The Four learning Skills

I think it is so important that the teacher includes the four skills in the lesson plan,
because it will help his/her to prepare their students to use the English language or
target language in real-life or real context, if students develop their four skills at the
same time, it will facilitate their learning process and produce successful outcomes
in them, because if the teachers stimulate student´s abilities, learner
characteristics, intelligence, and aptitudes are to create an adequate atmosphere
of learning and also to reinforce students confidence related with their target
language, also the role of the teacher is to facilitate learning by: setting a positive
climate for learning, clarifying purposes for the learner and organize their learning
resources.
How can you teach the four skills? I think, first it is necessary to establish a clear
objectives taking into account students profile, grade, topics, level and learning
content through language, also for teaching the four skills teachers must involve
students with real materials and contextualize different activities during the course.
Then it is also important, to establish a specific order by teaching this skills, for
example I will work in this way: First, Listening, speaking, reading and writing,
nevertheless this order could change according teacher´s knowledge and teacher
´s learning strategies.
Now I’m going to cite some point of views of some different authors that made their
contribution to our topic, “How to teach the four skills”

LISTENING
According to Dulay and Burt (1975, p.109) the listening experiences that help
students lessen their anxiety about listening will generally be beneficial, and also is
so important learner´s motives and attitudes about listening, the instructor can
better select input or point learners to the best resources and opportunities for
appropriate input. Also according to the Interaction Hypothesis (Long, 1995; Pica
1966 and Swain 1999, p.120) the participation in verbal interactions following a
listening experience offers a learner the opportunity to follow up on new words and
structures, by itself participation and interaction. They argued that the interaction is
a primary means of listening development as well as language acquisition, indeed
the most effective source of comprehensible input is usually conversational
exchanges, paused texts and listening report, because the learner must use active
clarification strategies to “negotiate meaning”.
I think Listening is the language skill which learners usually find the most difficult;
this often is because they feel difficult to understand every word. To achieve the
aims related to this skill. According to Dulay and Burt (1975, p.109) the teacher
plays an important role that I will define you in the following steps. First:
 1. It is important to help students prepare for the listening task well before they
hear the text itself, and also all the teacher must ensure that the children
understand the language.
2. The next important step is to encourage students to anticipate what they are
going to hear, besides the teacher can help them further by asking
questions and using the illustrations to encourage students to guess the
answers even before they hear the text.
3. During the listening the children should be able to concentrate on
understanding the message, so make sure they are not trying to read, draw,
and write at the same time. Always if the teacher gives them a second
chance to listen to the text to provide a new opportunity to those who were
not able to do the task.
4. Finally, when students have completed the activity, I think is so important
invite answers from the whole class. The teacher must play the CD again,
and a student listens and chooses the correct one, nevertheless it is
necessary that the teacher gives them a variety of answers.
SPEAKING
First of all, I think we must take into account that the level of language input
(listening) in some cases it is must be higher than the level of language production
expected of the students. So the teachers must think in that, because there are
many speaking activities used in the first levels that enable children to participate
with a minimal verbal response. I think that in primary schools two main types of
speaking activities are used. The first type, songs, chants, and poems, encourages
students to mimic the model they hear on the CD. This helps children to master the
sounds, rhythms, and intonation of the English language through simple
reproduction. The games and pair work activities on the other hand, although
always based on a given model, encourage the Child to begin to manipulate the
language by presenting them with a certain situation.
According to Byrne (1966, p.105) exploiting dialogues with students, provide a
thoughtful starting point for the student teacher, also she argued that it is important
to give feedback to the students on their conversational performance is a good
speaking strategy. Marion Geddes (1992. P.110) suggested to help lower-level
students focus on conversational skills from a very early stage, including elements
such as how to open and close a conversation or how to show interest. He argued
that for developing a good speaking in students is necessary to contextualize the
conversations, and that the dialogue must have a clear order for example:
• Initial Greetings, such as ¿how are you?
• Follow-up Questions ¿how is your mother?
• Moving to someone else There´s (David)! Must say hello.
• Explaining past illness I had flu, I had cold
• Expressing sympathy, I´m sorry to hear that. Are you ok?
Making sure two people know each other, you have met Sara – do you know
Sara.
So Marion Geddes (1992, p. 59) argued, that In order for any speaking activity to
be successful children need to acknowledge that there is a real reason for asking a
question or giving a piece of information. Therefore, make sure the activities you
present to the pupils, provide a reason for speaking, whether this is to play a game
or to find out real information about friends in the class.
Once the activity begins, make sure that the children are speaking as much
English as possible without interfering to correct the mistakes that they will
probably make. Try to treat errors casually by praising the utterance and simply
repeating it correctly without necessarily highlighting the errors. And finally, always
offer praise for effort regardless of the accuracy of the English produced.
READING
I think that for teaching the reading skill in the students, it is important that
when the teacher chooses texts consider not only their difficulty level, but
also their interest or their humor so that children will want to read for the
same reasons they read in their own language: to be entertained or to find
out something they do not already know. And also the key vocabulary is to
help students to predict the general content of the text, discuss the subject
and ask questions to elicit language and to stimulate the student´s interest
in the text before they begin reading. Also make sure that the pupils
understand the essential vocabulary they need to complete the task before
they begin to read.
According to Paris, Wasik and Turner (1991, p. 611) the sample reading
strategies are:
• Specifying a purpose for reading
• Planning what to do/what steps to take
• Previewing the text
• Predicting the contents of the text or section of the text
• Making Inferences
• Summarising Information
• Identify Difficulties
• Checking Comprehension
Also Paris, Wasik and Turner (1991, p. 611) argued that While the children are
reading the text, move around the class providing support if children need it.
Where possible, encourage students to work out the meaning of vocabulary as
they come across it, using the context and the supporting illustrations. Do not
encourage students to read texts aloud unless this is to learn a play or recite a
poem. Reading aloud inhibits most children and forces them to concentrate on
what they are saying as opposed to what they are reading and the meaning is very
often lost.
WRITING
I think that in the primary school teachers must begin teaching the writing skill in
this way, students progress from writing isolated words and phrases, to short
paragraphs about themselves or about very familiar topics (family, home,
hobbies, friends, food, etc.).
According to Yates (1966, p.79) since many students in a low level are not yet
capable either linguistically or intellectually of creating a piece of written text
from scratch, it is important that time is spent building up the language they will
need and providing a model on which they can then base their own efforts. The
writing activities should therefore be based on a parallel text and guide the
students, using simple cues. These writing activities generally appear towards
the end of a unit so that pupils have had plenty of exposure to the language and
practice of the main structures and vocabulary they need.
At this stage, the student´s work will invariably contain mistakes. Again, the
teacher should try to be sensitive in his/her correction and not necessarily insist
on every error being highlighted. A piece of written work covered in red pen is
demoralizing and generally counter-productive. Where possible, encourage
children to correct their own mistakes as they work. If there is time, encourage
children to decorate their written work and where feasible display theirs efforts
in the classroom.
Yates (1966, p.79) concluded, that the elements of writing are:
The Writer
• Issues of proficiency, first language background, and prior experience
• Cognitive and motivational factors
• Knowledge of topic
• The role of composing processes
The Text
• Authenticity of purposes and writing tasks
• Number and variety of writing assignments
• Genre modeling and exploration
• Rhetorical and lexico-grammatical consciousness raising
The Reader
• Orientation to specific target discourse communities
• Need for real and multiple audiences
• Awareness of appropriate levels of involvement and interactional strategies
• Importance of feedback and audience response
 REFERENCES

Yates K. (1966) Teaching and Research Writing Macmillan Education

Paris W. and Turner B. (1991) the Nature of Reading Abilities Oxford
Geddes M. (1992) teaching and researching speaking Macmillan Education
Byrne L. (1966) Elementary Conversation Macmillan
Dulay C. and Burt L. (1975) Teaching Listening Oxford
Pica D. (1966) and Swain Y. (1999) Listening Skill Oxford