The Teaching language skills : Speaking ,reading ,listening & writing

1. The Teaching Skills: Speaking, Reading, Listening, Writingpresented by Mr. Fulchand S. ShirsatAsst.Prof. in English Chhatrapati Shivaji College,Satara. 26.09.2012

2. The Teaching language skills : Speaking ,reading ,listening & writing • Do you know what is English? • English is a language like Marathi, Hindi, Kannada, or Spanish, Japanese…. etc • And language is medium of communication. • What is communication? • Generally communication means the process of giving, receiving information, knowledge, feeling, idea …etc with each other. Barlot and Martin defines communication. According to them it has two ways as • Communication • Verbal communication Non-verbal communication • Or Or • (Linguistic comm.;) • (Non-Linguistic comm.;) • i.e. Speaking • Writing • Reading • Listening • Vocal Non-vocal • (e.g. vocal cords, click sound)

3. The teaching skills • Speaking Writing Listening Reading • Language skills: • The term language skills refers to ‘the mood of manner’ in which language is used. Listening , Speaking , Reading , Writing are the language skills. sometime Speaking and Writing are called ‘the active or productive skills’& • Reading and Listening are called ‘the passive or receptive skills’. Very often these skills are divided in sub-skills. • Listening and speaking are auditor-oral skills which natural acquired in life. Reading and Writing skills are visual-manual skills which later acquired in life. • knowledge • Learning • Skill In language and literature teaching “skills” are more important. • Language teacher : • In the activity of learning there has to be shift from dependence to independence. The language teacher must give help to the learners at the beginning those are depended on their teacher. Errors are unavoidable in the process of learning and language teacher encourage the students to make errors. The teacher plays a role of ‘motivator’ to give confidence to the student. Practice & test is essential in the development of the skills.

4. Speaking skill : • Main skills • The course (methodology) content needs to be decided by the teacher; • The teacher must have good knowledge of phonology or phonetics • i.e. accent, correct articulation of sounds, intonation etc; • The teacher should have to be fluent; • The teacher should have knowledge of vocabulary; • Sub-skills: • Ability to articulate (production) individual phonemes correctly; • Attention must be paid to features like –accent, rhythm, intonation, etc • Pitch variation (tone), gestures, & gap fillers; • Proper use of pauses; • Ability of the speed utterance according to the context; • The ability to control loudness; • Ability to imitate the models i.e.- Br.E. (British English) • Am.E. (American English) • GIE. (General Indian English) • While teaching ‘Spoken English’ teacher will have to decide which model should be adopted in the class. There is convention of using Br.E as model in classroom. However, in doing so the teacher will try to teach the model that he has not mastered. Therefore, it would be unrealistic in practicable kind of model. General Indian English(GIE) would be realistically useful model. The teacher would be in a position to demonstrate in the class and it would also serve all the communicative needs of the learners.

5. Activities Some conversation question or asking informal question to student e.g. What is your name? etc; Students involvement in the process of Story-telling, repetition, give situation, and talking on that, imagine etc; Debate on drama , situation, picture, etc. Use audio-visual aids in the class; Description i.e. map, picture, thing etc; Teacher must concentrate on the problematic sounds i.e. / f / or / 3 / e.g. pleasure etc; Repetition in chorus; Formal & informal style must tell the students; Teacher have to use / provide vocabulary, language game etc; Expose to target language i.e. English is necessary etc;

6. Reading skill A good reader is always ‘active’. Reading without comprehension is a futile or vain exercise. Sub-skills or micro skills of reading:- a) Recognizing the letter of alphabets; b) Recognizing the words; c) Identifying the topic & understanding grammatical relationship; d) Understanding the role of conjunctions; e) Interpreting the diagrams; f) To guess the meaning from the context; g) Giving proper pauses; & maintaining appropriate speed; h) To read clearly with maximum level of understanding; i) Grasping in the general idea in the passage; j) Locating specific piece of information; k) Understanding the lexical items & relationship between sentences & grammatical devices; l) Using dictionary & paying attention on accent and intonation etc.

7. Types of Reading:- • Intensive reading /detail reading 2. Skimming 3. Scanning • 1.Intensive reading:- • The intentional reading means reading very carefully with attention to all the details. • Speed is relatively slow in this kind of reading • and What is expected is high degree of comprehensive - • e.g. For studying academic text as preparation for the examination. • 2.Skimming:- • It means that reading more quickly in order to get a general understanding of the text • without giving to much concentration /attention to the details. • e.g. reading a Newspaper; • reading a Novel for pleasure only etc. • 3.Scanning:- • It is reading for locating the required information as fast as possible • without taking into consideration the whole text. • e.g. Railway time table referring; • Examination schedule etc. • In reading skill there is need both • loud reading (for others to comprehension ) • and silent reading (for own self )

8. Activities / Techniques 1. The passage must be interesting i.e. student must be involve in interesting story, news items etc. and ask the students loudly in the class; 2. Use audio-visual aids , emphasis repetition and practice; 3. Introducing them to the letters of alphabets ; 4. Pair work / dialogues etc; 5. Practice for skimming & scanning asking questions to the students; 6. Concentration on isolated sentences & explaining the function of punctuation mark; 7. Practice with stress and intonation; 8. To guess the meaning from the context; 9. Encourage loud reading and silent reading to ask questions on the passage.

9. Listening Skill Hearing means a lot of concentration highly attention / total concentration. Listing means listening with comprehension is important. Sub-Skills : 1.The ability to understand phonemic distinction; 2.Responding to interaction patterns; 3.Understanding the speaker’s attitude; 4.Identify the topic and sentence conjunctions; 5.Understanding grammatical / lexical relationship. Techniques : 1. Use audio-visual aids like tape recorder, radio etc; 2. Teacher reads the text loudly & students are asked to listen & answer the questions; 3 Short questions i.e. multiple choice questions e.g. fill in the blanks; true/ False, matching column etc; 4. Read the passage & ask to the summaries the text; 5. Pair-group work; 6. Encourage the students to listen the good public speeches i.e. T.V. news etc.

10. Writing skill : Nancy Araproff says that ‘writing is a thinking process’. Writing is an organization & planning process . Effective presentation of ideas is important in writing. “What” we are going to say and “How” we are going to say both this things are important in writing skill. The difference between good & bad writing is in terms of “How”. Sub-skills : 1. Elementary level – to know the letter of the alphabets; 2. Writing is a “mechanical skill” means how to hold it; 3. Knowledge of grammar and punctuation marks are necessary in this skill; 4. Knowledge of vocabulary or lexical items also need. 5. Important of clarity to avoid ambiguity or confusing ; 6. To frame paragraph, change paragraph; 7. Spelling accuracy, dictation etc.

11. Activities / Techniques : At an undergraduate level, a teacher can give three kinds of compositions to develop the writing skill as- a. controlled composition ; b. guided composition ; c. free composition. A) Controlled composition :- In this type student has limited amount of freedom. In other words the teacher controls the process e.g. The teacher writes an incomplete essay and asks the students to filling in the blanks. B) Guided composition :- In guide composition the teacher plays a role of giving some guide lines to the students basically. The teacher assists (help) students to develop writing skill. The idea here is to develop consistency through in expressions – e.g. i) The teacher might give the first two paragraphs on the essay & asks students to complete the essay. ii) A teacher can ask the students to write a short story which would end with the line –“I will never do it again”. C) Free composition :- In the last composition student is given absolute freedom and the teacher does not have any controlled over the ways the topic is developed. The teachers just gives the topic and students are free to write it or anything.

12. References: • Kohli B.L., Sen Gupta P.V., Sharma R.K., Sastri T.R.P., (rept; 122001), • Teaching of English ( Made easy), Doaba House, Delhi. • 2. V.V. Yardi, (1987), Teaching English In India Today, Parimal Prakashan • (2nd ed;), Aurangabad, India. • Thank you ….. • for giving company with patient listening.