Teaching English as a foreign language EFL involves an interplay of
elements such as the characteristics of the teacher, the learner, the setting, and
the relevant languages (native and foreign). However,
if these elements are not woven together effectively, the result will not be
satisfactory. In addition to the elements mentioned above, other important
fundamentals exist. In a practical sense, one of the most crucial of these fundamentals
consists of the four primary skills of listening, reading, speaking, and
writing. It also includes associated or related skills such as knowledge of
vocabulary, spelling, pronunciation, syntax, meaning, and usage. When the four primary skills are not equally addressed in the classroom impedes a
harmonious language development. Furthermore, the focus on exclusive
receptive skill (which normally happens in the majority of institutions in Colombia) eliminates the possibility of students interacting with each
other causing a problematic situation for language development and
interpersonal relationships due to the fact that for language to develop
successfully, learners must be in an environment that allows them to communicate
socially in that language. This mode of instruction is known as the
segregated-skill approach or the language-based approach as the focus of
instruction is the language itself instead of learning for authentic
communication. The skill element
leads to optimal EFL communication when the skills are interwoven during instruction.
This is known as the Integrated-Skill Approach.
The integrated-skills approach (ISA) incorporates the
four language skills reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Yan-Chen Su
points out the use of ISA to increase students’ understanding of the target
language. Moreover, the author indicates that a wide range of authentic
materials and integrated class activities allow students to interact lot better
with each other changing students’ views on EFL instruction than otherwise. (27) In addition, constructing successful decoding skills
entails the teaching and use of reading, writing, speaking and listening skills
in the foreign language. In this sense, Marilyn Querejazu states that “a good
foreign language teacher will separate confusing signals into their parts, show
the correctly written words, explain the content and context and allow spoken
and written practice. Receptive and productive communication skills are
integrated; therefore the teaching of these skills is necessarily integrated.” For
this reason, the present research is focused on how the four skills can be
taught and practice in a coherent way and practiced together, making a
distinction on the importance of one skill upon the other.
The final recommendation is to try to expand our view of language as a set of particules or segregated elements. Skills as the word itself means is correlated to "the abilitiy of". We , as teachers, should stop thinking about teaching abilities as if our students were robots which need specific information to act in a certain way at exact moments. I think that it is possible to get a more hollistic view of language so we can act coherently to our view of language as something infinite, abstract, unique , big etc. Language is a whole and our students can see language as something that makes sense since it combines all together the functions and the notions needed to communicate effectively in foreign language.
References:
Su, Yan-Chen.
“Students’ Changing Views and the Integrated-Skills Approach
in Taiwan’s EFL College Classes.” Asian Pacific
Education Review 8 (2007): 27-40.
Querejazu, Marilyn. Tesol Courses. September 8th,
2006
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