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METHODS OF TEACHING ENGLISH LANGUAGE SKILLS
Ismailova S.T. ®
English teacher Ferghana branch of the Tashkent Medical Academy
Keywords: methods, critical thinking, purpose, activities, teaching techniques, integrate, competent.
Actuality of the theme the problem of searching for new approaches, technologies and teaching aids of students' training, which lay the basis of competent, successful and promising personalities of the country. The problems of acquiring basic skills in the areas of listening comprehension, reading comprehension, speaking (dialogue and monologue) and writing, and thus of developing communicative competence, which can be further developed life-long, depending on the individual needs. The large number of new approaches to training to foreign languages demands methodological validation of this problem.
Purpose of the research: to enhance motivation in teaching English in EFL, and offer practical suggestions for broadening one's teaching approaches to accommodate a wider range of learner characteristics while helping students develop a more flexible, empowered approach to diverse learning contexts and tasks, to contribute with this research work in giving detailed information to overcome the difficulties we can have as teachers.
Research methods of the work is to examine various theories, methods, approaches and strategies. Interview questions were prepared and used during the interviews. Two interview questions were made, one with questions aimed for the students and one aimed for the teachers. A checklist was prepared to use during the observations, to ensure that the same information was gathered from each class and the different classrooms. This also served as guidelines to show what to look for during the observations.
Results of the research work and its discussion: analyze Reading Skills of English among medical students and methodical processing of texts, activities to develop reading, writing, speaking and listening skills of medical students.
There are many teaching approaches that can be used in teaching English. The teacher is advised to choose the method to use depending on: objectives, content, resources available, learners" abilities and interests as well as class size. The manner in which teaching takes place is a major factor that may influence students" development of language skills. Integration of English language and literature means that teachers are assumed to have a good mastery of the language and also a clear understanding and appreciation of literature, and are able to teach each as a function of the other. This means that the teachers are expected to teach English language using literary texts, and also to teach literature using various skills of English
The integrated English course also requires integration of English language skills in teaching. Teachers, therefore, needed adequate training and retraining in the integrated approach for them to function well in their teaching of integrated English course. In view of this, the teachers" teaching techniques may not be suitable for the integration and development of the English language skills. It is obvious that there is need for in-service training for teachers of English so that they can cope with the demand of the new course, which requires new approaches and techniques to teaching English. Therefore, teachers must know how to integrate, not only English language and literature, but also how to integrate within the various aspects of English language skills namely: listening, speaking, reading and writing.
This is aimed at equipping the students with relevant skills to be able to perform better in English language. The British Council introduced the Secondary English Language Project (SELP 1988-1992). The purpose of SELP was to acquaint the already serving teachers with integrated English innovation and to quip them with new skills to enable them implement the
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course fully. Despite all these efforts to make the teaching of integrated English and to help improve the students" mastery of the English language, there are still many challenges facing the teacher in her/his efforts in the realization of teaching and learning English as a foreign language. Main purpose of the unit was therefore to examine teaching techniques that enhance integration in the development of the four English language skills.
Teaching Listening and Speaking
Listening and speaking are normally integrated as they go together. As for skill, Collin's English Dictionary describes it as a special ability in a task, sport-especially ability acquired by training. Although speaking as a productive skill is complete in itself, there is an interdependent of oral skills in communication. Oral skills transcend absolutely making of verbal utterances. The main goal of the language teacher in striving to improve learners" oral skills or interaction skills should be to equip such learners with the full repertoire of language skill needed to function with confidence in any situation outside the classroom, where they no longer have any control over what is said to them. For this reason poor skills development would automatically cause breakdown of understanding almost immediately, resulting into nervousness, which in turn may further inhibit the ability to speak. They further point out that unless a learner is able to deal with English only in its written form, there is no escape from the acquisition of at least the rudimentary elements of English pronunciation. Therefore, amount of time should be devoted to practice in the spoken language. Since opportunity to engage in genuine communication in a second language or foreign language learning situations are rare, the teacher has to create opportunities and situations that promote this intentionally. To bridge the gap between the classroom and the real world outside, the teacher can use teaching techniques that promote this, such as role play, dramatization, discussions and communication games among others.
Teaching Reading
Reading is an important skill that not only helps the learners in the mastery of English, but also enhances their performance in other subjects in the school curriculum. The teacher of English should therefore provide opportunities for learners to develop the various reading skills in order to undertake successfully intensive reading, extensive reading and comprehension.
In my opinion the syllabus presents the content for reading skill in a spiral approach. For example, comprehension skills are covered from Form One to Form Four. The skills taught in Form one includes recall, comprehension and application. In Form Two analysis is introduced and in Form Three synthesis and evaluation are introduced. It is recommended that the teaching of reading be integrated with the teaching of other language skills and grammar. This should be done through debate or a writing task from an extract of a literary text.
Unfortunately, we are getting students who are less and less interested in reading in English language. The effect is that many of them are not fully literate by the time they get to form 4. Some students read the passage casually and then attempt answering the questions from memory. Students generally tend to be too brief in answering questions. The teacher should aim at training the learners to read fluently and efficiently. It is the acquisitions of these skills that will enable the learners to undertake extensive and intensive reading in order to develop comprehension.
Teaching Writing
Writing is the advanced language skill that requires the learner to communicate ideas effectively. It trains the learners to be organized and to think critically and creatively as he or she responds to situations. The ability to write well is, therefore, essential for success in any academic discipline. Writing is also a lifelong skill. It is part of the personal development skills that are useful beyond the classroom. Teachers should, therefore, engage the students in as much writing sub-skills as possible. Some researchers point out that many teachers of writing have long been dissatisfied with the traditional paradigm and its implications for classroom practice. Consequently, research into the intensive and comprehensive studies of the development of writing abilities has aroused the need for a new pedagogy of writing. In view of these discussions, classroom procedures of teaching writing skills should therefore follow certain
principles and techniques which enhance integration in the development of the four language skills.
Techniques in Integrating Skills Read views the integration of skills in the language classroom simply as a series of activities or tasks which use any combination of the four skills-Listening (L), Speaking (S), Reading (R) Writing (W) in a continuous and related sequence.
The activities in the sequence may be related through the topic or through the language or through both. She observes that an important feature of the sequence is the interlocking nature of the activities; to a large extent each task develops from those that have come before and prepares for those that are to follow. The skills are thus not practiced in isolation but in a closely interwoven series of tasks, which mutually reinforce and build each other. She points out that if students are provided with integrated skills practice, it allows for continuity in the teaching/learning program. Those tasks and activities are not performed in isolation but are closely related and dependent on each other. If the four skills are integrated, it will provide variety and can be invaluable in maintaining motivation. It also allows naturally for the recycling and revision of language, which has already been taught and is therefore, often helpful for remedial teaching.
Byrne stressing on the importance of integrating skills, says that the need to integrate skills in English language teaching has been emphasized and is not a new feature of writing program. He says that many of the communication activities and „fun" writing integrate talking and writing (and sometimes reading) in a natural way. He therefore, proposes that if the teacher wants to increase the amount of skill integration in her daily teaching and this is worthwhile because it allows the learners to use language naturally[1].
Mathews et al. (1991: 73) justifies integration of language skills by giving two main reasons; to practice and extend the student use of a particular language structure or function and to develop the students" ability in two or more of the four skills within a constant context[4].
This, they claim ensures, continuity of the learning program because the activities are closely related either in terms of content and are dependent on each other, the four skills are developed in a realistic situation which allows flexibility, an opportunity is given to the learners to use language in different contexts, modes and with different participants. This variety breaks the monotony of having to deal with one variety at a time and finally, there is a linkage of the skills. In support of integration, the unit therefore, aims to find out teaching techniques that enhance integration and development of English language skills while teaching in medical academy. I think the classroom observation would be very important for this study.
One more objective of this chapter was to find out which language skill teachers found difficult to integrate. Teachers of Fergana state university and Fergana branch of Tashkent medical academy were asked to state language skills they found difficult to integrate. The responses fixed and the frequency showed the level of responses. The frequency indicates how many times the responses were recorded.
Teachers Found Difficult to Integrate English Language Skills
Skill(s) difficult to integrate Frequency Percentage
Listening 14 70
Speaking 3 15
Reading 2 10
Writing 1 5
Total 20 100
Conclusion. Teachers were asked which language skill(s) they found difficult to integrate. Based on the results, majority, seventy percent (70%) indicated that listening skill was difficult to integrate, fifteen percent (15%) speaking, ten percent (10%) reading while only five
percent (5%) cited writing to be difficult to integrate. Results show that speaking and listening were difficult to integrate by English language teachers when teaching. Teachers attributed this to the fact that wrong forms of spoken English have over time, become institutionalized in society. Teachers also listed the following as challenges affecting their teaching and integrating language skills: (1) Teachers felt that the hours given for integration of skills was not enough to enable them teach them effectively. Due to this they could not use the recommended techniques or improvise some resources, (2) some teachers complained that since they trained on specialized in one area they found it difficult to teach the other area which they had no interest, (3) some teachers complained of lack of knowledge on integrated skills leading to poor lesson preparation. They also said that speaking and listening calls for a lot of involvement of the students.
References
1. Byrnes, H. (1998). Learning foreign and second languages. Perspectives in research and Scholarship. The U.S. The modern language association of America.
2. Cook, V. (2008). Second language learning and language teaching. Fourth edition.Routledge.
3. Dudeney, G., Hockly, N. 2008. How to Teach English with Technology,3rd impression, Longman, 2008, ISBN 978-1-405-85308-8.
4. Mathews, A., Spratt, M. and Dangerfield, L. (1991). At the Chalk Face. Practical Techniques in Language teaching. Hong Kong: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd.
