Integrating the Four Language Teaching

Integrating the Four Language Skills

Whole Language Approach:
          Language is not the sum of its many discrete parts.

ADVANTAGES

1.     It exposes ESL/EFL learners to authentic language and challenges them to interact naturalistically in the language.

2.    Learners rapidly gain a true picture of the richness and complexity of the English language used for communication.

3.    It stresses that English is a real means of interaction and sharing among people.

4.    It helps teachers to track students' progress in multiple skills at the same time.

5.    It promotes the learning of real content, not just the dissection of language forms.

6.    It can be highly motivating to students of all ages and backgrounds.

                (Oxford, 2000)

*MODELS:
1. Content-based Instruction (L2 is simply a medium of instruction), e.g. using
    English in teaching biology in RSBI classes.
2. Task-based LanguageTeaching (Focuses on the functional purposes for which  
      language must be used. Sources: narratives in Extensive reading classes,
       cartoon strips, poems, songs, menus; tasks classify, order; drama activities, 
       etc.). Example: “Who gets the heart” (ranking activity)
3. Theme-based/Topic-based Instruction (weaker version of content-based),
     e.g. 1984/1994 curriculums: health, technology, etc. Language is still the main
     focus of the teaching-learning process. For example, under the theme
     “health” for SMP students, we can take a text about students planning to see
     their classmate who is in hospital because of DB, followed by tips to protect
     ourselves from DB, producing posters, etc.
4. Experiential Learning (“Learning by Doing”, inductive learning, often
    psychomotoric), e.g. making something using English (procedure texts), English
    courses in the workplace such as in offices, role-play, CTL-“neighborhood
    walk”, information reporting, young learners producing a text together based
    on a picture of a cat, for example.