Integrating the four skills, connecting linguistic input

When the skills of listening, speaking, writing and reading all come together it is essential for students to know how to handle and take control. These skills go hand in hand; when a student is in class listening to his/her teacher discuss a new topic the student is integrating many of the skills together. The student is listening to the teacher’s new ideas, writing down notes, reading the notes that the teacher is putting on the board and speaking when discussing or asking questions about the topic. This seems so natural for us learners after years of going to class and sitting through lectures but to students new to the English language this can be a daunting task that may make them anxious. This is why we as future teachers have to give these students the resources they need to make whole language learning as non-threatening as we can. By taking the fundamentals of task based instruction or theme based instruction the focus is on the purposes of language. Task based instruction particularly integrates whole language with real world situations; this makes the task seem purposeful and applicable to their lives and make integrating skills easier. Integration is imperative to learners but we have to remember it’s not as easy as we think it is. Integrating listening, speaking, writing and reading was something my teachers had us work on in grade school but they did it in a nonthreatening and at a comfortable pace. Integrating the four skills is another example of how teachers have to be thoughtful and cautious when developing a lesson.

Cohesion is key when communicating because when speaking to others you are always connecting exchanges, even if you are not aware. When communicating you are always thinking about how to relate to the input, how to respond linguistically and how to carry the conversation forward. If the conversation is not unified between the parties then there is no purpose. Culture plays a big role in this as well. If the people conversing do not have anything in common socially, culturally, politically, or ideologically it would be extremely hard to carry on a conversation. Context and input go hand in hand, if the language input is out of the norm or one of the parties has no perspective on the subject the conversation seems useless.