Complex integration.
This involves constructing a series of activities that use a variety of skills. In each of the activities, there is realistic, communicative use of language.
For example, look at this sequence of activities:
Reading activity: a poster giving information about an English Club
Oral activity: students make up a dialogue between the club secretary and a person who wants to join the club
Writing activity: students complete a membership application form for the English Club based on their partner’s information
Notice how one activity is closely linked thematically to the next. The information that the students get from the reading is useful in the oral activity, while the writing activity is based on information from the oral activity.
Here is another example. Look how the reading comprehension exercise also serves as the basis for an oral activity.
The Classroom Bank (P. 231)
Task
Look at the following passage and design:
a) a reading comprehension exercise in the form of a dialogue;
b) a communicative activity based on the dialogue.
Silent Wheels (P. 233.) (do it in class within 15minutes)
III. The implications for teaching
1. Focus on discourse
As we noted earlier, integration of the four skills is concerned with realistic communication. This means that we are teaching at the discourse level, not just at the level of sentences or individual words and phrases. Discourse is a whole unit of communicative text, either spoken or written.
So we need to be aware of the discourse features of a text and to be able to make students aware of them.
Discourse features include aspects such as:
• the way that the text is organised
• its layout (for written text)
• the style of the language (formal or informal?)
• theregister(语域,如行话,术语) (the vocabulary that is commonly found in such discourse).
Task
Look at the text below. What are the features of its organisation, layout, style and register? (P. 234)
As a friendly letter, you can see that the main text is organized so that it moves from a greeting to the writer’s news, followed by a request for information and then closure. The layout has the writer’s address in the top right corner, with the date below; then the letter opens on the left had side with “Dear…” the main body of the letter is then organized in paragraphs. At the foot, either on the left or right hand side, there is a valedictory (e.g. Yours sincerely 告别词) above the writer’s signature.
The style is informal and personal. The informality is shown in the register: the use of short for (Thanks) and contraction (I’m), of Best wishes as a valedictory, and of Carman instead of the writer’s full name—there is no printed form of the name under the signature either.
Oral language tends to be less structured than written text, but there are some discourse features that we can teach our students. Please look at the following conversation yourself.
2. Adjusting the textbook contents
Although many modem textbooks have some integration of the four skills, we may still need to make some changes to the contents.
This could involve altering the order of the contents. If the discourse of the writing activity is closely related to the reading passage, but is placed in a different part of the unit in the textbook, we could focus on the writing straight after we finish the reading passage.
For simple integration, we can design a listening or reading comprehension activity that becomes a plan for speaking or writing.
3. Adjusting the timetable
In some schools, a whole lesson is given to teaching one skill. For example, there is a “listening” lesson one day, a “reading” lesson another day, and so on. Sometimes this is encouraged by the arrangement of materials in the textbook. We have to make the timetable arrangements more flexible so that we can integrate the skills better.
IV. The limitations of integrating the four skills
1. It is not easy for teachers to maintain an appropriate balance between integration and separation.
While integrating the four skills can help the development of students’ communicative competence, we must not overlook the useful role that a separate focus on individual aspects of vocabulary, grammar and skills can play. If taught well, these aspects can accelerate the students’ language learning.
2. It’s not easy to find or design suitable materials that take account of students’ different skill levels.
The four skills tend to develop at a different pace: receptive skills are stronger than productive skills, for example. This means that teachers have to be skilful is selecting or designing integrated activities for their students.
V. Conclusion
In this unit we have discussed why integrating the four language skills is desirable. It enhances the focus on realistic communication, which is essential in developing students’ competence in English. We then identified two ways of integrating skills: simple integration, whereby a receptive language skill serves as a model for a productive language skill, and complex integration, which is a combination of activities involving different skills, linked thematically.
We also discussed some of the limitations of integrating skills. The role of a focus on individual language elements, such as vocabulary and grammar, should not be overlooked. Integration is also demanding of teachers in terms of finding or designing suitable materials, particularly when it is necessary to take into account the differing rates of progress of students in mastering the individual skills.