Teaching Language
Skills
Integrating the “Four Skills”
By: Iwan Fauzi, M.A.
4/10/2013
Introduction
O For more than six decades teaching of English has
identified the “four skills” to focus on.
O ESL curricula and textbooks around the world tend
to focus on one or two of the four skills, sometimes
to the exclusion of the others.
O By treating the four skills in separate segments of
the curriculum, there is a recent trend toward skill
integration.
By: Iwan Fauzi, M.A.
4/10/2013
How to integrate ?
O There is a recent trend toward skill
integration.
O Let say, by teaching reading we may take
more of a “whole language approach”
whereby reading is treated as one of two or
more interrelated skills.
O A course that deals with reading skills will
also deal with related listening, speaking,
and writing skills.
By: Iwan Fauzi, M.A.
4/10/2013
New paradigm of
reading class
Speaking
By: Iwan Fauzi, M.A.
• A pre-reading discussion
of the topic to activate
schemata
Listening
• to a series of informative
statements about the topic
of a passage being read
Reading
• A focus on a certain
reading strategy, say,
scanning.
Writing
• A paraphrase of a section
of the reading passage.
4/10/2013
This paradigm of teaching brings
students to the real life integration of
language skills.
By doing as such
reading class, it
provides the teacher
with a great deal of
flexibility in creating
interesting, motivating lessons.
By: Iwan Fauzi, M.A.
4/10/2013
How to maintain the
integrated skills
O There are five models in common use to maintain
an integrated-skills focus in your teaching.
Contentbased
instruction
Themebased
instruction
The episode
hypothesis
By: Iwan Fauzi, M.A.
Experiental
learning
Task-based
teaching
4/10/2013
1. Content-based instruction
O CBI is the integration of content learning with
language teaching aims (Briton, Snow and
Wesche, 1989).
O Language becomes the medium to convey
informational content of interest and relevance
to the learner, then learners are pointed
toward matters concern.
O Language takes on its appropriate role as a
vehicle for accomplishing a set of content
goals.
4/10/2013
By: Iwan Fauzi, M.A.
How to do with CBI
CBI
By: Iwan Fauzi, M.A.
• You teach, let say,
Geography, or
Math, or Culture
by using English
as your instruction
4/10/2013
Example of content-based
curricula
CBI
targets
By: Iwan Fauzi, M.A.
• Immersion programs for
elementary school children
• Sheltered English programs
(mostly in elementary &
secondary school levels
• Writing across curriculum within
subject-matter areas like biology,
history etc.
• ESP e.g., for engineering,
agriculture, or medicine.
4/10/2013
2. Theme-based instruction
Theme-based instruction is a form of
language teaching by structuring a course
around themes or topics.
Theme-based instruction can serve the
multiple interests of students in a
classroom.
By: Iwan Fauzi, M.A.
4/10/2013
How to do with TBI
By: Iwan Fauzi, M.A.
4/10/2013
This TBI for intermediate students;
In the classroom, students read articles
Then, view video programs
Discuss issues and propose solutions
Carry out writing assignments on a given
theme
By: Iwan Fauzi, M.A.
4/10/2013
For beginning students
O Use imperatives (Don’t bring any food to the
classroom)
O Practice verb tenses (The ozone layer is vanishing)
O Develope new vocabulary
O Learn cardinal and ordinal number
O Work with simple conversation;
A: Why do you smoke?
B: Because I like it
A: You shouldn’t smoke
B: Well, it makes me less nervous
A: But it’s not good for your health
B: I don’t care
A: Wel, you will die young
By: Iwan Fauzi, M.A.
4/10/2013
3. Experiental learning
O This is an overlapping of CBI and TBI concept of
language learning.
O EL allows students to find “concrete experiences”
through which they discover language principles
by trial and error, by processing feedback, by
building hypothesis, and by revising the
assumptions in order to become fluent.
O Teachers give students opportunities to use
language as they handle with the problem solving
complexities.
By: Iwan Fauzi, M.A.
4/10/2013
How to deal with EL
Learnercentered
• Hands-on projects (nature or
environmental projects)
• Field trips and on-site visits
• Show-and-tell sessions
• Playing games
Teachercontrolled • Utilizing media (TV, movies, internet)
By: Iwan Fauzi, M.A.
4/10/2013
The advantage of EL
The learner is directly in touch
with the realities being studied.
It is contrasted with learning in
which the learner only reads
about, hears about, talks about,
or write about these realities
but never comes in contact
with them as part of the
learning process.
By: Iwan Fauzi, M.A.
4/10/2013
4. The episode hypothesis
What
episode
hypothesis?
By: Iwan Fauzi, M.A.
• The EH is a form of
language teaching
where learners are
motivated to continue
reading and to
become more
involved in the content
than in the language,
therefore increasing
its episodic flavor.
4/10/2013
Teaching with EH
O Look at this dialogue
Jack: Hi, Tony. What do you usually do on
weekends?
Tony: Oh, I usually study, but sometimes I go
to a movie.
Jack: Uh huh. Well, I often go to movies, but I
seldom study.
Tony: Well, I don’t study as much as Greg. He
always studies on the weekends. He
never goes out.
By: Iwan Fauzi, M.A.
4/10/2013
How the EH relates to the
integrated skills teaching
Episodes can be presented in either written or
spoken form, thus requiring reading or/ and
writing skills on the students’ part.
Episodes can provide the stimulus for
spoken or written questions that students
respond to, in turn, by speaking or writing.
Students can be encouraged to write their
own episodes, or to complete an episode.
By: Iwan Fauzi, M.A.
4/10/2013
5. Task-based teaching
By: Iwan Fauzi, M.A.
4/10/2013
How to do with TB teaching
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
For example to teach students to give personal
information in a job interview;
Exercises in comprehension of wh- questions
with do- insertion (When do you work at Macy’s?)
Drills in the use of frequency adverbs (I usually
work until 5 o’clock)
Listening to extracts of job interview
Analyzing the grammar of the interview
Modeling an interview; teacher & one student or
students in pairs.
By: Iwan Fauzi, M.A.
4/10/2013
Input for tasks
- Speeches
- Conversation
- Narratives
- Public
announcements
- Cartoon
strips
By: Iwan Fauzi, M.A.
Input-2
Input-1
O It may come from a variety of authentic sources:
- Interviews
- Oral
description
- Media extracts
- Games &
puzzles
- Photos
4/10/2013
Conclusion
O Teaching English may be done by doing
integrated language skills.
O We may to do so through five models of
teaching;
1. Content-based instruction
2. Theme-based instruction
3. Experiental learning
4. The episode hypothesis
5. Task-based teaching
By: Iwan Fauzi, M.A.
4/10/2013
Thank you
By: Iwan Fauzi, M.A.
4/10/2013