Methods and Principles for

Integrating the
Four Skills
Junilyn C. Samoya
Presenter
JAM (Just A Minute) Activity
• The audience will pick a folded paper on the bowl
• Each folded paper contains the situation/scenario and a
number that will indicate the sequence of the
presentation
• After reading it, the audience will only be given

a minute to actuate the situation/scenario.

Guess What ?
(The Audience will take turns in guessing what are the different skills used from the situations/scenario in the JAM)
For more than six decades now, research
and practice in English language teaching
has identified the "four skills"
--listening, speaking, reading, and writing--
as of paramount importance.
 Two Forms of Language Performance

RECEPTIVE PRODUCTIVE
SKILLS SKILLS
Oral Medium Listening Speaking
Written Medium Reading Writing
TOPIC
OUTLINE
A. Why Integrated Skills?
B. Models of Skills Integration
C. Design principles for integrating the skills
D. Designing the written word into the
lesson: reading and writing
E.Designing talk into the lesson: speaking
and listening
A. Why Integrated
Skills?
Why Integration?
"In an age of globalization, pragmatic objectives of
language learning place an increased value on
integrated and dynamic multiskill instructional
models with a focus on meaningful
communication and the development of
learners' communicative competence."

Hinkel (2006, p. 113)

The following observations support such techniques:

1. Production & reception are two sides of the same coin

2. Interaction means sending and receiving messages
3. Written and spoken language often bear a
relationship to each other
4. For literate learners, the interrelationship is an
intrinsically motivating reflection of language, culture, and
society
The following observations support such techniques:

5. By attending to what learners can do with language,

we invite four skills that are relevant into classroom.
6. Often one skill will reinforce another.
7. In the real world of language use involves the
integration of skills and connections between language and
the way they think and feel and act.
The following observations support such techniques:

5. By attending to what learners can do with language,

we invite four skills that are relevant into classroom.
6. Often one skill will reinforce another.
7. In the real world of language use involves the
integration of skills and connections between language and
the way they think and feel and act.
B. Models of Skills
Integration
Content-Based Instruction

• sometimes referred to as "content-centered“

instruction.
• allows learners to acquire knowledge and skills
that transcend all the bits and pieces of
language that may occupy hours and days of
analyzing in a traditional language classroom.
Content-Based Instruction
• Research on second language acquisition at
various ages indicates the ultimate strength of
learning that is pointed toward practical non-
language goals.
• The second language, then is simply the
medium to convey informational content of
interest and relevance to the learner.
Content-Based Instruction
• Allow for the complete integration of language skills.
• Learners are focused on useful, practical objectives
as the subject matter is perceived to be relevant to long-
term goals.
• This also increases the intrinsic motivation that
is so important to learning of any kind.
Examples of content based curricula:
• Immersion programs for elementary school children
• Sheltered English programs (mostly found at
elementary and secondary school levels)
• Writing across the curriculum (where writing skills in
secondary schools and universities are taught within
subject-matter
• English for Specific Purposes (ESP) (e.g., for
engineering, agriculture, or medicine).
Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT)

• emphasize the centrality of the task itself in a

language course and the importance of organizing a
course around communicative tasks that learners
need to engage in outside the classroom.

• the priority is not the forms of language, but rather the

functional purposes for which language must be
used.
Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT)

• course goals center on learners' pragmatic

language competence.
• a well-integrated approach to language
teaching that asks you to organize your
classroom around those practical tasks that
language users engage in "out there" in the
real world.
Example of Task-Based
• speeches • cartoon strips • telephone
• interviews • photos directories
• conversations • letters, e-mails • Invitations
• oral descriptions • diaries • menus
• narratives • • poems • textbooks
media extracts • songs • labels
• public • directions
announcements
• games and
puzzles
Theme-Based Instruction
• a "weak" version of CBI.
• This weak version is actually practical and effective
in many instructional settings.
• provides an alternative to what would
otherwise be traditional language classes by structuring
a course around themes or topics.
Theme-Based Instruction
Increase students’ curiosity & motivation of students as
they grapple with an array of real-life issues
1. Use environmental statistics and facts for classroom reading,
writing, discussion, and debate
2. Carry out research and writing projects
3. Have students create their own environmental awareness
material
4. Arrange field trips
5. Conduct simulation games
Example of Theme-Based Instruction
• public health • discuss issues
• environmental awareness • propose solutions
• world economics • carry out writing
• students read articles or assignments on a given
chapters theme
• view video programs • English for Academic
Purposes (EAP)
Experiential Learning

• includes activities that engage both left- and

right-brain processing, which contextualize
language, that integrate skills, and that point toward
authentic, real-world purposes.
Experiential Learning

• highlights for us in giving students concrete

experiences through which they "discover"
language principles (even if subconsciously) by trial and
error, by processing feedback, by building hypotheses
about language, and by revising these assumptions in
order to become fluent (Eyring, 1991, p.347)
Examples of Experiential Learning
• hands-on projects (such as nature projects)
• computer activities (especially in small groups)
• research projects
• cross-cultural experiences (camps, dinner groups, etc.)
• field trips and other "on-site" visits (such as to a grocery store)
• role plays and simulations
• using props, realia, visuals, show-and-tell sessions
• playing games (which often involve strategy) and singing
• utilizing media (television, radio, and movies)
The Episode Hypothesis

• A century ago, Francois Gouin designed a method of language

teaching called the Series Method.
• One of the keys to the success of the method lay in the
presentation of language in an easily followed storyline.
• In some ways, Gouin was utilizing a psychological device that, a
hundred years later John Oiler called the episode hypothesis.
The Episode Hypothesis

• According to Oiler (1983b,p. 12), "text (i.e., discourse in any

form) will be easier to reproduce, understand, and recall, to the
extent that it is structured episodically."
• By this he meant that the presentation of language is
enhanced if students receive interconnected sentences
in an interest- provoking episode rather than in a disconnected
series of sentences.
The Episode Hypothesis

• The episode hypothesis goes well beyond simple

"meaningful" learning. Look at this dialogue:
Jack: Hi, Tony. What do you usually do on weekends? Tony: Oh,
I usually study, but sometimes I go to a movie.
Jack: Uh-huh. Well, I often go to movies, but I seldom study.
Tony: Well, I don't study as much as Greg. He always studies
on the weekends. He never goes out.
The Episode Hypothesis
• Now consider another conversation (Brinton & Neuman,
1982, p. 33) and notice how it differs from Jack and
Tony's
Darlene: I think I'll call Bettina's mother. It's almost five and
Chrissy isn't home yet.
Meg : I thought Bettina had the chicken pox.
Darlene: Oh, that's right. I forgot. Chrissy didn't go to
Bettina's today. Where is she?
Meg : She's probably -with Gary. He has Little League
practice until five.
The Episode Hypothesis
Darlene: Where's Chrissy? Isn't she with you?
Gary : With me? Why with me? I saw her at two after school, but
then I went to Little League practice. I think she left with her
friend.
Darlene: Which one?
Gary : The one next door ... the one she walks to school with every
day. Darlene: Oh, you mean Timmy. She's probably with him.
Gary : Yeah, she probably is.
Darlene: I'm going next door to check
C. Design principles
for integrating the skills
Principle 1: The four Strands
• Nation and Newton (2009) suggest that the
principled language course will balance four
strands:
• Meaning-focused input groups together
listening and reading.
• Meaning-focused output speaking and
writing both entail language output.
Principle 1: The four Strands
• Deliberate learning detail and precision in
understanding how language is built and
operates (Nation and Newton 2009: 1)
• Development of fluency entails focus on
meaning, rather than the detailed building
blocks of meaning; and is processed in real time
rather than recycled and slowly deliberated.
Principle 2: Introduce information transfer

• This cycle can be achieved in the classroom by

replicating these real-world connections
between skills.
Information transfer framework
Column A Column B
Start with and transfer
An itinerary of a journey Plot journey on map
Written or spoken instructions for Give a partner verbal instructions
making origami Compare with partner’s factsheet and make a
Factsheet on global warming note of new information
News story on the radio or in the paper Summarize story to a partner
Recipe Make a shopping list of ingredients
Advertisement Role-play buying/selling the item
Job description Make enquiries about the job
Biography of a famous person Plan interview questions for the person
A song where we know only some of Guess the missing words, listen for them
the words and note them down
Film reviews Discuss films with a partner, choose one
Episodes in a story (oral or written) Organize the episodes into a sequence
Letter to an agony aunt column Reply to the letter offering advice
A horoscope Tell your partner’s future
A photo or a picture Write captions
Information transfer framework
Column A Column B
Your own suggested starting points Your own suggested activities
compare; summarize; correct;
reorganize; dictate; note; match;
combine; fill in gaps; list; guess;
share information; write captions;
label; mark; record order; organize
 Principle 3: Classify information with text
organizers

• Organize information visually.

• Flow charts, Venn diagrams, cycles, onions,
pyramids, mind maps and ‘radial diagrams’ all help
us to visualize the relationships within a text, to
explore ideas and to make sense of them.
Principle 4: Introduce an information gap

• The gap between what you and I separately

know, experience and understand.
• Mirroring our real need to exchange messages
in the outside world.
Principle 5: Introduce game-like activities

• look at the way we ‘play’, and replicate

these qualities through learning.

• Competition, constraint, incentive,

team spirit are useful characteristics teachers
can apply in the classroom.
D. Designing the written
word into the lesson:
reading and writing
Principle 1: Prepare for reading and
writing

•Prior knowledge is thought to be an

important component of our reading
knowledge.
Principle 1: Prepare for reading and
writing

• Proficient writers also prepare and

plan in advance of writing.

• Less proficient writers to draw on other

resources to inform them.
(Hyland 2009: 86)
Principle 2: Provide opportunities for free and
extensive reading outside class

• Reading acts as a model for writing, and a

learner’s fluency in reading is often
correlated to his or her fluency in writing.
Principle 3: Raise awareness of the
generic features of text types

• These features can be made explicit by

grouping texts of the same type together
and setting up a process of discovery
about shared features
Principle 4: Move from development of
surface skills to higher-level skills

• A core teaching skill is to develop the

capacity for questioning that challenges
learners at the appropriate level, and leads
from text into understanding
Principle 5: Provide ‘scaffolds’ for reading
and writing

• The teacher can support the writing process.

• Providing incentives to write (such as a ‘real’
audience, or communicative purpose)
• Models of the kind of writing expected
• Stepping stones for producing this
Principle 6: Include a sense of audience
that simulates real-world
writing activities

• Becoming conscious of our addressee, we

become conscious of the register, style and
form appropriate for our audience.
Principle 7: Integrate feedback into the
writing cycle

• Student and teacher testimonies suggest that

feedback is most helpful when it is seen as part
of a learning cycle, rather than for the
purposes of assessment.
E. Designing talk into
the lesson: speaking
and listening
Principles of lesson design for speaking and
listening

• Balance different kinds of listening and listening

skill. We listen in many different ways, to match our
purpose for listening.

• Develop skills and strategies to deal with

misunderstandings many listening and speaking
activities focus on what learners can hear and
understand.
• Prepare for listening by activating interest and
prior knowledge about the topic.

• Provide a reason for listening, such as

matching speaker reactions beside those already
predicted; listen to fill in gaps in knowledge,
gather information, solve a problem or complete
a task.
• Recycle listening so there are several
opportunities to hear.
Give me 5! Activity
• In pairs, take 5 minutes to brainstorm and 5
minutes to present what kinds of topics you
feel would be suitable to use for any of the
models of skills integration? Why these topics?
Be ready to defend your answers!
References:
Brown, H. D. (2007). Teaching by Principles: An
Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy (3rd
edition). USA: Pearson Longman.

Spiro, J (2013). Changing Methodologies in

TESOL. Edinburgh Textbook in TESOL. Edinburgh
University Press Ltd
Thank You for Listening!