Effective Language Teaching: Integrating Communicative Skills
Foundations of Language Teaching: Communicative Skills
For teaching and learning to be useful processes, we must place them in a communicative context with a communicative purpose.
The basic communicative skills must reflect real communicative situations, and thus they mustn’t be independent.
The use of one skill doesn’t necessarily lead to another one.
All communicative skills must be connected with meaning and with communication.
This connection is what will make it possible to start learning a different one.
A good connection will promote the development of these skills.
A good organization in class will help students develop their autonomy when learning all four skills.
Integrating Language Skills: A Sequential Approach
The Four Core Language Skills
- Listening
- Speaking
- Reading
- Writing
The skills presented later should build upon previous ones. However, it is not necessary for the skills presented first to incorporate the later ones.
In order to write, a child must have listened and read first.
The child needs to have been exposed to oral and written input, and part of it should have been turned into oral production.
On the other hand, for a child to talk in L2, he/she doesn’t need to have written or read before.
We have to balance the order of presentation of skills and their integration.
Skill Integration Sequence
- Listening (pre-reading and pre-writing)
- Listening and Speaking (reading and writing)
- Listening, Speaking, and Reading (writing)
- Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing
Phased Approach to Language Acquisition
Phase 1: Initial Exposure and Participation
The amount of input is huge.
The student is invited to participate actively.
They will probably use L1 at the beginning.
When they grasp the idea and identify an expression or a word that is known to them, they will use it.
Written words or expressions can also be included.
For example, flashcards with text about a restaurant.
Phase 2: Massive Oral Input and Basic Production
Massive exposition to oral input in situations which are known and interesting for them.
They will understand clear information and questions.
They will speak set expressions or start answers with the help of the teacher.
Words or short texts about previous topics can be taught.
We provoke situations that require communication.
Phase 3: Expanding Skills and Encouraging Reading
Skills will be worked with previous contents but extending them.
Input will still be relevant.
The child will use known set expressions and will learn new ones.
Short answers will evolve into more complex expressions.
Reading will be encouraged.
(The children do a role play)
Phase 4: Deepening Skills and Creative Writing
Previous aspects will be worked more deeply.
The children will write words, phrases, and simple texts.
Personal topics.
Different formats and styles.
Guided writing – try to make them write creatively.
Key Conclusions on Language Skill Development
The use of skills must be in real-life situations and through projects.
Listening comprehension must be the most important part at the beginning.
If we want the child to talk, he/she needs to be exposed to language previously.
There might be a silent period or silent moments with no use of L2 at all.
Teaching oral skills cannot turn into the main and single part of our lessons.
Each skill has the best moment to be taught.
There must be coordination between all of them.
If the student does not develop one or more of them, we must analyze the reason; we might have been teaching them too independently.
Approaches to Early Reading Instruction
Phonic Approach
The child is taught the most common sounds.
Words starting with those sounds are identified.
Words containing the sounds in the middle are presented.
Words finishing with that sound are shown.
The child will learn to pronounce the sounds separately.
The child will link sounds.
Looking-Saying Approach (Whole Word Recognition)
Words are recognized through flashcards.
The children say the word when it is shown.
They work with 5-6 words until they identify them.
Other words are added to this group.
The words are chosen depending on how common they are.
Texts including those words are read.
Global Approach (Whole Language)
The teacher reads while the pupils follow the story in a book.
The children will little by little start reading and establish a connection between what is said and what is written.
Understand global meaning – Sentences – Words – Letters.
50% of the words in English don’t match phonemes and graphical symbols.
This approach helps children recognize words as whole units, which is beneficial given the inconsistencies between English phonemes and graphical symbols.
Cameron 2001: Skilled readers use a combination of visual, phonological, and semantic information, taken from letters, words, and sentences of the text.
Final Reflections on Foreign Language Education
Teaching a foreign language is not a routine job.
We cannot stick to the same exercises and activities, given the changing characteristics of different groups.
Pupils will not speak L2 unless the teacher does.
The teacher will not love books unless the teacher does.
Teaching a language is more than transmitting curricular knowledge.
Teachers, schools, and parents must work together.