Importance of skills development and integration of skills in second language teaching
Natalia Salazar Vidal.
It is important to include communication skills for a more efficient teaching process.
Throughout our lives most of us have experienced the process of learning a second
language. From basic concepts to more elaborate ones depending on the level we wanted to
reach. However, was that process efficient? If not, what are the reasons this purpose was not
fulfilled? One of the main causes of this is the lack of development and integration of the four
skills in language teaching, which are the strong basis of the communicative approach, and
the use of them completely is the principal support to teach and learn a second language.
People cannot pretend that they can avoid them or leave one of them separated from the
others. Because these four skills work simultaneously in a group; depending on each other to
fulfil the communicative purposes completely. Nevertheless, most of the classrooms do not
include the four skills, or they just develop one, or two and so on for a whole semester. This
causes the loss of the full goal of reaching a communicative competence, and that affects the
students in their learning process.
Students should be encouraged to develop all the skills during learning a second
language and teachers must be prepared to be a strong support for them in this area. Because,
to reach a communicative competence, the four skills need to be present.
The importance of including all four skills in the teaching process is evident when a
development of them takes place. As teachers, we give students the opportunity to embrace
their learning process of a second language in a complete way. Moreover, this aspect can be
useful as well for them for the rest of their subjects and their life in general. In addition, this
can unleash their creativity and give chances for them in the way they prefer the most to
express their knowledge. Moments like this allow students to realize which of the four skills
they are good at and the ones that need more improvement since they will be developing all
of them. Establishing the four skills in the classroom also gives students scaffolded support
from the teacher as they help to enhance their achievement of goals and their learning process
through activities related to their own realities. Also, with proof of learning, constant support,
encouragement of their capacities, giving them confidence and freedom of their creativity.
On the other hand, including the four skills in the classroom also finds its importance
not only in the development of them, but also in their integration in the lessons. This is key,
because, in one way or another, the four skills are related to each other. For this reason, the
complete integration of them makes the learning process stronger, because there is not only
one area being covered, but four. And this amalgamation allows the teacher to cover all the
possible spaces in the path of education as they give opportunities to develop all of them in
harmony. The integration of the four skills permits teachers to create real life scenarios in
terms of communication. Not only sticking on teaching one or two skills but the four entirely.
Reaching a large level of aspects to balance and not limiting the scope of learning. It is
important that educators provide students with authentic material that integrates the skills and
allows them to perform them in an environment in which they feel safe and not ashamed to
demonstrate their abilities. Alongside the reliability and relate the contents with the
communicative approach, this may also increase the accuracy and proficiency of the learning
of the language. Integration is crucial to promote real life communication but is also a gradual
process that needs patience. However, it is worth it. It is worth watching the students reaching
a communicative level and, in the meantime, watching them enjoy it.
As a teacher in training, I have seen many realities in different classrooms already and
I had the chance to design lessons and apply them with my students. Based on the things I
have learned at university, one of my main goals when doing a class is the development and
integration of the four skills as the best way possible. I had to consider the different contexts I
was in, knowing that not all the students learn the same. Neither in the same rhythm, nor with
the same efficiency. In that way, I had to adapt myself and look for the best options to teach
the contents not in just a linguistic way, but in a communicative one. Incorporating the four
skills in a lesson took me time, especially time of thinking about it more than preparing the
material itself, because I tried to cover all the possible spaces. Fortunately, I reached the goal
with my partner. We created activities that covered the pre, while and post sections of our
lesson plans, and during all of them we developed skills. Even making the process enjoyable
for the students. One example of what we did was conversation time in pairs with examples
of questions to ask their partners and then moments for them to create their own based on
what they previously had. They read the templates given, created and shared their answers
and listened to their classmates' dialogues. It was a successful task that was very well
evaluated and acclaimed by our mentor teacher.
Considering the significance of incorporating the four skills in teaching a second
language we cannot forget that this must be put into practice. There are many activities that
can be used for teachers in developing and integrating the skills in their teaching lessons and
they can help the process to be more efficient and even dynamic for the students. For
example, we have one of the most common activities: "Introducing yourself”. This exercise
will give the students the opportunity to talk about themselves (speaking). This can also be
guided by the teacher with some visual elements or some questions. The rest of the students
will listen to what their classmates say. Furthermore, students can write after that a different
introduction of themselves by a scenario created by the teacher (meeting a famous person,
writing a letter to a family member they have never met, among others) and then, exchange
the letters with other classmates to read them.
Another good idea is “Reading and Retell”. With this, students can choose a news
article (for example) based on their own tastes. This exercise will make the students read it
and then being provided with a template given by the teacher in which they will write a
summary of what they read. After that, they will have some minutes to practice their writing
to then talk about it in front of the class (speaking). Finally, as students listen to their
classmate's presentations, questions can be asked by the teacher about what they listened to.
This precise last part would help them to be more engaged in the speaking part and reinforce
the listening one.
A final option is another of the most used ones in the classroom, in the teaching of
every language or even a normal subject: “Group work”. This exercise opens the possibility
to develop many other sub-activities and integrate many skills. The teacher can include group
work in every lesson. Encouraging integration and promoting respect and empathy between
the pupils. As was previously said, every content, every lesson and every situation can be
taught in this way. It is the job of the teacher to create the instances to do it so and the
techniques to achieve all the goals. The four skills can be developed perfectly here. In groups
students can listen (for example) to a dialogue, a conversation, an interview, among others,
and, after that, in groups write a recreation of the listened part by themselves with their own
words, different context and characters. It is important to give them a time to read their
creation to practice it and then have some minutes to share their work as a group with the rest
of the class. No reading it but acting it (it could be considered as a role play as well) so the
area of speaking will be covered. Listening here will be reinforced again as the students listen
to the dialogues of the other classmates.
To conclude, the development and the integration of the skills inside the classroom is
crucial, and including the four of them is significantly better than just one or two of them. It
is important to help students to be conscious of this as they would do it in their mother
tongue. Most of the teachers just teach to reach a grammatical level in their students. For
example, teaching sentences, grammatical structures and so on, but nothing more. Whereas a
second language should be taught for communicative purposes. For helping the students
being able to see the language as a whole and not as just words written in a paper that they
will forget with the pass of the years. The four skills are important, we cannot leave any
single one aside.