Universidad del Valle de Guatemala Fundamentals of ELT
The four skills portfolio Rudy Ricardo GarcĂa Pensamiento
Introduction The Four Language Skills (also known as the Four Language Skills) are a set of four capabilities that enable an individual to understand and produce spoken language for adequate and effective interpersonal communication. These skills are listening, speaking, reading and writing. In the context of first language acquisition, all four skills are most often acquired in the order of listening first, then speaking, then possibly reading and writing. To become a complete communicator, you need to master each of the four language skills. These four skills give students the opportunity to create contexts in which to use the language for the exchange of real information, tests of their own ability (learning test) and, most importantly, confidence. Listening and reading are receptive skills because students do not need to produce language, they receive it and understand it. These abilities are sometimes known as passive abilities. Productive skills are speaking and writing because students are applying these skills in a need to produce language. They are also known as active skills.
Listening Challenges of teaching listening • Listening includes various modes: Listening includes the relational and interpretive methods of correspondence. It requires the audience to expect either a participative job in eye to eye discussions, or a non-participative job in tuning in to others talk or present. • Listening includes all assortments of language: notwithstanding tuning in to talks and introductions in scholarly and formal settings, students have additionally to share or tune in to trades that include different degrees of saying. • Listening includes "modified" and "decreased" language structures: notwithstanding managing the jargon and structures of the language, audience members need to figure out how to grasp diminished types of the language
Strategies to teach listening • Use hand signal: A brilliant method to hone those listening aptitudes is to utilize a non-verbal hand signal. It can go something like this, "After I read the accompanying explanation, I might want to you to hold up one finger in the event that you concur with it, or two fingers on the off chance that you can't help contradicting it." • Use technology: Tuning in to others talk is similarly as enlightening as tuning in to you talk. With the entirety of the instructive innovation that is out there today, why not check out that? Cautiously select a film, narrative, or application that will encourage understudies about what they are realizing. Any of these thoughts will be acceptable other options. • Get to know your students: Research shows that understudies are bound to tune in to an instructor who has set aside the effort to become acquainted with them, versus the individuals who have not. They are additionally bound to tune in to somebody whom they know on an increasingly close to home level, then to somebody who they don't.
Activities to reinforce listening Simon says:
Listen for the word
Broken telephone
Speaking Challenges of teaching speaking • Motivation: Many students equate being able to speak a language as knowing the language and therefore view learning the language as learning how to speak the language, Therefore, if students do not learn how to speak or do not get any opportunity to speak in the language classroom they may soon get de-motivated and lose interest in learning. • Dealing with common arguments against teaching speaking skills in the classroom.: Students won't talk or say anything. One way to tackle this problem is to find the root of the problem and start from there. If the problem is cultural, that is in your culture it is unusual for students to talk out loud in class, or if students feel really shy about talking in front of other students then one way to go about breaking this cultural barrier is to create and establish your own classroom culture where speaking out loud in English is the norm.. • Is the activity or task pitched at the right level for the students? Make sure you give the students all the tools and language they need to be able to complete the task. If the language is pitched too high, they may
revert to their L1, likewise if the task is too easy they may get bored and revert to their L1. Also, be aware of the fact that some students especially beginners, will often use their L1 as an emotional support at first, translating everything word for word to check they have understood the task before attempting to speak.
Strategies to teach speaking 1. Model language by saying aloud and writing the ideas and concepts you’re teaching. 2. Model what a fluent reader sounds like through focused read-aloud. 3. Be explicit. Give each activity you do a name, the simplest and most accurate name that you can, and then repeat the activity, so students can learn the verbal and written cues and procedures.
Activities to reinforce speaking Show and Tell:
Interview your partner
Act it out
Reading Challenges of teaching reading • Issues with decoding: Also known as sounding out words, decoding is when children are able to put sounds to letters in order to sound out written language. It’s common for beginner readers to struggle when they meet new or unfamiliar terms, but typically decoding becomes easier with phonics instruction and repeated practice with reading out loud. If a child continues to struggle, there may be a specific learning difficulty present, or a physical impairment that is preventing them from physically seeing the letters or hearing the sounds in spoken language.
• Poor comprehension: There’s a lot going on in reading, from letter and word recognition to understanding meaning at the phrase, sentence, and paragraph level. When a beginner reader encounters vocabulary, they do not know or do not recognize due to inaccurate decoding, they are likely to skip ahead. The more blanks in a line of text, the harder it is to make meaning and the more cognitively challenging and frustrating the reading task becomes. That’s why poor comprehension can result when a student struggles with decoding, has a limited vocabulary or attempts to read a text that is at too high of a level
• Speed: The more students read, the more they encounter unfamiliar terms. Quite often the context in which these new words are found gives children all of the clues they need to guess at the meaning. As students expand their vocabulary, they recognize more words by sight and reading speeds up. Students who continue to decode may benefit from overlearning sight words such as those on the Dolch List.
Strategies to teach reading 1. Graphic Organizers as Teaching Strategies: Graphic organizers are an incredible teaching tool that have been used in the classroom for decades. Even before all of the new, fancy organizers, teachers would ask their students to fold their papers in half, and use the two sides to compare and contrast content. Educators like the fact that graphic organizers enable students to visually see the connections they are reading. 2. Using a Word Wall: A word wall is much more than just a classroom display, it’s an effective strategy that can help promote literacy for primary learners. Teachers not only use them to help enhance the classroom curriculum, but to provide students with reference and support, to teach essential language skills, and to help students learn site words and patterns. Besides being a direct visual that students can reference throughout the day, teachers use word walls by incorporating various activities. 3. Activing Prior Knowledge: As you know, when you get your students to connect what they are learning to something that they already know, there is a better chance that they will understand it better, and remember it longer. To help activate students’ prior knowledge, try asking them a few questions: “What do you know about this topic?” and “How can you relate this to your own life?” These types of questions help students personally connect to the text. Research shows that when children care about something, they become more connected to it, which in turn helps them excel academically. Here are a few more questions to help students connect with their text.
Activities to reinforce reading After Reading roulette
Tone of voice dice
Find the word
hide
Writing Challenges of teaching writing • Individual difference: Different individual may produce equally good results through widely different process. This means that there is probably no one ‘right’ system of writing that we should recommend; rather, we should suggest available various possible strategies, encouraging individuals to experiment and search for one that is personally effective.
• Insufficient time for instruction: Teachers and students has limited time for their teaching and learning process in given time framework of institutions. Both students and teachers are inhibited by time, so creative writing is compelled to be taught only for the completion of the lessons. • Focus on Surface Errors: Teachers are habituated to assess the students’ writing on surface errors by their profession. They give feedback to the students regarding spelling, punctuation instead of students’ creativity which doesn’t help to improve students’ creative writing ability. As the main focus is on structure as opposed to content or meaning, the students’ compositions will be meaningless and valueless.
Strategies to teach writing 1. Read (a lot)! This might be surprising, but the first step toward developing writing skills is not to write, but to read! Reading the works of respected authors will open your eyes and your mind to examples of good writing. Do you already know the type of writing that appeals to you? Find out who the leading writers are in that genre and read through their works. Whether it’s fantasy, academic, humor, poetry, science fiction, satire, or general prose, reading a lot will help you recognize what sounds good on paper and, in turn, will help you follow a similar model in your own writing. And it goes without saying that reading good writers will expose you to correct grammar and spelling, as well as a larger vocabulary.
2. Get familiar with various writing styles. Speaking of different writing styles, get to know the idiosyncrasies that exist between each. How does academic writing differ from fiction? What makes a good creative writing sample? What are the different types of poetry and how do they differ from prose? Becoming familiar with the different styles will lead to you become a more nuanced and sophisticated writer as you hone your own voice. • Write and/or journal every day: The old adage stands true: practice makes perfect. It applies to virtually any activity or endeavor in life. When you want to get better at something, there’s just no substitute for doing it, and doing it consistently. The same goes for writing! Write every day. Keep a folder on your desktop with your daily writing or keep a physical journal if you prefer writing by hand.
Activities to reinforce writing SENTENCE CARD
WRITE A SUMMARY AFTER CLASS
WRITING A RECIPE
PERSONAL REFLECTION As teachers it is our responsibility to promote learning situations and development of basic language skills in our students. Let us work with the didactics, strategies and activities through which these skills will be put into play, also taking into account the context and situation of the current world, since culture and technology intervene in the literacy process; likewise, participating in writing and reading is fundamental in the training of students as practitioners of written culture: taking social practices of reading and writing as a fundamental reference; but also to stage a school version of these practices, making the school function as a micro community of readers and writers. We must recognize the importance of learning to read and write correctly. Mastering reading and writing, but especially learning to read specifically, is one of the foundations of children's education and adult training. According to everything that has been analyzed throughout the course, we now know that the teaching of the language implies knowledge, specific knowledge, constant work and, above all, an adequate attitude from both the teacher and the student as sender and receiver; but first of all, in order to achieve the development of linguistic skills correctly, it is necessary to know the context in this way, suitable for the language to be used.