LANGUAGE

SKILLS
SPEAKING SKILL
 Speaking is the second language skill.
 This vocalized form of language usually requires at least one listener.
 When two or more people speak or talk to each other, the conversation is called a "dialogue".
 Speech can flow naturally from one person to another in the form of dialogue. It can also be
planned and rehearsed, as in the delivery of a speech or presentation. Of course, some people
talk to themselves! In fact, some English learners practice speaking standing alone in front of a
mirror.
 It is what is known as a productive skill, or an active skill, as it requires us to use our vocal
tract and our brains to correctly produce language through sound. It is the second of two
natural language skills.
 Speaking is the delivery of language through the mouth. To speak, we create sounds using
many parts of our body, including the lungs, vocal tract, vocal chords, tongue, teeth and lips.
 Speaking is probably the language skill that most language learners wish to perfect as soon as
possible.
 It used to be the only language skill that was difficult to practice online.
 This is no longer the case. English learners can practice speaking online using voice or video
chat and services like Skype. They can also record and upload their voice for other people to
listen to..
GOAL
 The goals focus on pronunciation, fluency, dialect, intonation, stress rhythm, interaction,
practice and communication.
 The goal of teaching speaking skills is communicative efficiency.
 Learners should be able to make themselves understand, using their current proficiency to the
fullest.
 They should try to avoid confusion in the message due to faulty pronunciation, grammar, or
vocabulary, and to observe the social and cultural rules that apply in each communication
situation.
TECHNIQUES
 To help students develop communicative efficiency in speaking, instructors can use a
balanced activities approach that combines language input, structured output, and
communicative output.
 Language input comes in the form of teacher talk, listening activities, reading passages, and
the language heard and read outside of class. It gives learners the material they need to begin
producing language themselves.
FOUR SPEAKING SKILLS
 Fluency
 Vocabulary
 Grammar
 Pronunciation
PROCEDURE
Pre-speaking:
 1-There must be authentic interactive oral situations.
 2-Learners check the situation pictures or photos and the text title to guess the content of the
speaking text.
 During speaking:
 I combine language input through talking, structured output through correct form and
communicative output to get information.
 2-They communicate extensively in pairs using the real situation given.
 3-They use acting for the speaking situation scene.
 4-They do a communicate practice intensively in pairs again with gestures and practical behavior.
 Post speaking extension:
 Learners answer the speaking exercises on the text in groups.
 Informative Speaking:
 With informative speaking, the speaker is trying simply to explain a concept to the audience members.
College lecture courses involve informative speaking as do industry conferences and public officials
sharing vital information. In this type of speaking, the information is what is important. The speaker is
not trying to get others to agree with him or to show them how to do something for themselves.
 Persuasive Speaking:
 Persuasive speaking tends to be the most glitzy. Politicians, lawyers and clergy members use
persuasive speaking. This type of speaking requires practicing voice inflections and nuances of
language that will convince the audience members of a certain viewpoint. The persuasive speaker has a
stake in the outcome of the speech. Politicians, for instance, may want votes or a groundswell of
support for a pet project, while lawyers are trying to convince a jury of their position -- and clergy
members are trying to win others over to their faith. The persuasive speaker uses emotional appeals
and strong language in speeches.
SPEAKING ACTIVITIES

 The purpose of real communication is to accomplish a task, such as conveying a telephone

message, obtaining information, or expressing an opinion. In real communication, participants
must manage uncertainty about what the other person will say. Authentic communication
involves an information gap; each participant has information that the other does not have. To
create classroom speaking activities that will develop communicative competence, instructors
need to incorporate a purpose and an information gap and allow for multiple forms of
expression. The activities include:
1-LANGUAGE FUNCTIONS
Language functions refer to the purposes in which we use language to communicate. We use
language for a variety of formal and informal purposes, and specific grammatical structures and
vocabulary are often used with each language function. Some examples of language functions
include:
 1-Compare, contrast and preference.
 2-Persuasion.
 3-Asking and replying.
 4-Expressing likes and dislikes.
 5-Cause and effect.
 6-Request, permission, offer, expressing worry, sorrow or pain.
 READING SKILL

 Reading is the third skill in learning English as a foreign language.

 You read a text, new sentences and new vocabulary, then your brain can imitate them,
producing similar sentences to express the meaning you want.
 When you read a lot, paying attention to useful vocabulary, you will soon start to use new
words and phrases in your speaking and writing.
 It may seem like you need more time to learn a language by reading and listening, as opposed
to learning based on grammar rules
 "Reading" is the process of looking at a series of written symbols and getting meaning from
them.
 When we read, we use our eyes to receive written symbols (letters, punctuation marks and
spaces) and we use our brain to convert them into words, sentences and paragraphs that
communicate something to us.
 Reading can be silent (in our head) or aloud (so that other people can hear). Reading is a
receptive skill - through it we receive information. But the complex process of reading also
requires the skill of speaking, so that we can pronounce the words that we read. In this sense,
reading is also a productive skill in that we are both receiving information and transmitting it
(even if only to ourselves).
Reading is the third language skill we may acquire in our native language. As with listening, it is
a receptive, or passive skill, as it requires us to use our eyes and our brains to comprehend the
written equivalent of spoken language. It is one of the two artificial language skills, as not all
natural spoken languages have a writing system.
SKIMMING:

 Reading for skimming refers to an extensive reading. It means that you read a text quickly
and generally to get the general ideas of the text. This is applied when you deal with a long
comprehension text. If you have ever attended English classes, you have probably been asked
to skim a text and then complete a task connected with it. This is one of the activities you have
to do in an exam/test. Most teachers encourage students to read very quickly, just to get the
main points out of the text. Reading in such a way not only isn't very useful but may even
slow down your progress!
SCANNING
 Reading for scanning refers to an intensive reading. It means that you read a text slowly and
intensively to get the specific meanings and information of a text. When you read in your
native language, you read for content. Your brain focuses on key words that convey the
meaning of the text. This way you are able to read faster. But this is wrong to do when reading
in a foreign language. You want to concentrate on the grammar, too. You should analyze the
sentences closely.
 This is applied when you deal with a close text. Comprehension, Act of or capacity for
grasping with the intellect. The term is most often used in connection with tests of reading
skills and language abilities, though other abilities (e.g., mathematical reasoning) may also be
examined.
TECHNIQUES FOR TEACHING
READING
 Reading skill:
 It is an input receptive skill.
 Goal:
 Reading for pleasure, getting knowledge through distinguishing the main idea or the word
formation and the contextual clues of the reading text.
 Strategy:

Pre-reading: .
The teacher refers to the title and the pictures that deal with the text.
The teacher elicits the learners' existing knowledge about the text.
The teacher asks the students simple questions about the reading text photos and title to guess
what they are going to read about.
DURING READING:

 The Learners do reading for skimming.

 The teacher monitors learners' comprehension.

. The teacher Verifies predictions and checks for inaccurate guesses.

. The learners do reading for scanning.
The teacher checks learners' comprehension.
1-Learners do extensive reading for skimming to get general ideas.
2-Learners predict and guess through the context.
3-Learners do intensive reading for scanning to get detailed information.
 Post reading :

 . The teacher evaluates comprehension in a particular task or area

 . The teacher evaluates overall progress in reading.

 . The teacher decides if the strategies used were appropriate.

 . The Teacher modifies the strategy if necessary.

 . Learners do storytelling, feedback, role playing and practice through electronic exercises.
MATERIALS AND METHODS:

 1. The reading material must be authentic:

 It must be the kind of material that students will need and want to be able to read when
traveling, studying abroad, or using the language in other contexts outside the classroom.
 When selecting texts for student assignments, remember that simplifying a text by changing
the language often removes natural redundancy and makes the organization somewhat easy for
students to predict. This actually makes a text easier to read than if the original was used.
 Elicit students' existing knowledge in pre-reading discussion, review new vocabulary before
reading, and ask students to do skimming to get the main idea or scanning for general ideas,
before they begin intensive reading.
 2. The reading purpose must be authentic:
 To identify relevant reading purposes, ask students how they plan to use the language they are
learning and what topics they are interested in reading and learning about. Give them
opportunities to choose their reading assignments, and encourage them to use the library, the
Internet, and bookstores to find other things they would like to read.
 The reading approach must be authentic:

 Students should read the text in a way that matches the reading purpose, the type of text,
and the way people normally read. This means that reading aloud will take place only in
situations where it would take place outside the classroom. The majority of students' reading
should be done silently.
READING ALOUD:

Students do not learn to read by reading aloud. A person who reads aloud and comprehends the
meaning of the text is coordinating word recognition with comprehension and speaking and
pronunciation ability in highly complex ways. There are two ways to use reading aloud
productively in the language classroom:

 1- Read aloud to your students as they follow along silently. You have the ability to use
inflection and tone to help them hear what the text is saying.
 2-Use the "read and look up" technique. A student reads a phrase or sentence silently as many
times as necessary, then looks up (away from the text) and tells you what the phrase or
sentence says.
SKILLS NEEDED FOR ACTIVE READING:

Decoding
Decoding is a vital step in the reading process. Kids use this skill to sound out words they’ve
heard before but haven’t seen written out. The ability to do that is the foundation for other
reading skills.

 1-Decoding relies on an early language skill called phonemic awareness . (This skill is part of
an even broader skill called phonological awareness.) Phonemic awareness lets kids hear
individual sounds in words (known as phonemes). It also allows them to “play” with sounds at
the word and syllable level.
 2-Decoding also relies on connecting individual sounds to letters. For instance, to read the
word sun, kids must know that the letter s makes the /s/ sound. Grasping the connection
between a letter (or group of letters) and the sounds they typically make is an important step
toward “sounding out” words.

 What can help:

Most kids pick up the broad skill of phonological awareness of naturally, by being exposed to
books, songs, and rhythms .
But some kids don’t. In fact, one of the early signs of reading difficulties is trouble with
rhyming, counting syllables, or identifying the first sound in a word.
 2. Fluency
 To read fluently, kids need to instantly recognize words, including ones they can't sound out.
Fluency speeds up the rate at which they can read and understand text.
 Sounding out or decoding every word can take a lot of effort. Word recognition is the ability to
recognize whole words instantly by sight, without sounding them out.
 When kids can read quickly and without making too many errors, they are “fluent” readers.
 3. Vocabulary
 To understand what you’re reading, you need to understand most of the words in the text.
Having a strong vocabulary is a key component of reading comprehension. Students can learn
vocabulary through instruction. But they typically learn the meaning of words through
everyday experience and also by reading.
 What can help:

The more words kids are exposed to, the richer their vocabulary becomes. You can help build
your child's vocabulary. vocabulary by having frequent conversations on a variety of topics. Try
to include new words and ideas. Telling jokes and playing word games is a fun way to build this
skill.
 Reading together every day also helps improve vocabulary. When reading aloud, stop at new
words and define them. But also encourage your student to read alone. Even without hearing a
definition of a new word, your student can use context to help figure it out.
 4. Sentence Construction and Cohesion
 Knowing how ideas link up at the sentence level helps students get meaning from passages
and entire texts. It also leads to something called coherence, or the ability to connect ideas to
other ideas in an overall piece of writing.
 5. Reasoning and Background Knowledge
 Most readers relate what they’ve read to what they know. So it’s important for students to have
background or prior knowledge about the world when they read. They also need to be able to
“read between the lines” and pull out meaning even when it’s not literally spelled out.
 What can help:
 Your child can build knowledge through reading, conversations, movies and TV shows, and
art. Life experience and hands-on activities also build knowledge.
 6. Working Memory and Attention
 When kids read, attention allows them to take in information from the text. Working memory
allows them to hold on to that information and use it to gain meaning and build knowledge
from what they’re reading.
 The ability to self-monitor while reading is also tied to that. Students need to be able to
recognize when they don’t understand something. Then they need to stop, go back, and re-read
to clear up any confusion they may have.
 What can help:

There are many ways you can help improve your students working memory. Skill builders don’t
have to feel like work, either. There are a number of games and everyday activities that can
build working memory without students even knowing it.
 2-READING SUB-SKILLS
 1. Information-finding skills.

 2. Deducing meaning by understanding word formation and contextual clues.

 3. Understanding grammatical [syntactic and morphological) items..

 4 Understanding relationships between parts of text through cohesive devices.

 5. Understanding relationships between parts of text through discourse markers [for

introduction, development, transition and conclusion of ideas]
 6. Understanding communicative functions of sentences with and without specific markers [e.g.
definition and exemplification]

 7. Understanding conceptual meaning in text [e.g. comparison, cause & effect, audience & purpose]

 8. Understanding stated ideas and information in text.

 9. Understanding ideas and in a text which are not explicitly stated.

 10. Separating essential and non-essential content in text:

 EX: distinguishing main idea from supporting detail.
 11. Transferring information or knowledge from one context to another [e.g. from science to
engineering]
 12. Skimming text [surveying to obtain gist]
 13. Scanning text [reading for specific detail]
 14. Taking notes from text like:
 Extracting salient points for summary of specific idea.
 Extracting relevant and related points from text for summary
 Reducing text by rejection of redundant or irrelevant items or information.
KINDS OF READING:

 1-Critical reading

Critical reading means engaging in what you read by asking yourself questions such as, ‘what is
the author trying to say?’ or ‘what is the main argument being presented?’
2-Active reading/Comprehensive reading:

It means a comprehensive reading. To do active reading:

1-Do a survey or read for skimming.

2-Ask a question about the reading text to discover the purpose of the reading text.
 3-Start reading the text critical to discover the details.

 4-Recall or remember what you have read.

 4- Reading for pleasure.

 5-Do a review of what you have read.

 3-Contemplating reading:

 It means reading something with a determination to understand and evaluate it for its
relevance to your needs and desires. It means reading with a profound thinking about the
content of the reading text.
 Questions to ask of any text while reading critically:

 1-What is the author writing about? (The subject).

 2-Why is the author writing about it? (The purpose).

 3-Who is the author? (Authorial voice).

 4-Who is the author writing to? (The audience).

 5-Who is the author writing against? (The debate).

 6-What is the main point? (The thesis).

 7-So what? (the conclusion).

 8-How does the author prove it? (The evidence).

 9-How does the author try to convince the reader? (Persuasive technique).

 10-What’s behind it all? (Underlying assumptions).