Integrating the Four Skills

1. Integrating the Four Skills Why Integration? Content-based Teaching Theme-based Teaching Experiential Learning The Episode of Hypothesis Task-based Teaching indawansyahri

2. Why Integration? • The integration of the four skills is the only plausible approach to take within a communicative, interactive framework. • Production and reception are quite simply two sides of the same coin; one cannot split the coin into two. • Interaction means sending and receiving messages. • Written and spoken language often bear a relationship to each other; to ignore that relationship is to ignore the richness of language. • For literate learners, the interrelationship of written and spoken language is an intrinsically motivating reflection of language and culture and society. • By attending primarily to what learners can do with language, and only secondarily to the forms of language, we invite any or all of the four skills that are relevant into the classroom arena. • Often one skill will reinforce another; we learn to speak, e.g., is part by modeling what we hear, and we learn to write by examining what can read. indawansyahri

3. Content-based Teaching (1) • Content-based (content-centered) teaching integrates the learning of some specific subject-matter content with the learning of L2. • The overall structure of content-based curriculum is dictated more by the nature of the subject matter than by language form or sequences. • L2 is simply the medium to convey informational content of interest and relevance to the learners. indawansyahri

4. Content-based Teaching (2) • It usually pertains to academic or occupational instruction over an extended period of time at intermediate to advanced proficiency levels. • It is suggested to have a team teaching in order to alleviate potential drawback. • In some schools, e.g., a subject-teacher and a language teacher link their courses and curriculum so that each complements the other. • It allows for the complete integration of language skills. indawansyahri

5. Theme-based Teaching Strong and weak versions of content-based teaching • In strong version, the primary purpose is to teach students in a subject-matter area and of secondary interest is language. E.g., ESP at university level. • In weak version, it places an equal value on content and language objectives. While the curriculum is organized around subject-matter area, both students and teachers are fully aware that language skills do not occupy a subordinate role. • The weak version typically manifests theme-based or topic based teaching. indawansyahri

6. Experiential Learning (1) John Dewey: • One learns best by “doing” by active experimentation • Inductive learning by discovery activates strategies that enable students to “take charge” of their own learning process. It tends to be learner-centered by nature. • Hands-on projects (e.g., nature projects) • Computer activities (especially in small group) • Research projects • Cross-cultural experiences (camps, dinner group, etc.) • Field trips and other “on-site” visits (e.g., go a grocery store) • Role-plays and simulations. But some teacher-controlled activities may be considered experiential: • Using props, realia, visual • Playing games and songs • Utilizing media (TV, radio, movie) indawansyahri

7. Experiential Learning (2) • It includes activities that engage both left and right brain processing that • contextualize language, • integrate skills, and • point toward authentic, read-world purposes. • It highlights for us is giving students concrete experiences through which they discover language principles by • trial and error, • processing feedback, • building hypotheses about language, and • revising theses assumptions in order to become fluent. • It tends to put an emphasis on the psychomotor aspects of language learning by involving learners in physical actions into which language is subsumed and reinforced indawansyahri

8. The Episode of Hypothesis (1) John Oller (1983): “Text (i.e., discourse in any form) will be easier to reproduce, understand, and recall, to the extent that it is structurally episodically.” indawansyahri

9. The Episode of Hypothesis (2) Some possible ways to make Episode Hypothesis contribute to integrated-skills teaching: • Stories or episodes challenge the teacher and textbook writer to present interesting, natural language to students. • Episodes can be presented in either written and/or spoken form, thus reading and/or writing skills on 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 whose resolution or climax is not presented. • Those written episodes might then be dramatized in classroom by the students. indawansyahri

10. Task-based Teaching David Nunan (1991): • An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target language. • The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation. • The provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on language, but also on the learning process itself. • An enhancement of the learner’s own personal experiences as important contributing elements to classroom learning. • An attempt to link classroom language learning with language activation outside the classroom indawansyahri

11. Thank you indawansyahri