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Date Posted: 19:54:22 05/30/07 Wed
Author: Eliel Soares
Subject: Eliel's essay #3

Adriana,

First of all, I`m so sorry for the delay.
If it is still in time, i'll post your peer editing tomorow at night, ok?

==========================================================
THE FOUR BASIC LANGUAGE SKILLS: A COMPLETE LANGUAGE WORK TO ACHIEVE BETTER RESULTS.

Language courses adopt different methodological approaches.

The focus on Language skills vary according to each

approach and some schools tend to value grammar contents

more than language functionality. This variety cause some

students and teachers to complain of the efficiency of some

methodological approaches. The question is raised then,

whether there is a model of efficient and attractive

Language course or not. Is it just an educational utopia?

I agree with students, and also with teachers who believe

that a good English course should cover five aspects of the

language : Grammar content, and the four basic language

skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking. In

addition, those aspects should follow some order of

importance to an extent. That order considers the whole

structure of a language course the same way it considers

each class. So, it is very important to have in class a

balance in the distribution of contents and activities

covering those four basic skills


First it is important to acknowledge the readers

that grammar content is a controversial topic nowadays.

But, all the polemics around the theme apart, Grammar is

the spine of language. It is impossible to conceive

teaching a language without considering its grammatical

structure and its specificities. It is necessary to work

grammar topics in class, they can be taught in blocks

divided in broader groups by categories. They should

follow the functional approach in general. For

example, “zero classes” Are usually those opportunities in

which students would learn how to greet their classmates,

or they might introduce themselves to the group. Those

elementary content are also important, due to they contain

some particular structures and they give students chances

of practicing functional language in real situations.

Grammar knowledge gives students the basis for all the

language comprehension. See how language teaching can be

more efficient and how students can improve their language

if they are in touch with the four language skills.


Students should learn how to read in the new

language. To acquire such skill they need to be introduced

to features of the target language. Furthermore, it is

necessary to motivate students to get in touch with

beginners` readings, like short texts, functional

dialogues, etc. A large variety of activities might be

suggested to focus on reading skill. A good one could be

making a skill usage chain, it means, to apply more than

one skill focus in the activity. For example, reading

activities could be certainly followed by a writing

assignment as a reading report. That kind of activity will

be important as reinforcement to grammar contents, once

while writing students must think and process grammatical

knowledge to write a well-structured text.


As writing activities importance was introduced in

the upper lines of this text, other variations of writing

assignments odd to be suggested. For example, more than

simplistic reading reports, which may be hard to be

selected sometimes - as groups tend to be heterogeneous -

students could be motivated to create their own texts. Such

procedure enables students to think of language

formulation, register and other aspects that are no less

important to their improvements. In addition, creative

writing foments expressive growth in the student's lexicon.


If you, reader, are an English or any other

language teacher, you can probably confirm that students

attribute their proficiency to listening and speaking

skills. You should have heard someone crying: “I don’t know

English. I can’t definitely understand what that singer (or

anybody else) says.” Or “I can’t speak a sentence in

English!” Sometimes students feel humble if they cannot

understand or use the most part of the vocabulary used in

class. Regardless these misleading feelings, if in one hand

teachers need to convince students that general

comprehension is enough to get started, on the other it is

imperative that students have contact with the spoken

language, which will make them acquire familiarity and

fluency.


Communication is important because students make use of the

contents they are taught while they speak. It is ideal that

they practice the target language as frequently as

possible. Then in class, speaking activities need good

conduction. There is no intention to limit linguistic

production; on the contrary, I would suggest an activity

conduction that could improve the achievement of good

results. Promote debates on pertinent themes to the

students' reality. It is also a good idea to use rolling

play activities in which students can act as if they were

other characters. If you get them doing these activities

you are not only helping them with oral language, but you

are also working their body language. And the results you

can obtain from those activities may be surprising.

Activities like those are always good opportunities to

instigate students to manage their speaking skill.


Consider the steps followed in the previous

paragraphs. First it was explained the reason for teaching

grammar, which will prepare students to have an easier

comprehension of the language in general. That explanation

also informed the controversy around the theme, a point

that cannot be put detached. Then it was presented the four

basic language skills and possible ways to work with them

in class. The intention behind that order choice is to

facilitate the comprehension of the whole language. More

than that, it is implicit in some English course programs

that to cover those four skills is the best way to reach

better results. With this work, it is also intended that

language teachers have a more clear vision regarding what

should be a good language course mainly those who are

beginning their professional careers, and again I do insist

to include those who teach other foreign languages in

Brazil again I do insist to include those who teach other

foreign languages in Brazil.

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