INTEGRATING THE FOUR LANGUAGE SKILLSYamith J. FandioLa Salle UniversityBogot, Colombia

WHY INTEGRATED SKILLS?SEGREGATIONFocus on the forms of language predisposed curriculum designers to segment courses into the separate language skills.Administrative considerations still make it easier to program separate courses.Certain specific purposes for which students are studying English may best be labeled by one of the four skills, especially at the high intermediate to advanced levels.

INTEGRATIONProduction and reception are two sides of the same coin.Often one skill will reinforce another.Written and spoken language bear a relationship to each other.Most of natural performance involves not only the integration of one or more skills, but connections between language and the way we think , feel and act.

MODELS OF SKILLS INTEGRATION

MODELS OF SKILLS INTEGRATIONContent-based instruction

It integrates the learning of some specific subject matter content with the learning of a second language.The overall structure of the curriculum is dictated by the nature of the subject matter than by language forms and sequences.The second language is simply the medium to convey informational content of interest and relevance to the learner.Learners are focused on useful, practical non-language objectives as the subject matter is perceived to be relevant to long-term goals. As you plan a lesson around a particular subtopic of your subject-matter area, students integrate all four skills as they read, discuss, solve problems, analyze data, and write opinions and reports.

MODELS OF SKILLS INTEGRATION

MODELS OF SKILLS INTEGRATION

MODELS OF SKILLS INTEGRATIONTask-based language teaching

The priority is not the forms of language, but rather the functional purposes for which language must be used such as exchanging opinions, expressing feelings, asking for permission, etc.The importance of organizing a course around real world communicative tasks that learners need to engage in outside the classroom: a job interview, a recipe, public announcements, e-mails, invitations, etc. The course goals center on learners pragmatic language competence by maintaining appropriateness according to purposes and contexts as the center of attention.Principles of listening, speaking, reading, and writing become appropriately considered under the rubric of what it is our learners are going to do with this language.

MODELS OF SKILLS INTEGRATION

MODELS OF SKILLS INTEGRATION

MODELS OF SKILLS INTEGRATIONTheme-based teaching

Courses focus on topics, situations, or "themes" as one of their organizing parameters. It places an equal value on content and language objectives. Language skills are enhanced, but through focal attention to topic and peripheral attention to language. Challenging topics engage the curiosity and increase motivation of students as they grapple with an array of real-life issues ranging from simple to complex. Theme-based curricula can serve the multiple interests of students in a classroom and can offer a focus on content while still adhering to institutional needs for offering a language course per se.

MODELS OF SKILLS INTEGRATION

MODELS OF SKILLS INTEGRATION

MODELS OF SKILLS INTEGRATIONExperiential learning

Experiential learning gives students concrete experiences through which they "discover" language principles by trial and error, by processing feedback and by building hypotheses about language.Teachers do not simply tell students about how language works; instead, they give students opportunities to use language as they grapple with the problem-solving complexities of a variety of concrete experiences. Experiential learning techniques tend to be learner-centered such as hands-on projects, field trips and other on-site visits, role plays and simulations, cross-cultural experiences (camps, dinner groups, etc.), etc. Experiential learning tends to put an emphasis on the psychomotor aspects of language learning by involving learners in physical actions in which language is subsumed and reinforced.

MODELS OF SKILLS INTEGRATION

MODELS OF SKILLS INTEGRATION

MODELS OF SKILLS INTEGRATIONThe episode hypothesis

Language presentation is enhanced if students receive interconnected sentences in an interest-provoking episode rather than in a disconnected series of sentences. Language learning material presented in episodes can appeal to learners since it stands a good chance of intriguing or captivating learners.Most of our textbooks have many communicative dialogs, which illustrate certain grammatical or discourse features in meaningful ways, but they do not always grip the learner with suspense. Episodes can be presented in either written or spoken form and students, in turn, can respond to them by speaking or writing.Students can be encouraged to write their own episodes, complete an episode whose resolution or climax is not presented, or dramatize written episodes.

MODELS OF SKILLS INTEGRATION

References Brown, H. D. (2007). Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy (3rd edition). USA: Pearson Longman.