CHAPTER 15

INTEGRATING THE "FOUR SKILLS"

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 para-
mount importance. ESL curricula and textbooks around the world tend to focus on
one or two of the four skills, sometimes to the exclusion of the others. And a visit
to the most recent TESOL Convention will offer you a copious assortment of pre-
sentations indexed according to the four skills.
It is perfectly appropriate to identify language performance tlrns. The human
race has fashioned two forms of productive performance, oral and written, and two
forms of receptive performance, aural (or auditory) and reading. There are, of
course, offshoots of each mode. Lumped together under nonverbal communication
are various visually perceived messages delivered through gestures, facial expres-
sions, proximity, and so forth. Graphic art (drawings, paintings, and diagrams) is
also a powerful form of communication. But attention to the four different skills
does indeed pay off as learners of a second language discover the differences and
interrelationships among these four primary modes of performance.
Despite our history of treating the four skills in separate segments of a cur-
riculum, there is a recent trend toward skill integration. That is, rather than
designing a curriculum to teach the many aspects of one skill, say, reading, cur-
riculum designers are taking more of a whole language approach whereby reading
is treated as one of two or more interrelated skills. A course that deals with reading
skills, then, will also deal with related listening, speaking, and writing skills. A lesson
in a so-called reading class, under this new paradigm, might include

• a pre-reading discussion of the topic to activate schemata.

• listening to a lecture or a series of informative statements about the topic
of a passage to be read.
• a focus on a certain reading strategy, say, scanning.
• writing a paraphrase of a section of the reading passage.

This reading class, then, models for the students the real-life integration of language
skills, gets them to perceive the relationship among several skills, and provides the
teacher with a great deal of flexibility in creating interesting, motivating lessons.
232
•..
iii

CHAPTER 15 Integrating the " Four Skills" 233

iii
•• WHY INTEGRATION?

Some may argue that the integration of the four skills diminishes the importance of

•
iii
the rules of listening, speaking, reading, and writing that are unique to each separate
skill. Such an argument rarely holds up under careful scrutiny of integrated-skills
courses. If anything, the added richness of the latter gives sn1dents greater motiva-

•
iii
tion that converts to better retention of principles of effective speaking, listening,
reading, and writing. Rather than being forced to plod along through a course that
limits itself to one mode of performance, students are given a chance to diversify

•• their efforts in more meaningful tasks. Such integration can, of course, still utilize a
strong, principled approach to the separate, unique characteristics of each skill.

•
-••
So you may be wondering why courses weren't always integrated in the first
place. There are several reasons:

1. In the pre-Communicative Language Teaching cc1n days of language

teaching, the focus on the forms of language almost predisposed curriculum
designers to segment courses into the separate language skills. It seemed log-

•• ical to fashion a syllabus that dealt with, say, pronunciation of the phonemes
of English, stress and intonation, oral structural patterns (carefully sequenced

••
according to preswned grammatical difficulty), and variations on those pat-
terns. These language-based classes tended to be courses in "baby linguistics"

,. where a preoccupation with rules and paradigms taught students a lot about

-
language but sometimes at the expense of teaching language itself.
2. Administrative considerations still make it easier to program separate courses

,,, in reading and speaking, and so on, as a glance at current intensive and uni-
versity English courses reveals. Such divisions can indeed be justified when
one considers the practicalities of coordinating three-hour-per-week courses,

--
;J hiring teachers for each, ordering textbooks, and placing students into the
courses. It should be noted, however, that a proficient teacher who professes
to follow principles of CLT would never conduct, say, a "reading" class without
extensive use of speaking, listening, and writing in the class.
~

--,,, 3. Which leads to a third reason that not all classes are inteb>rated. There are
certain specific purposes for which students are studying English that may
best be labeled by one of the four skills, especially at the high intermediate to
advanced levels. In an academic setting such as a university, specialized work-

--,. shops, modules, tutorials, or courses may be constructed explicitly to improve

certain specialized skills. Thus a module in listening comprehension might
include instruction on listening effectively to academic lecrures, to fellow stu-
dents in the classroom, to audio programs where there are no visual cues, to

-,. the consultative register used in the professor's office, and even to fellow stu-
dents in casual conversation. Such a course might encompass phonological,
morphological, syntactic, lexical, semantic, and discourse elements.

-
234 CHAPTER 15 Integrating the ''Four Skills"

Aside from these caveats, the integration of the four skills is the only plausible
approach w ithin a communicative, interactive framework. Most of the interactive
techniques already described or referred to in this book involve the integration of
skills. The following observations support such techniques.

1. Production and reception are quite simply two sides of the same coin; one
cannot split the coin in two.
2. Interaction means sending and receiving messages.
3. Written and spoken language often (but not always!) bear a relationship to
each other; to ignore that relationship is to ignore the richness of language.
4. For literate learners, the interrelationship of w ritten and spoken language is
an intrinsically motivating reflection of language and culture and society.
5. By attending primarily to what learners can do with language, and only secon-
darily to the forms of language, we invite any or all of the four skills that are
relevant into the classroom arena.
6. Often one skill will reinforce another; we learn to speak, for example, in part
by modeling what we hear, and we learn to write by examining what we can
read.
7. Proponents of the whole language approach (see Chapter 3) have shown us
that in the real world of language use, most of our natural perfounance
involves not only the integration of one or more skills, but connections
between language and the way we think and feel and act.

How can you maintain an integrated-skills focus in your teacbing?Tbe following

five models are in common use. They all pull the direct attention of the student
away from the separateness of the skills of language and toward the meaningful pur-
poses for which we use language.

CONTENT-BASED INSTRUCTION

The first of the five models of integrated-skills approaches is content-based instruc-

tion. Quite simply, content-based (also known as "content-centered") language
teaching integrates the learning of some specific subject-matter content with the
learning of a second language (see previous explanation in Chapter 3). The overall
structure of a content-based curriculum, in contrast to many traditional language
curricula, is dictated more by the nature of the subject matter than by language
forms and sequences. The second language, then, is simply the medium to convey
informational content of interest and relevance to the learner. Here are some exam-
ples of content-based curricula:

• Immersion programs for elementary-school children

• Sheltered English programs (mostly found at elementary- and secondary-
school levels)
 CHAPTER 15 Integrating the "Four Skills" 235

• Writing across the curriculum (where writing skills in secondary schools

and universities are taught within subject-matter areas like biology, history,
art, etc.)
• English for Specific Purposes (ESP) (e.g., for engineering, agriculttu·e, or
medicine)

It is perhaps already clear that content-based teaching aUows learners to acquire

knowledge and skills that transcend au the bits and pieces of language that may
occupy hours and days of analyzing in a traditional language classroom. Research on
second language acquisition at various ages indicates the ultimate strength of
learning that is pointed toward practical non-language goals. The meaningful
learning principle applies well here. Learners are focused on very 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.
Can content-based teaching take place at all levels of proficiency, even begin-
ning levels? While it is possible to argue, for example, that certain basic survival skills
are themselves content-based and that a beginning level class could therefore be
content-based, such an argument extends the content-based notion beyond its
normal bounds. Content-based instruction usually pertains to academic or occupa-
tional instruction over an extended period of time at intermediate-to-advanced pro-
ficiency levels. Talking about renting an apartment one day, shopping the next,
getting a driver's license the next, and so on, is certainly useful and meaningful for
beginners, but would be more appropriately calJed task-based than content-based.
Content-based teaching presents some challenges to language teachers.
Allowing the subject matter to control the selection and sequencing of language
items means that you have to view your teaching from an entirely different per-
spective. You are first and foremost teaching geography or math or culture; secon-
darily you are teaching language. So you may have to become a double expert!
Some team-teaching models of content-based teaching alleviate this potential draw-
back. In some schools a subject-matter teacher and a language teacher link their
courses and curriculum so that each complements the other. Such an undertaking
is not unlike what Brinton, Snow, and Wesche (1989) describe as an "adjunct" model
of content-based instruction.
Content-based instruction allows for the complete integration of language
skills. As you plan a lesson around a particular subtopic of your subject-matter area,
your task becomes how best to present that topic or concept or principle. In such
lessons it would be difficult not to involve at least three of the four skills as your stu-
deocs read, discuss, solve problems, analyze data, and write opinions and reports.

iil:rDfE-BASED INSTRUCTION

1n order to distinguish theme-based teaching from content-based, it is important to

wSti:oguish between what I will call "strong" and "weak" versions of content-based
236 CHAPTER 15 Integrating the "Four Skills"

teaching (not to be confused in any way with "good" and "bad"). In the strong ver-
sion, the primary purpose of a course is to instruct students in a subject-matter area,
and language is of secondary and subordinate interest. All four of the examples of
content-based instruction are good illustrations of the strong version. English for
Specific Purposes (ESP) at the university level, for example, gathers engineering
majors together in a course designed to teach terminology, concepts, and current
issues in engineering. Because students are ESL students, they must of course learn
this material in English, which the teacher is prepared to help them with.
Immersion and sheltered programs, along with programs in writing across the cur-
riculum, are similarly focused.
A weak form of content-based teaching actually places an equal value on con-
tent and language objectives. While the cw-riculum, to be sure, is organized around
subject-matter area, both students and teachers are fully aware that language skills
do not occupy a subordinate role. Students have no doubt chosen to take a course
or curriculum because their language skills need improvement, and they are now
able to work toward that improvement without being battered with linguistically
based topics. The ultimate payoff is that their language skills are indeed enhanced,
but through focal attention to topic and peripheral attention to language.
This weak version is actually very practical and very effective in many instruc-
tional settings. It typically manifests itself in what has come to be called theme-
based or topic-based teaching. Theme-based instruction provides an alternative to
what would otherwise be traditional language classes by structuring a course
around themes or topics. Theme-based curricula can serve the multiple interests of
students in a classroom and can offer a focus on content while still adhering to insti-
tutional needs for offering a language course per se. So, for example, an intensive
English course for intermediate pre-university students might deal with topics of
current interest such as public health, environmental awareness, world economics,
etc. In the classroom students read articles or chapters, view video programs, dis-
cuss issues, propose solutions, and carry out writing assignments on a given theme.
English for Academic Purposes (EAP) in a university is an appropriate instance of
theme-based instruction.
Granted, there is a fuzzy line of distinction between theme-based instruction
and "traditional" language instruction. You could easily argue that many existing
reading and writing courses, for example, are theme-based in that they offer stu-
dents substantial opportunities to grapple with topics of relevance and interest. I
do not think it is imp ortant, or necessary, to dichotomize here. What is important
is to put principles of effective learning into action. The major principles under-
lying both theme-based and content-based instruction are

• automaticity
• meaningful learning
• intrinsic motivation
• communicative competence.
--.. CHAPTER 15 Integrating the Hfour Skills" 237

••
..• These principles are well served by theme-based instruction and/or by courses that
are su ccessfully able to get students excited and interested in some topic, issue, idea,
or problem.

-•• Numerous current ESL textbooks, especially at the intermediate to advanced

levels, offer theme-based courses of study. Challenging topics in these textbooks
engage the curiosity and increase motivation of students as they grapple with an
array of real-life issu es ranging from simple to complex and also improve their lin-
guistic skills.

•• Consider just one of an abundance of topics that have been used as themes
through which language is taught: environmental awareness and action. (For a col-
lection of environmentally theme-based ESL activities, see Hockman, Lee-Fong, &

•- Lew 1991.) With this topic, you are sure to find immediate intrinsic motivation-
we all want to survive! Here are some possible theme-based activities:

~
1. Use environmental statistics and facts for classroom reading, writing,
discussion, and debate. You don't h ave to look very far to find information
about environmental crises, research on the issues, and p ointers on what indi-
viduals can do to forestall a global disaster. Here are some things students can
do with such material:

[for intermediate to advanced students]

• scan [reading selections) for particular information
• do compare-and-contrast exercises
• look for biases in statistics
• use statistics in argument
• learn the discourse features of persuasive writing
• write personal opinion essays
• discuss issues
• engage in formal debates

[for beginning students)

• use imperatives ("Don't buy aerosol spray cans.")
• practice verb tenses ("The ozone layer is vanishing.")
• develop new vocabulary
• learn cardinal and ordinal numbers
• w ork with simple conversations/dialogues like:
A: Why do you smoke?
B: Because I like it.
A: You shouldn' t smoke.
B: Well, it makes m e less nervous.
A: But it's not good for your health.
B: I don' t care.
A : Well, you will die young.
238 CHAPTER 15 Integrating the "Four Skills"

2. Carry out research and writing projects. When your ESL syllabus calls
for a research project, an intrinsically motivating assignment is to research an
environmental topic. Libraries, bookstores, newsstands, television and radio,
and even political campaigns are fruitful sources of information. While indi-
vidual projects are suitable, you can also encourage students to work in pairs
or teams, each assigned to a different aspect of an issue. Data are sought,
gathered, and synthesized; counter-a.r guments are explored; and results are
presented orally and/or in writing to the rest of the class.
3. Have students create their own envirorunental awareness material.
Whether you are teaching adults or children, beginning or advanced students,
you can get a great deal of language and content material out of a language
experience approach (see Chapter 17) in which students create leaflets,
posters, bulletin boards, newsletter articles, or even a booklet that outlines
practical things they can do to "save the earth." If time and equipment
permit, some exciting projects can be done with a video camera, such as an
information program, a drama, interviews, or news reports.
4. Arrange field trips. These could involve a pre-trip module (of perhaps sev-
eral days) of reading, researching, and other fact-finding, and a post-trip
module of summary and conclusions. Field trips can be made to recycling
centers, factories that practice recycling, wildlife preserves, areas that need
litter removed (abandoned lots, beaches, parks), etc.
5. Conduct simulation games. A number of simulation games are being cre-
ated that use the environmental crisis as a theme around which to build var-
ious scenarios for the gaming process. Some games get quite elaborate, with
countries of the world and their respective resources represented by objects
like egg cartons, bottles, cans, newspapers, and the like, and players charged
to resolve problems of unequal distribution of wealth as well as environ-
mental controls.

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

Closely related to and overlapping content-based and theme-based instruction is the

concept of experiential language learning. Experiential learning includes activities
that engage both left- and right-brain processing, that contextualize language, that
integrate skills, and that point toward authentic, real-world purposes. So far, as Janet
Eyring ( 1991) points out, experiential learning is a phrase describing everything in
the last five cl1apters of this book. But what experiential learning highlights for us is
giving students concrete experiences through which they "discover" language princi-
ples (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: 347). That is, teachers do not simply tell students about how lan-
guage works; instead, they give students opportunities to use language as they
grapple with the problem-solving complexities of a variety of concrete experiences.
-•• CHAPTER 15 Integrating the "Four Skills" 239

• According to Morris Keeton and Pamela Tate, in experiential learning

~
The learner is directly in touch with the realities being studied. It is con-

--• trasted with learning in which the learner only reads about, hears about,
talks about, or writes about these realities but never comes in contact with
them as part of the learning process .... It involves direct encounter with
the phenomenon being studied rather than merely thinking about the
encounter or only considering the possibility of doing something with it.

•• (1978: 2)

-.... Experiential learning is not so much a novel concept as it is an emphasis on the

marriage of two substantive principles of effective learning, principles espoused by
the famous American educator John Dewey: (a) one learns best by "doing," by active
experimentation, and (b) inductive learning by discovery activates strategies that
enable students to "take charge" of their own learning progress. As such it is an
especially useful concept for teaching children, whose abstract intellectual pro-
cessing abilities are not yet mature.
Experiential learning techniques tend to be leamer-centered by nature.

.
Examples of learner-centered experiential techniques include:
• 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.
But some teacher-controlled techniques may be considered experiential:
• using props, realia, visuals, show-and-tell sessions
• playing games (which often involve strategy) and singing
• utilizing media (television, r-...tdio, and movies).
Experiential learning tends to put an emphasis on the psychomotor aspects of
language learning by involving learners in physical actions into which language is
subsumed and reinforced. Through action, students are drawn into a utilization of
m ultiple skills.
One specialized form of experiential learning that has been quite popular in
elementary-school teaching for several decades is the Language Experience
a pproach (LEA) (Van Allen & Allen 1967), an integrated-skills approach initially
used in teaching native language reading skills, but more recently adapted to second
language learning contexts. With widely varying adaptations, students' personal
experiences (a trip to the zoo, a television story, a picture, etc.) are used as the basis
for discussion, and then the teacher writes down tl1e "experience." Students can
rhen recopy, edit, and/or illustrate the story, which is preserved in the form of a
·book.~ A number of activities can then follow, including word study, spelling focus,
semantic discussions, inference, prediction, etc. The benefit of the LEA is in the
240 CHAPTER 15 Integrating the "Four Skills"

intrinsic involvement of students in creating their own stories rather than being
given other people's stories. As in other experiential techniques, students are
directly involved in the creative process of fashioning their own products.

THE EPISODE HYPOTHESIS

More than a hundred years ago, Franc;ois Gouin, if you will recall from Chapter 2,
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 fol-
lowed storyline. You may remember the sequence of sentences about opening a
door. In another lesson, Gouin teaches a number of verbs, verb forms, and other
vocabulary in a little story about a girl chopping wood:

The girl goes and seeks a piece of wood.

She takes a hatchet.
She draws near to the block.
She places the wood on this block.
She raises the hatchet.
She brings down the hatchet.
The blade strikes against the wood. etc.

In easily visualized steps, the students are led through the process of chopping and
gathering wood, all at a very elementary level of the language.
In some ways, Gouin was utilizing a psychological device that, a hundred years
later,John Oller called the episode hypothesis. According to Oller (1983b: 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 presenta-
tion 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 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.
You can see that this conversation, while easily understood, clearly presented, and
perhaps quite relevant to students learning English, lacks a certain sense of drama-
of "what's going to happen next?" Most of our communicative textbooks have
many Jack and Tony types of presentation. They may illustrate certain grammatical
or discourse features , but they don't grip the learner with suspense.
--.. CHAPTER 15 Integrating the "Four Skills" 241

•
--- Now consider another conversation (Brinton & Neuman 1982: 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

--- Meg:
isn't home yet.
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:

Gary:
She's probably with Gary. He has Little League practice until
five .
Darlene: I hear the front door. Maybe that's Gary and Chrissy.
Hi.

-• 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 w ith 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.
This conversation uses a familiar setting and ordinary characters to whet the
curiosity of tl1e reader. Because the outcome is not clear, learners are motivated to
continue reading and to become m ore involved in the content than in the language,
ilierefore increasing its episodic flavor. Oller notes that the interaction of cognition
10d language enables learners to form "expectancies" as they encounter either logi-
cally or episodically linked sentences. Moreover, "stories" are universal, and there-
fore students from many different cultures can understand their organizational
srructure and identify with the characters.
You may be wondering how the episode hypothesis contributes or relates to
.megrated-skilJs teaching. Here are some possible ways:

• Stories or episodes challenge the teacher and textbook writer to present

interesting, natural language, whether tl1e language is viewed as written dis-
course or oral discourse.
• Episodes can be presented in either written or spoken form, thus requiring
reading and/or writing skilJs on the students' part.
• Episodes can provide the stimulus for spoken or written questions that stu-
dents respond to, in turn, by speaking or writing.
• Students can be encouraged to write their own episodes, or to complete an
episode whose resolution or climax is not presented (such as the above
conversation).
242 CHAPTER 15 Integrating the "Four Skills"

• Those written episodes might then be dramatized in the classroom by the

students.

Now, it must be noted that the reality of the language classroom is such that not
every aspect of language can be embedded in gripping dramatic episodes that have
students yearning for the next day's events, as they might with a favorite soap opera!
Linguistic samples like the conversation between Jack and Tony are quite
respectable and pedagogically useful. Drills, writing practice, grammar explana-
tions, essays on the world economy, and many other non-episodic activities have a
viable place in the classroom. But to the extent that a curriculum allows it, episodic
teaching and testing may offer a rewarding alternative to sprinkle into your daily
diet of teaching techniques.

TASK-BASED TEACHING

Task-based learning was defined and briefly discussed in Chapters 3 and 9. As you
will recall, there are a number of different interpretations in the literature on what,
exactly, a task is. What these various understandings all emphasize, however, is the
centrality of the task itself in a language course and, for task-based teaching as an
overall approach, the importance of organizing a course around communicative
tasks that learners need to engage in outside the classroom. Let me remind you of
Peter Skehan's (1998a: 95) capsulization of a task as an activity in which

• meaning is primary,
• there is some communication problem to solve,
• there is some sort of relationship to comparable real-world activities,
• task completion has some priority,
• the assessment of the task is in terms of outcome.

Task-based teaching makes an important distinction between target tasks,

which students must accomplish beyond the classroom, and pedagogical tasks,
which form the nucleus of the classroom activity. Target tasks are not unlike the
functions of language that are listed in Notional-Functional Syllabuses (see Chapter
2, here, and Chapter 9 of PLLT); however, they are much more specific and more
explicitly related to classroom instruction. If, for example, "giving personal infor-
mation" is a communicative function for language, then an appropriately stated
target task might be "giving personal information in a job interview." Notice that tl1e
task specifies a context. Pedagogical tasks include any of a series of techniques
designed ultimately to teach students to perform the target task; the climactic ped-
agogical task actually involves students in some form of simulation of the target task
itself (say, through a role-play simulation in w hich certain roles are assigned to pairs
of learners).
 CHAPTER 15 Integrating the "Fo ur Skills" 243

Pedagogical tasks are distinguished by their specific goals that point beyond
the language classroom to the target task. They may, however, include both fonnal
and functional techniques. A pedagogical task designed to teach students to give
personal information in a job interview might, for example, involve

1. exercises in comprehension of wh- questions with do-insertion ("When do

you work at Macy's?").
2. drills in the use of frequency adverbs ("I usually work until five o 'clock.").
3 . listening to extracts of job interviews.
4. aoalyzing the grammar and discourse of the interviews.
;. modeling an interview: teacher and one student.
6. role-playing a simulated interview: students in pairs.

:i."hile you might be tempted to consider only the climactic task (#6) as the one ful-
filling the criterion of pointing beyond the classroom to the real world, all of the
techniques build toward enabling the students to perform the final technique.
A task-based curriculum, then, specifies what a learner needs to do with the
English language in terms of target tasks and organizes a series of pedagogical tasks
intended to reach those goals. Be careful that you do not look at task-based
teaching as a hodge-podge of useful little things that the learner should be able to
do. all thrown together haphazardly into the classroom. In fact, a distinguishing fea-
rure of task-based curricula is their insistence on pedagogical soundness in the
development and sequencing of casks. The teacher and curriculum planner are
called upon to consider carefully the following dimensions of communicative tasks:

• goal
• input from the teacher
• techniques
• the role of the teacher
• the role of the learner
• evaluation

In task-based instruction, the priority is not the bits and pieces of language, but
rather the functional purposes for which language must be used. While content-
based instruction focuses on subject-matter content, task-based instruction focuses
on a whole set of real-world tasks themselves. Input for tasks can come from a
.ariety of authentic sources:

• speeches • interviews
• conversations • oral descriptions
• narratives • media extracts
• public announcements • games and puzzles
• cartoon strips • photos
244 CHAPTER 15 Integrating the "Four Skillsn

• letters • diaries
• poems • songs
• directions • telephone directories
• invitations • menus
• textbooks • labels

And the list goes on and on. The pedagogical cask specifies exactly what learners
will do with the input and what the respective roles of the teacher and learners are.
The evaluation thereof forms an essential component that determines its success
and offers feedback for performing the task again w ith another group of learners at
another time.
Task-based curricula differ from content-based, theme-based, and experiential
instmction in that the course objectives are somewhat more language-based. While
there is an ultimate focus on communication and purpose and meaning, the goals
are linguistic in nature. They are not linguistic in the traditional sense of just
focusing on grammar or phonology; but by maintaining the centrality of functions
like greeting people, expressing opinions, requesting information, etc., the course
goals center on learners' pragmatic language competence.
So we have in task-based teaching 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. These tasks virtually always
imply several skill areas, not just one, and so by pointing toward tasks, we disengage
ourselves from thinking only in terms of the separate four skills. Instead, principles
of listening , speaking, reading, and writing become appropriately subsumed under
the rubric of what it is our learners are going to do with this language.
We h ave considered five different ways to approach the integration of the four
skills. The principal idea h ere is for you not to assume that all your techniques
should be identified with just one of the four, but rather that most successful inter-
active techniques will include several skill areas. In the n ext four chapters, we will
look at those four components, but not with a view to programming your language
teaching into compartments. Instead, these next chapters should help you to
become aware of goals, problems, issues, and trends that relate to each of the four
modes of communication.
 •
•• CHAPTER 15 Integrating the "Four Skills" 245

•• TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION, RESEARCH, AND ACTION

•• [Note: (I) Individual work; (G) group or pair work; (C) whole-dass discussion.]

1. (I) Review the reasons (p. 233-34) for not integrating skills in ESL courses.
Can you add others? If you know of certain courses that are not integrated,
can these three-or any other-justifications be advanced for keeping them
non-integrated?
2. (G) Direct pairs to look at the seven observations (p. 234) in support of inte-
grated-skills classes. Pairs will discuss whether or not they apply to contexts
they are familiar with. Would one be able to add any more justification for
integrating the skills?
3. (G/C) Ask pairs to collaborate in writing brief definitions of each of the five
types of integrated-skills-instruction discussed in this chapter: content-based,
theme-based, experiential, the episode hypothesis, and task-based teaching.
Then, direct the whole class to make a list of various institutions that teach
ESL and discuss the extent to which each model does or does not fit the insti-
tution.
4. (G) Ask pairs to consider the following: Suppose you are asked to employ a
teacher for a content-centered curriculum. What qualifications would you
draw up for such a teacher?
;. (G) Direct groups each to consider a different audience and context, then to
design a theme-based lesson or module on environmental action and aware-
ness. As they plan the techniques, they should discuss any "political" implica-
tions of what they might ask students to do. Groups will then share their
lessons with the rest of the class.
6. (l/C) Look in a library or resource center for books that could be classified as
theme-based. Select one to evaluate, perhaps with a partner. Are both lan-
guage and content goals fulfilled? Are the four skills well integrated?W ill stu-
dents be intrinsically motivated to study the book? Are the other three
principles (cited on p. 236) evident in the design of the book? Share your
thoughts with the rest of the class.
- (G/ C) Ask pairs to design an episodic activity and share the activity with the
rest of the class.
8. (G/ C) Once again, the term "task-based" is presented in this chapter. Ask the
class to define it again w ithout referring to this chapter or to Chapter 3.
Then , have partners design a task that involves several techniques, share their
cask with the rest of the class, and give a rationale for the design.
246 CHAPTER 15 lntegraring the "Four Skills"

FOR YOUR FURTIIER READING

Willis,Jane. 1996. A Framework for Task-Based Learning. London: Longman.

This handbook for teachers is designed to illustrate how task-based instruc-
tion can be used as the central focus in a supportive methodological frame-
work. A multitude of different types of tasks are spelled out in detail.
Long, Michael H. and Crookes, Graham. 1992. "Three approaches to task-based
syllabus design." TESOL Quarterly 26: 27-56.
Three task-based syllabus types- procedural, process, and task-are
described and analyzed. Alt three types reject linguistic elements as the unit
of analysis and opt instead for some conception of task. All three are
different, however, in ways that are explained in the article.

Brinton, Donna M., Snow, Marguerite Ann, and Wesche, Mru.jorie B. 1989. Content-
Based Second Language Instruction. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Three different content-based approaches-theme-based, sheltered, and
adjunct-are examined. The book presents profiles of several exemplary
programs and explores the contexts appropriate for the different models.
Guidelines for designing a content-based curriculum are offered.

Legutke, Michael and TI1omas, Howard. 1991. Process and Experience in the
Language Classroom. Longman.
Communicative language teaching is seen in this book as an experiential
and task-driven process. The authors describe practical attempts to utilize
project tasks especially, both as a means of realizing task-based language
learning and of redefining the roles of teacher and learner within a jointly
constructed curriculum. ·