursebooks designed for students learning English as a second language. However, when we want the students to practise the receptive skills, we may use texts written to appear authentic even though there is some language control in it of the "rough-tuning" type, as Harmer (1983) calls it.

The decision in selecting the material for practising the receptive skills can be justified with the fact that language learners can understand language that is above their own level of production. According to Harmer (1991), despite the fact that receptive skills demand a considerable involvement of the receiver, the process of understanding does not necessarily involve the encoding of language into speech or writing.

In my opinion, listening to or reading "roughly-tuned" texts will help students to acquire the necessary receptive skills they will need when they eventually come to tackle authenic material.

5. Separate practice

The method I use for separate practice of the listening and understanding skill is the Total Physycal Response (TPR). My reason for this is the following. This kind of method could be appropriate especially for beginners since they can reach success through this method at a very early stage of language learning. Furthermore, as Larsen-Freeman (1986) suggests, with this method we can base foreign language learning upon the way children learn their native language.

TPR method means that the teacher gives instructions to the students, first doing them herself, and the students imitate her non-verbal model. Students are not forced to speak, they speak when they are ready. At that point there is a role reversal with individual students directing the teacher and the other students.

This method makes language learning enjoyable, and with humorous skits learnign becomes fun. At the same time students may have the feeling of success, which facilitates learning.

6. Writing

Another skill that is practised sometimes separately in the classroom is the writing skill. Most of the writing activities involve other skills, like speaking and/or listening but sometimes during or at the end of a topic students write short compositions about their experciences or ideas using what they have learnt. Also, they write letters, invitation cards, postcards and make posters. Other activities, like making surveys, completing sentences and texts, etc. involve other skills as well.

My reasin for practising writing separately is that I feel this skill quite different from the others. I want to explain these differences later in section 8 comparing writing with speaking.

7. Speaking and reading

Speaking and reading activities always involve other skills practised in the classroom. In information gap activities students read the information they have been given, ask each other and either put down the information they have received or share it with their classmates and/or the teacher in speaking. When they read something they either report on it orally or complete written tasks.

My practice can be justified with what I have written in the introduction, namely that these skills are always used together with other language skills in real-world situations, and in my teaching I want to reflect this.

8. Speaking and writing

Another proportion I feel worth discussing is the prroportion of speaking and writing activities we use in teaching. In my classrooms there is always a greater emphasis on speaking than writing. I have several reasons for this.

First and foremost, I feel speaking the most important ability, which enables someone to communicate. Second, oral and written mistakes are usually treated differently. Even native speakers make mistakes when they are speaking. They hesitate and say the same things in different ways. This behaviour is considered normal and acceptable amongst native speakers, hereby in the language classroom, too. A piece of writing, however, is expected to be "correct". From the point of wiew of language teaching, therefore, there is often greater pressure for written accuracy than for accuracy in speaking. It suggests that students need more practice in the field of writing, and it may justify separate practice as well.

However, in our modern world students can use computers, which provide a lot of help with writing correctly with spelling and grammar check. We all know that writing something is not only grammar and pelling and that is why students have opportunities to practise this skill in the classroom both separately and in an integrated way. At the same time, it is still worth putting more emphassis on speaking because this is a field, in which students will not have the above mentioned help.

Another difference between speaking and writing is that in writing we cannot use body-language, gestures, shanging intonation to be understood, which makes writing more difficult. That is why what I expect from my students is completing sentences and texts, taking notes while listening to something, and writing short letters or compositions. They can learn to write essays later at high schools and universities, I believe.

9. Conclusion

Drawing a conclusion I can say that we have seen a need for the integration of the four language skills. Students, however, need controlled exposure as well as separate practice, which may help acquisition. Finally, speaking and writing have some major differences, which justifies emphasising speaking more than writing in the classroom.

References

Harmer, Jeremy. The Practice of English Language Teaching. 2nd edition.

Pearson Education Ltd. 1991.

Larsen-Freeman, Diane. Techniques and principles in language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1986.

Nunan, David. Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1989.

Nunan, David. Second Language Teaching and Learning. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1998.