Teaching the Four Skills

The listeningSkill

I- Stages of Development

Stage One :Detection of the rise and fall of the language , of the most frequent sounds .

Stage Two :Detection of the familiar elements , without being able to recognize the
interrelationship within the whole stream of sound .

Stage Three : Recognition of the crucial elements , without retention

Stage Four : Recognition of elements with retention .

II- Teaching Listening Comprehension

1. Objectives

Students are expected to be able to :

 recognize without effort sound patterns , i.e. sound discrimination affecting

meaning (for example to live, to leave); intonation, stress and word groupings ,
grammatical sequence and hesitation expressions .
 select the level of discourse , the emotional tones ( sad ,angry , excited , disapprove)
and regional , social dialectal variations .
2.Teaching Steps : Four steps corresponding tothe four stages development .

Step One : Identification

Practice : Repetition of individual words , shorts sentences or sentences interrelated in a

dialogue.

Step Two : Identification without retention

Practice : The learners listen to a conversation between two or three speakers who discuss a
subject of interest to the learners with no questions to be answered .

Step Three :Identification with short term retention

Practice : The learners listen to a dialogue with some prior indication of what they are to listen
for .

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 Step Four :Identification with long term retention

Practice : The learners listen to all kinds of material ( literary texts , poems ...) and discuss the
intentions of the speaker.

3. Recommendations

All material used for listening comprehension should be. Utterances should be delivered at
normal speed from the earliest lesson.
III- Assessment of the Listening Skill

Test 1 :MC test : At very early stages , the teacher shows a picture or an object, gives three

comments about it . The learner opts for one .

Test 2 :MC test : At a more advanced stage , when the learners have acquired some facility in
reading the foreign language , they listen to dialogues or texts , then answer MC Questions .

Test 3 : Fill in blanks

Test 4 :Questions about a text .

Test 5: Paraphrasing

Test 6: Summary

The Speaking Skill

I- Stages of Development

The act of speech involves : the selection of integrated patterns of elements for the
expression of an intention , and the assembling of the necessary features .
This involves the selection of the message to be sent , and the encoding of the message to be
transmitted . This process requires : the use of the linguistic forms of the language , and the
knowledge of when , how and to whom it is appropriate to use these forms .
II- Teaching the Speaking Skill

1. Objectives

Students are expected to be able to :

 manipulate the elements of language : lexical items , syntactical patterns, sentence
types ;

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  and select when , how , to whom it is appropriate to use these elements , the register ,
the level of discourse , the emotional overtones .
2. Teaching Steps

Step One : At early levels : level of manipulation of language .

Step Two : Advanced stages : level of selection of appropriate language .

Activity 1 : Social formulas : greetings , introductions , partings , excuses , compliments ,

complaints .
Activity 2 : Community oriented situations : at the bank ,at the post-office , at
the hotel ..
Activity 3 :Role play where students are assigned a fictitious role from which they have to
improvise some kind of behaviour toward the other role characters in the activity .

III- Assessment of the Speaking Skill

Test One : The Oral Test

Test Two : Objective tests

 These are subtests of pronunciation , stress , intonation ... .

 They can be organised to evaluate the different aspects of the language separately .
Test Three : Classwork This consists of a regular record of production . This type of evaluation
gives a fairer picture of the students’ capacities , but is very time-consuming .

The Reading Skill

I- Stages of Development

The reading activity involves the ability to decode :

- the graphophonic information , i.e. the sound / symbol relationship

- the syntactic information i.e. the information derived from the structure as expressed in word
order , prefix /suffix , question / statement , noun , verb , tenses ….. .

- the semantic information , i.e. the content of words .

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-the socio-cultural information , i.e. the connotation specific to one culture .and the ability to
anticipate what probably follows while holding in one’s immediate memory elements from what
precedes .

II- Teaching Reading Comprehension

1. Objectives

Students are expected to be able to identify major ideas , subpoints and supporting details ;
recognise the rhetorical devices that typically go with different types of development of ideas in
writing ( chronological , spatial ...) ; recognise the structural patterns that typically go with specific
types of writing .
2. Teaching Steps

Step One : The students are made familiar with the conventional representation of the phonemes
of the foreign language in a graphic form

Activity : Reading followed by an explanation of the relationship of specific sound / spelling

combinations and exercises about the various spellings encountered for a particular sound .

Step Two : The students are taught to read in word groupings . They are trained to look ahead and
recognise sections of thought as they develop.

Activity : The teacher reads to give the model ( to avoid mistakes ) ; the students read
afterwards .The outline of the text could be provided in order to help the students anticipate what
isto follow . Then follows some practice of deduction of meaning from the context via specific
questions .

Step Three : The students practise quick recognition of structural clues : tenses , types of

sentences : statement /questions /exclamation / negation ; sentence structures : simple sentences ,

compound sentenece , complex sentence , compound-complex sentence ; modifiers : adjectives ,

adverbs , nouns used as adjective ; and rhetorical organisation : relationship of time , cause and

effect ... , organisation between the ideas .

Activity : - Reading .

- Discussion of the elements in question .

Step Four : At this level , there is emphasis on the extension of areas of vocabulary.

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Activity : -Reading

-Discussion of the meaning of unfamiliar words : students are encouraged to make intelligent
guesses deducing the meaning of unfamiliar words from the context .

Step Five : Now , the learners are able to read and understand what they read .

Activity : -Reading

- Discussion of any aspect with personal analysis .

Step Six : At this level , the students are confident to pick up a book , a magazine, or a newspaper
and read it for his / her own pleasure and enlightenment , with occasional resort to a dictionary .

3. The text : One of the most important aspects of teaching reading is the selection of the reading
text . It is recommended that the text used as a basis of a reading activity does not contain marked
dialect or slang or old fashioned language use . It is usually believed that it is easier to read what is
interesting and ideologically compatible , at least at early stages

III- Assessing Reading Comprehension

Test One : Questions about the text .

Type 1: The information required is contained in the question :Yes / No , True / False , Multiple
Choice ( MC )questions , Matching items .

Type 2 : The information is quoted directly from the text : Who / When / Where / What questions .

Type 3 : The information is derived from the text but not directly quoted : Why / How questions

Type 4 : The information is an inference ( implication ) from the text ( not stated explicitly in the
text ) .

Type 5 : The answer requires an evaluation relating the text to personal experience or any other
information .

Test Two : The Cloze procedure (The C P) .

The C.P. is a test of approximately 250 words . We leave one sentence at the beginning , one
sentence at the end intact ( i.e. without any deletion ) . We delete ( omit ) , usually ,every seven
words .The deleted words are replaced by a standard blank . The C P is scored either by Exact word
( EW ) or byAcceptable ( AC ) , The EW scoring procedure is usually followed when we have a

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large number of students and the AC when we put more emphasis on the students’ achievement in
reading .

Test Three : Paraphrase

Test Four : Summary

TheWritingSkill

I- Stages of Development

It is the expression of ideas in a consecutive way according to the conventions of the language , ie
sentences , paragraphs .
II- Teaching Writing

1. Objectives: Students are expected to be able to handle the graphic system of the language ( the
alphabet ) and the spelling according to the conventions of the language ; control the structure of the
language so that what they write is comprehensible to the reader; select from possible combinations
of words those which convey the ideas they have in their mind in the register most appropriate to
the situation .

2. Teaching Steps

Step One :Copying

Step Two :Rewriting of the word(s) , the sentence(s) already copied without reference to the
original or to the student’s copy .

Step Three :Reproduction with minor adaptations .

Activity One :Substitutions

Activity Two : Transformation

Step Four :Reproduction with major adaptations: Modification

Activity One : Expansion

Activity Two : Integration

Activity Three : Reduction or embedding

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Step Five :Guided writing : At this level , the students are required to : write a paragraph
following an outline or specific questions , paraphrase or summarise a text..

Step Six : Free writing : composition / essay where the students are free to use their own words
and structures for the expression of a personal message .

III- Assessing writing :

Test One :Composition / Essay

Test Two :Objective tests : At early levels , students are given a series of tests including a
substitution , a modification , a transformation , an expansion , an integration , a reduction .