The quantity of styles used in teaching English as a ...



LANGUAGE SKILLS

by Laura Fereres

International Teacher Training Organization (ITTO)

June 19, 2013

During the ITTO course, the Communicative Approach has been presented as the most advised methodology for teaching English as a foreign language (EFL). Its focus on student interactivity and talk time has been proven by researchers and teachers as today´s best “how to” methodology but what are the "media" used to facilitate student learning in the four different skills areas of listening, speaking, reading and writing? (ITTO, p.122) Understanding the strategies regarding these areas and their sub-skills is vital for EFL teachers: its importance lies in the speed of acquisition that their students will demonstrate throughout their education and the level of motivation and enjoyment that will guide them towards fluency.

In an effort to push the communicative abilities of the learners, the four skills should all be introduced in a meaningful manner but with priority being given to listening and speaking skills (known as aural skills) over the written skills that are presented for reading and writing acquisition (ITTO, p.122). That said, language learning is a study that evolves and so instructors should follow these guidelines while staying open to alternative ways of teaching. No matter how they are introduced, “throughout all this evolution in teaching languages, the four skills remain the main tools being used to perform any learning activity” (ITTO, p.119). In this essay, each one of the four skills will be discussed in depth.

Listening

At one time, listening skills were considered the single most important skill in language acquisition. This was due to the Comprehension-Based approach that was popular in the 1970s which emphasized listening to comprehensible input and meaningful speech before learners were expected to speak, read or write. Today, listening remains a critical part of learning but a more “healthy balance” between the four skills is encouraged (ITTO, p.138).

Strategies in listening include focusing on Recognition/Selective Listening and on Orientation/Global Listening. Learners must stay concentrated on the details when listening to examples of both listening types. Recognition Listening involves having the learner discern specific sounds in the language such as minimal pairs (ex: ship and sheep), morphological endings (/t/, /d/ and /id/ at the end of part tense regular verbs) and various other phones, phonemes and sounds. Orientation Listening involves finding out the context of a passage such as grasping the main points through use of images and the level of formality used. Its top-down approach is often more meaningful to the learner (ITTO, p.138).

Applying these strategies within the classroom is simplified by the instructor who is able to “manipulate and modify” language so that he can be understood by both beginners and advanced learners. The identification of purposes and expectations, the inclusion of pre-listening activities, the use of paralinguistic features and other signal devices are all examples of how instructors can facilitate the learning of the target language when specifically talking about the development of listening skills (ITTO, p.142).

All four overall learning skills include receptive language and productive language skills and sub-skills. Receptive language is understanding what is communicated when hearing a language spoken or seeing it in written form. It is being able to “receive” the language, regardless of the format in which it is communicated. Receptive skills are most often identified with listening and reading. For listening, an example sub-skill would be “How to Listen” and decoding strategies. Students carry the strategies into real life listening which eventually give them the tools to conveying and understanding certain meanings (ITTO, p.142).

Productive skills also need to be developed when building knowledge. This means that sub-skills derived from the spoken word of others directly enable listening skills to be enhanced. The speaker may give an opinion, complain, give instructions, offer assistance or suggest something and the listener becomes aware of the meanings and their signal devices.

Listening is often a difficult skill to gain, especially when using real live listening or informal spoken discourse in class. The English language is full of idiosyncrasies such as the use of short chunks of language, the slurring of words and fast pronunciation, the use of colloquial vocabulary, ungrammatical utterances and redundancy. The role of the instructor includes creating activities that “bridge the gap” that is so often felt by non-native speakers (ITTO, p.143).

My first classes in my L2 language (French) included hours required “listening lab” where students would pop in cassette tapes of real life situations. Our individual head-sets enabled us to listen to the tape, repeat words when asked and listen to the recordings of our voice. I remember the excitement when I would actually understand something that I was listening to and proudly move onto the next course level...

Speaking

Authors Paul Davies and Anne Fraenkel describe in their book, The Language in English Teaching, the strategies to facilitate the development of this important skill within the classroom. They suggest “provid[ing] students with many and varied opportunities for listening to authentic texts; provid[ing] an appropriate, conductive-to-learning acquisition environment where students are relaxed and receptive and involv[ing] learners in a natural incidental classroom talk that is slightly above their level...” (ITTO, p.125). The Communicative Approach definitely adheres to these suggestions as promoted in the 80/20% teacher talk time to student talk time ratio.

The application of the skill can be done in diverse and innovative ways. The activities presented can be in many forms but their commonality lies in their objective of initiating speech. Such activities may include:

Surveys and questionnaires that involve the students and encourage them to report on various topics aloud;

Information gap activities that put students in real-life situations including verbal exchanges with their colleagues;

Instant comment mini-activities like brainstorming which elicit spontaneous replies from L2 learners;

Dirigible debate in the form of role plays, allowing students the opportunity to argue for or against an issue or topic (ITTO, p.125).

In Receptive Language, we “receive” language and in Productive Language we “produce” language. In speaking, fluency is determined by increasing both linguistic aspects (such as connected speech and the ability to negotiate) and communicative mental and social processing (such as being able to interact with others and process “on-the-spot”); ironically, both of these aspects are driven by better listening and reading skills. The skills and sub-skills that must be developed in order to achieve speaking fluency may include understanding characteristics such as contractions, omissions, dialogues, context and background information from conversations as well as being able to focus on meaning rather than form (ITTO, p.123).

Students also need to be able to express and “produce” the language via speaking and writing. Though speaking and writing skills are both interactive and productive, there are also many differences to take into consideration when using them as learning tools such as density, paralinguistics, detachment and permanence (Ur, p.117-128). In the past, techniques have included backchaining, drilling, elicitation, monitoring, repetition and minimal pair repetition (ITTO, p.127-8).

According to Gowers, Phillips and Walters in their Teaching Practice Handbook, “accuracy practice leads to fluency” (p.99-103). Regardless the media, vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and culture-specific non-verbal communication exercises should find their way onto the teacher´s lesson plans (ITTO, p.135). Any such concentration on these skills and sub-skills will lead to greater accuracy and thus fluency.

On a personal level, my speaking skills in my L2 language (French) grew most noticeably after complete immersion in France, the French language and French culture; this happened during university and immediately afterward. Prior to this time, and due partially to a lack of confidence related to growing up in a competitive environment, I could speak about French poetry, history and art without being able to speak about everyday situations such as opening a bank account in France. I clearly remember sobbing to my newly-appointed bank representative during my first days in Paris, unclear, amongst other things, on bank policies, fees and security recommendations.

Reading

One may think that “anyone” can “read” an L2 language. This may be true but only for the undiscerning student or teacher who are not concerned with correct pronunciation or with actually understanding the content of the written text! Our role as instructors, however, is to ensure that these skills are learned and, in reading acquisition, this is done by decoding and encoding. These strategies help the teacher to facilitate the learning of the target language for the L2 learner. Decoding is “the process of sounding out the letters in words...” while encoding suggests that, along with understanding the sounds of the letters in the words, the learner is able to understand sentences, paragraphs and texts being read.

The strategies of decoding and encoding are accompanied by the terms of bottom-up and top-down theories. Generally speaking, the bottom-up theory is similar to that of decoding while the top-down theory uses encoding skills such as breaking sentences down to the most basic level in order to derive meaning from text. An instructor may also decide to manage the learning of reading skills through either intensive or extensive reading or by asking students to skim or scan an article rather than by reading it word-for-word.

When seeking ways to apply the reading skill in class, it is suggesting that there be pre-reading, during reading and post-reading stages. By considering these reading stages, the instructor sets aside time for the learners to:

activate an organization for the reader (pre-reading);

take notes, highlight vocabulary or prepare questions (during reading stage);

and to concentrate on activities that will assess comprehension (post-reading) (ITTO, p.148).

Additionally, the teacher should find out more about the student´s purpose and motivations for wanting to learn to read. Activities will differ depending if the learner´s reasons are intensive (wanting a job promotion or needing to know academic vocabulary in order to finish a degree) or extensive (culture-specific in preparation for a trip to an L2-speaking country). Barriers such as word and sentence length, prior knowledge of the topic and clarity of the content with the selected text all should be met with different responses (activities) so as to minimize difficulties for the learner (ITTO, p. 156).

Reading is receptive in that the learner “receive” language by looking at a text or word, regardless of its length. To respond with an example of Productive Language, the learner needs to read aloud, taking into consideration pronunciation, intonation and other sub-skills.

Personally, I love to read in my L1 language. However, this was not always true: it is a hobby acquired with time and it coincided with reading going from being required (for school) and being optional (post-degree). Though I am guilty of not reading in my L2 and L3 languages very often, I am philosophically convinced that reading in other languages, no matter the length of the text nor its difficulty, can only assist the learner to speak, listen and write better and more quickly.

Writing

Writing is often considered to be the last skill to teach to an L2 learner. I do not necessarily agree with this premise, the reasons for which I will expose later in this essay. Regardless the order or the frequency in which it is introduced, writing is an important skill to develop at some point during the overall language acquisition process.

When writing, the uses Receptive Language through understanding the finer points of written English and all of its sub-skills. Its Productive Language counterpart puts the learner “in action,” putting him under the obligation to produce the language “on paper” (or on the computer!) in a way that is logical and legible to the native speaker.

In many cultures, skills in writing can be scrutinized and a general opinion of the writer and his “value” as a person will be made (for better or for worse) depending on his written fluency. Skills to learn include: handwriting, spelling, punctuation, sentence construction, organization of text and paragraphs, text cohesion and register/style (ITTO, p.160). All are complex but can be mastered with the right balance between the various skills and clear instruction from the EFL teacher. What is certain is that a good L2 writer will need to have a good base in the language in order to develop his accuracy and eventually achieve complete written fluency.

For example, most languages today are spoken depending on regional and socio-cultural differences, as well as other variations such as economics. An L2 learner may be a strong speaker, but that does not at all mean that he is a strong writer. Taking into account the needs for prescriptive or descriptive writing forms, the writing process and its different stages, the writer will need to consider many details before sitting down to write a casual email, a formal business letter or an essay earmarked for print by an academically-minded publishing house.

In my own experience, writing has proven to be the most difficult part of my French learning “adventure”. As was similar for other skills previously outlined in this essay, full-immersion proved to be the best way for me to improve my writing skills in French. I believe that writing in a language like French is a continuous process and that the skills grow with each and every experience.

A learning activity that integrates the teaching of all four skills:

A learning activity that would include all four skills would be to have the students:

Listen to a song (or a portion of a song) that includes examples of a grammar point that you are wanting to teach, checking to verify the students´ level of comprehension. Of course, this song needs to be selected with consideration to your student level. It is appropriate to listen to the song several times and to answer any questions about vocabulary or sentence structure;

Students then speak (or in this case, sing) with the teacher paying attention to intonation and pronunciation. This is an opportunity for the teacher to explain socio-cultural differences and idioms that may be present in the song.

Once all questions are answered, have the students listen again to the song and write the words down on paper (or the portion of the song). This would be considered a dictation with the objective being for student accuracy and comprehension.

The students would then work in pairs to check the written work of their colleague. They would read, looking for errors and double-checking their correction with the original text/song that had since been supplied by the instructor.

Reference List

Davies, Paul and Anne Fraenkel, The Language in English Teaching, London, Richmond Publishing, 2003, p.9

Gowers, Phillips et. al. Teaching Practice Handbook, Macmillan Heinemann, 1995, UK, pp.99-103

International Teacher Training Organization (ITTO). Trainee Manual. 2001-2013

Ur, Penny: A Course in Language Teaching, Cambridge University Press, 2012. UK, pp117-128

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