integrated-teaching

CHAPTER REPORT

Theme             : Teaching Language Skills—Integrating the four language skills

A.    Introduction

The topic of the chapter report is all about teaching language skills. This topic is taken from more than one books relate to the teaching language skills including integrating the four language skills, but the main source is taken from Jeremy Harmer,  2007 The Practice of English Language Teaching, chapter 16. If we talk about teaching language skills, means that it is discuss about the way we use language in terms of skills in English such as, reading, writing, speaking and listening. This topic is including integrating four language skills above. It is important to discussed about integrating four language skills in English because many of textbooks and curriculum nowdays are tend to focus on one or two of the four skills (Brown, 1994). In fact that the four language skills cannot be separated each other, because in meaningful communication, people employ incremental language skills not in isolation, but in tendem (Hinkel 2006:113 cited on Harmer 2007: 265). As Harmer said that the skills could be together in communication in example of this is when we are engaged in conversation, we are bound to listen as well as speak because otherwise we could not interact with the person we are sepaking to (Harmer 2007:265). Furthermore, many topic have been discussed clearly on Harmer’s book about it, such as the important of using skills together, two types of language skills - productive skills and receptive skills-, and what is the basic methodological model for teaching productive skills and receptive skills, this include how to teach it in the classroom. This topic is relate to another chapters in Harmer’s book, because we can get many information not only about teaching every the four language skills in the classroom but also all topics about teaching English in many aspects.

B.     The Body of The Chapter Report

1.      Skills together

In English there are four skills that should be learnt by the students, such as reading, writing, speaking and listening. Those four language skills are taught by the teacher in the classroom, that is called integrating skills. The integration of skills in language classroom can be defined quite simply as a series of activities or tasks which we use any combination of the four skills – listening, speaking, reading, writing- in a continuous and related sequence (Read,1985 in Matthews,et.al.1985:72 cited from Mustopa). Listening and reading are categorized as receptive skills, means that the skills where meaning is extracted from the discourse. On the other hand, speaking and writing are categorized as productive skills, means that skills where students actually have to produce language themselves (Harmer 2007:265). In example of this integrating skills is when we write an email, we are using two skills in one time. Of course we write a message to others and we also read what people send to us. It means that teaching skills together is possible in the classroom, but the important is teaching integrating four skills does not diminishes the importance of the rules of reading, writing, speaking and listening (Brown 1994:218). Below are the expalanation about how input and output are connected in the classroom, how skills can be integrated, and how skill and language work are connected.

1.1  Input and output

Input and output tells us about the teaching and learning in the classroom between the students’ participation  and teachers’ feedback. First of all we should point out that what we say or write is influenced by what we hear and see. Our most inportant information about language comes from this input (Harmer 2007:266). Teacher as a person who teach in the classroom can provide the input for the students, for example she is using video types and a variety of reading text then students may listen and read. The output is when students are producing the piece of language. During it, the teacher can provide a feedback to the students.

1.2  Integrating skills

Below is the Straight arrows or Boomerang lesson types based on Harmer (2007):

·         Speaking as preparation adn stimulus

Speaking sessions allow the students to investigate their thougts and feelings about a topic. Teacher in here should lead the students to discuss about the topic that are going to be discussed.

·         Text as models

Text as models mean that teacher should guide the students to give an appropriate example of doing something, such as if the students are asked to work with ganre-based, written and spoken texts are a vital way of providing models for the students to follow. Teacher can give certain kind of report text for example. It is very usefull for them to analyze the structure and style of the text and learn how to do something first by hearing their teacher’s direction.

·         Texts as preparation and stimulus

Much language work grows out of texts that students see or hear (Harmer 2007:267). We often use written and spoken texts to stimulate our students into some other kind of work, for example students are listening to a story based in the video types. It may give them a stimulus to make write their own stories.

·         Integrated tasks

Skill integration is a major factor in lesson planning. Teacher can give a tasks to the students using integration skills, for instance students  are ask to do the project work, which may well involve researching (through reading or listening), speaking (when giving a presentation), and writing (submitting a report).

1.3  Language skills, language constructions

The teacher in here can use several new technology for transfering the material, such as giving the students about the text from the article. From the text, students will identify the construction of the language that is used in the text. After reading the whole text, students will identify the adjectives and tenses that are appear in the text also the use of comma, full stop, etc from the text.

1.4  Integrating skills and language work

To make teacher clear about how integrating skills are work in the classroom, these are some example show how it might work at the intermediate level based Harmer (2007) that involves the students in rading, writing, speaking and listening:

Stage 1: teacher gives them a quistionnaire about how they respond to physical appearance, students should complete it and the class discuss their response to the questionnaire.

Stage 2            : teacher asks the students to read a text which appropriate with their level.

Stage 3 : students answer several question based on the text and discuss it in the class.

Stage 4 : students look for any vocabularies based on the text and analyzed it.

Stage 5 : students re-write the story based on their understanding about the text.

Stage 6 : students write one of the figure based on the text, and class have to guess who they are writing.

Stage 7 : students listen to the dialogue about some story before they are doing role-play.

1.5  top-down and bottom-up

In top-down processing, the reader or listener gets a general view of the reading or listening passage. It will help if their schemata allow them to have appropriate expectations of what they are going to come across. On the other hand, in bottom-up processing the reader or listener focuses on such things as individual words, phrases or cohesive devices and achieves undersatnding by stringing these deatiled elements together to bulid up a whole (Harmer 2007:270). Those process are help us to see act of reading and listening , speaking and writing. With those process, it help us to know the details.

2.      Receptive Skills

2.1 A basic methodological model for teaching receptive skills

Receptive skills consist of listening and reading, although there are significant differences between listening and reading but the basic classroom procedure that teachers use are the same for both.

A typical procedure for getting students to read a written or listen to a recording involves type 1 and type 2. Type 1 tasks, teacher only asks the students read or listen about the text in general. On the other hand, in tasks 2 teacher asks the students to look at the text more detail and see the specific information about the text. In teaching receptive skills, teacher at first apply type 1 task then go to type 2 tasks, because students firstly hear and read then look at the detail.

The procedure for teaching receptive skills generally starts with lead in. In here, teacher should lead the students to the topic that would be discussed in the classroom. The students can predict what a text is likely about. Teacher in this step can apply many ways to provoke students to the text, for instance give them a clues like pictures, headline,etc. It will help the students to predict about the text. Harmer said that prediction is vitally important if we want students to engage fully with the text (Harmer 2007: 271). Next step is the teacher set some kind of comprehension task so that they will read or listen in general way. After that, the students read or listen to the text and then the teacher directs feedback. In here, teacher are asks the students to answer several questions in pairs or group of work. It is apply to minimize the students failed in doing the task. The last is teacher applying the type 2 tasks, she ask the students to look at the text again for looking at the detail of the text.

2.2 The language issue

There are some reason faced by the students about how the text is being hard to be undertand, first longer sentences and words are more difficult to be understand than the shorter one. Second, the unfamiliar words which appear in the text are also make the students hard t understand the text. This problems not also appear in reading but also in listening. Harmer (2007:272) gives a suggestion on his book that to minimize this issue, teacher could include pre-teaching vocabulary, using extensive reading or listening, and considering alternatives to authentic language, because the more language we expose to the students, the more thry will learn. Below are the expalanation about the suggestion given by Harmer to minimize that issue:

·         Pre-teaching vocabulary: one of the way for helping the students to understand the text easily is to pre-teaching vocabulary. Teacher may lead the students’ schemata to predict the words. The students can first research the meaning of words and phrases and then predict what a text with such words is likely to be about.

·         Extensive reading and listening: based on Harmer (2007) that intensive and extensive reading and listening are different thing. Intensive reading or listening tends to be more concentrated, less relaxed, and often dedicated not so much to pleasure as to the achievement of a study goal whereas extensive reading and listening frequently take place when students are in their own. Extensive reading is the best possible way for the students to develop automaticity. The benefits of esxtensive reading are echoed by the benefits for the extensive listening: the more students listen, the more language they acquire and the better they get at listening activities in general.

·         Authenticity : authenticity means that teacher should give the “real” language material for the students. It is language where no concession are made to foreign speakers (Harmer 2007:273).

2.3 Comprehension task

Nowadays, task is given to the students not to help them for making undertand about the material but to test them. If teacher want to develop students’ receptive skills, test is not an appropriate way. In order that, teacher need to use comprehension tasks which promote understanding :

·         Testing and teaching : the best kind of task are those which raise students’ expectations, help them tease out meanings and provoke an emanination of reading or listening passage (Harmer 2007:274). As a good teacher, we shoulsd give a task to make them more understand about the material. So many ways of teaching students to develop their receptive skills, such as help students making a prediction about the answer before they read or listen.

·         Appropriate challenge: teacher should avoid task that are either far too easy or far too difficult. Teacher may give the students some famous conversation and text that are familiar for the students. It will help the students easily identify the main topic of the passage for instance.

3.      Productive skills

3.1   Basic methodological model for teaching productive skills

The point in here is the way teachers organise the students and how they respond she/he responds to the students’ work. First thing to do is lead, teacher may lead the students to the topic before they are going to discussed it in the class. Next step is set the task, in this step teacher should give students the example of how to do the task. Third step is called as monitor task, teacher should go around the class and check the students’ work whether they are understand or no. Last teacher gives a task feedback. This step may help students to see how well they have done and finally move on to task-related follow-up.

3.2  Structuring discourse

In oder for communication to be succesfull, we have to structure our discourse in such a way that will be understood by our listener or readers.

3.3  Interacting with an audience

In speaking and writing we may also have to be interactive with the audience. In writing for example, we should have the ability to persuit our readers about our writing, from that we can a repond or reaction from them.

3.4  Dealing with difficulty

The are several strategies to resolve the difficulty of not knowing a word or just cant’t remember it (Harmer 2007:277):

·         Improvising : this step is the improvistation of the speaker abiut the new word or phrase.

·         Discarding : when speakers simply can’t find words for what they want to sya, they may abandon the thought that they can’t put into words.

·         Foreignising : when operating a foreign language, we should be careful of what words that we will use in our writing or even is speaking. People are tend to use the word that they have already known the meaning and hope that it will be equilvalent to the meaning they wish to express in the foreign language.

·         Paraphrasing : people are tend to use a long sentence to explain if they do not know the meaning of a word for example.

3.5  The language issue

The issue is students are hard to find a wordd or grammar which they need to express themselves. There are a number of steps that teacher can take to help the students success in doing receptive skills:

·         Supply key language : before give students a new words, teacher may check their knowledge of key vocabulary and help them in doing the task. After that, give them the new vocabularies and ask them to use it in communicative activities.

·         Plan activites in advance : as the earlier stage, teacher should make a plan production activities that will provoke the use of language.

4.      Projects

Teacher may ask the students to make some project, for example teacher encourage students to produce a class newpaper, booklet which include pictures and their written words. Project will help students to prepare for a quick communicative activity.

4.1  Managing projects

Bellow are the ways of organizing the projects:

·         The briefing/the choice : in this way, teacher and students make some agrrement about the topic that would become their project.

·         Idea/language generation : when the students have their own idea about the topic, next they should decide how to get the information,etc. In here teacher also directing their topic.

·         Data gathering : students may get data from many sources like from internet, television, interview and radio.

·         Planning : in here students should make a plan of how the final project will be set out.

·         Drafting and editing: after doing the final written product, students will make a draft.

·         The result : the result of the projects is based on their topic, perhaps about making role play

·         Consultation/tutorial : teacher is very needed by the students as the tutors, advising and helping them progress in doing their project.

4.2  A webquest project

It is allow the teacher to get her/his students to do research from comfort of a computer terminal. In here, teachers and students are using an internet to investigate something such as to investigate seven or eight types of intelligence  then student should click on the screen based on teacher’s instruction.

C.     Synthesis/comments-criticim & position

The topic about teaching language skills- integrating the four language skills in Harmer (2007) are clearly enough to be informed to the readers. As a techer to be, Harmer has been succesfully make us realize that teaching language skills include integrating the four language skills are very important. On the other hand, if we read about this topic in Harmer (2007) better we also read another book relate to this topic to make increase our knowledge.  The topic about the four language skills should be placed in the beginning of the chapter from every book because before we are discuss about how to teach another skills one by one, it is badly for us to know and realize that skills are cannot be isolation.

D.    Conclusion

The conlusion of this topic are: there are four languge skills in English, such as listening, reading, speaking and writing. Listening and reading are categorized as the receptive skills otherwise speaking and writing are categorized as receptive skills. Those categorization are called as integrating four language skills. However, intergrating of the four language skills does not diminishes the importance of the rules of listening, speaking, reading and writing.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brown, Douglas. 1994. Teaching by Principles An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogh. USA: Prentice-Hall,Inc.

Harmer, Jeremy. 2007a. The Practice of English Language Teaching Fourth Edition. Malaysia: Pearson Education Limited.

Harmer, Jeremy. 2007b. The Practice of English Language Teaching Third Edition. UK:    

      Longman.

Mustopa, Mikdam. 2002. The Implementation of Integrated-Skills Principles in EFL Classroom.   

     UPI: unpublished.CHAPTER REPORT