Language skills: questions for

teaching and learning

Amos Paran

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This paper surveys some of the changes in teaching the four language
skills in the past 15 years. It focuses on two main changes for each skill:
understanding spoken language and willingness to communicate for
speaking; product, process, and genre approaches and a focus on feedback
for writing; extensive reading and literature for reading; and decoding and
metacognitive awareness for listening. This overview, however, suggests
that changes in theoretical understandings and in teacher training often
do not filter down to the classroom and that change is context dependent
to a very high degree. Overall, some of the changes that have been at work
in language teaching since the 1970s may not have reached classrooms in
compulsory education around the world.

Introduction Summarizing a decade and a half of change in the language classroom

is difficult enough, but additional factors make this enterprise even
more problematic. Some of these are discussed in the concluding
sections of this paper, but one issue which needs to be laid out in the
open at the very beginning is the continuing, paradoxical separation of
language skills. This separation contrasts with our understanding of
language use as entailing a relationship between at least two skills (and
often more), with our understanding of the importance of context in all
language use, and with current views of literacy and oracy. However,
from a pedagogical point of view, there are arguments for focusing on
skills in isolation at least some of the time.
The four main sections of this paper therefore focus on each
skill in turn and describe two important developments or current
characteristics for each. I then attempt to draw these points together
to provide an overview of the changes and the way they link to the ELT
landscape at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century.

Teaching speaking The most obvious changes in this area have been in our view of
Understanding what teaching speaking entails. This involves issues as varied as the
spoken language connection between teaching speaking and teaching pronunciation,
teaching aspects of conversation, teaching long turns, issues of teaching
spoken grammar, and the increasing pedagogical implementation of
previous understandings of conversation and pragmatics. The most

ELT Journal Volume 66/4 Special issue October 2012; doi:10.1093/elt/ccs045  450
© The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.
 important changes have resulted from a focus on naturalistic language
data, leading to an enhanced understanding of the phenomenon of
spoken language. Technological advances have made it possible for
some time to construct large corpora of spoken language, and what
is now known as the Nottingham School, building on such corpora,
has demonstrated what are seen as major differences between spoken
and written English. As a result, something of a divide has developed
between scholars who focus on the common core of spoken and

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written language and those scholars who go as far as claiming that
the differences between spoken English and Standard English are so
large that we should not consider Standard English as a spoken dialect
but only as a written one (see Mauranen 2006 for a clear overview of
the divisions in this field). In the middle are those who acknowledge
that there are differences between spoken and written English but
doubt the significance of these differences for language teachers and
learners (in spite of acknowledging the lure of what some coursebooks
call ‘real’ English). Many scholars stress that any implications of these
differences are likely to be relevant only to upper-intermediate and
advanced learners (though Hughes 2010 suggests that materials based
on these insights can, in fact, be adjusted to lower levels).
In all of these areas, a productive and provocative area of research has
been comparing corpus data and the representation of spoken language
in coursebooks and classrooms. Many studies focus on elements
that are missing and are not taught; for example how complaints are
presented, teaching learners to mitigate requests, the pedagogical
presentation of reported speech compared with its occurrence in
language corpora, or the use of vague language (see Wong and Waring
2010 for good coverage of many of these topics). All of these studies
also contribute important insights to the debate about the meaning and
role of authenticity in the language classroom.
The result of this increasingly nuanced understanding of speaking,
speech acts, and speech events, as well as the differentiation between
different types of talk, is that there is now much more to teach. Indeed,
Hughes (op.cit.: 209) points out that ‘materials for teaching speaking
need to synthesize what can be extracted from this immense variety
of spoken discourse types and contexts to form the basis of something
that can manageably be presented, taught, and assessed’. In addition,
longitudinal studies are making us increasingly aware of other
difficulties in implementing these findings: we now realize how long
it takes for learners, even those immersed in the language, not just to
incorporate specific elements of socio-pragmatic competence into their
linguistic behaviour, but even to just develop some awareness of these
phenomena.
Hughes goes on to suggest that the complexities of the skill itself mean
that ‘materials should generally, and perhaps paradoxically, not be too
ambitious in their aims’ (op.cit.: 210). She singles out two areas that
need to be focused on: firstly, an awareness of the differences between
written and spoken language; and secondly, strong language production
skills. (Interestingly, this last point includes areas that impinge on areas

Language skills: questions for teaching and learning 451

 such as voice projection, confidence, gesture, and gaze, all of which can
be seen as part of identity work, an important new element that has
emerged in the past ten years in L2 research.)
The points above have important implications for thinking about
classroom methodology. One is the way in which they refocus attention
on what native speakers say and the way they interact. The ‘Real
English’ corners in coursebooks are particularly problematic because
they often highlight areas of language that are highly susceptible to

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change, as well as highlighting localized varieties; this raises important
concerns with the definition of ‘native speaker’ and issues with the
lingua franca use of English. A second issue is that some of the basic,
and consistently valuable, principles used to generate classroom
communication—information gap or opinion gap, to take the most
basic ones—seem to be left by the wayside. Learners are asked to
express other people’s meanings and their conversations are managed
by others; if the learner is instructed to interrupt, what does this do
to the authenticity of classroom conversation? And what if learners
know how to interrupt but cannot generate appropriate content that
will justify the interruption? Some recent coursebooks, rather than
focusing on real communication within the classroom, seem to home
in much more on the structural elements of conversations and the
discoursal exponents expressing them. Real communication—learners
expressing their own meanings in words that they themselves have
chosen—is sometimes thrown out, and in some extreme cases, the
learners seem to be on a rollercoaster of functions and discourse
markers.

Willingness to A second focal point re-emerging recently is the challenge of getting

communicate learners to interact. As Hughes (op.cit.) points out, speaking is a
and reticence high-risk activity which can never be retracted or erased, making
some learners worry about speaking and losing face. Increasing
learner speaking time is therefore bound up with understanding
both learner and teacher contributions to the quantity and quality of
classroom interactions. Two strands are present here, one focusing on
the teacher and their role in encouraging learners to speak, the other
looking at reasons that learners themselves provide for their reticence.
Unfortunately, however, the picture that emerges is one where the IRF
(Initiation-Response-Feedback) sequence of interaction still dominates
in the classroom. We are becoming increasingly aware that learners
are often socialized into this pattern of response, and their expectations
are that this is how language classrooms will be conducted. Since
many teachers will also have been taught in classrooms where this
was the norm, the cycle may be extremely difficult to break. Wong and
Waring (op.cit.) invite teachers to reflect on the use of IRF sequences
and getting away from them, including what they call ‘identity shift’
(see also my comment on identity above). Interestingly, they also
suggest that in the language classroom, some of the most authentic
interchanges might be found in what could be considered off-task
exchanges.

452 Amos Paran

Teaching writing In the teaching of writing, as in the teaching of speaking, there is
Product, process, tension generated by different views of what teaching should focus on,
and genre though here these views have major implications for methodology. The
main division continues to be between product, process, and genre
approaches, the three approaches at the forefront of discussions of
the teaching of writing in the last few decades (with some variation in
terminology and conceptualization of the differences).
The relationship between these three approaches is complex. In

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many EFL classrooms, the main approach to writing is still very
clearly product oriented. The focus is on models, with little if any
thought of the way in which texts function in society; specific genres
are provided as prescriptive models intended for copying with
minimal adaptation, rather than as sources for generative discussion
intended to further an understanding of the genre being explored.
The tension that exists between the process approach (with its focus
on the cognitive process of writing, on generating ideas, drafting,
feedback from peers, and revising) and the genre approach (with
its focus on language in use and an understanding of why texts are
produced in the way that they are) is being played out in university
contexts only. It is almost exclusively in these contexts that we find
genre approaches or process approaches being implemented; the
latter, in particular, have made barely a dent in teaching L2 writing
in many educational levels and contexts. In the battle between genre
approaches and process approaches, the winner is normally the
impoverished product approach described above.
There is, however, some indication of a rapprochement between the
different camps. Badger and White (2000) outline what they call ‘a
process genre approach’, and similar ideas are also beginning to filter
through to different contexts. Tribble (2010) provides an illuminating
example of adapting a genre approach to test-taking situations at First
Certificate in English level, with a variety of examples of traditional
exercise types (for example scrambled paragraphs which need to be
ordered correctly) being imaginatively used to help learners understand
the functioning of the genres they are being asked to produce. Another
example is Firkins, Forey, and Sengupta (2007), who present an
adaptation of a genre approach to work with low-proficiency learners.
(Interestingly, Firkins et al. describe the implementation of a genre
approach in the context of students with learning difficulties, evidence
of the growing engagement of EFL educators with learners with Special
Educational Needs.)

The continuing The second major issue continuing to exercise teachers is feedback
focus on feedback on learners’ written production. This is the most common issue
raised when teachers discuss the teaching of writing: the realities of
the EFL classroom mean that teachers continue to be overwhelmed
by the amount of feedback they need to provide, or perhaps more
accurately, the amount of feedback they perceive they have to provide.
Although research indicates what is at best scepticism about the
efficacy of corrective feedback (see Bitchener and Knoch 2009 for a

Language skills: questions for teaching and learning 453

 recent survey of the debate), many teachers believe they have to provide
comprehensive feedback on all the language issues that arise from a
student text. This is paralleled by a strand of scholarship and research
with a strong focus on feedback on linguistic categories, rather than
on response to content. Thus, Ellis’s (2009) typology for corrective
feedback relates exclusively to error correction. Whereas in ESL contexts
there is a strong focus on writing as communication and a focus on
response to content, in EFL contexts most feedback on learner writing

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avoids responding to content (Furneaux, Paran, and Fairfax 2007).
Responding to content, of course, is one of the important tenets of the
process approach to teaching writing, and in that respect, it is notable
how little of this approach has filtered down to EFL classrooms. The
divide noted above between writing at university and writing at other
educational levels is thus apparent here as well.
One liberating element that has enabled writing in EFL classrooms
to focus on real communication and on response to content has been
technology. The near-ubiquity of the internet means that pairings
between classrooms around the world are much easier to form.
Learners are also much more likely to be motivated to use electronic
media than to use pen and paper, and indeed in many contexts,
learners will be doing most of their L1 writing through email and
text messaging. The new writing technologies can be harnessed in a
variety of ways in L2 teaching (though teachers point out that this has
downsides when it comes to exams).

Teaching reading Although for many teachers communicative language teaching is

Extensive reading still associated mainly with speaking, the challenge of understanding
reading from a communicative angle was in fact picked up very
quickly by reading specialists in the 1980s. Interestingly, a number of
important volumes that came out at the time continue to exert a strong
influence on the field, and the dominant view of reading, reading
strategies, and teaching them that was developed in the 1980s is still
valid in many respects. Our view of intensive reading does not seem to
have changed greatly; what does seem to have changed is a rebalancing
of reading focuses, with a fairly steady (though admittedly fairly slow as
well) move from intensive reading to extensive reading.

Like many of the other ideas discussed in this paper, extensive reading
is not new. However, it has been growing steadily over the last decade
or so, with research evidence accumulating to show how it can be seen
as a way of combining a large amount of input with an attention to
individual needs and differentiation. Grabe (2009: 311) comments on
the benefits of extensive reading, saying that ‘no other set of reading
activities or reading practice can substitute for reading a longer text with
reasonable comfort and without needing to stop constantly, and without
feeling fatigued or overwhelmed’. The question then arises of why the
practice of extensive reading is not more widespread; as Renandya and
Jacobs (2002) put it in their title, ‘Why aren’t we all doing it?’.

The reasons are complex. One set of reasons has to do with the type
of evidence that we have for the benefits of extensive reading. Grabe

454 Amos Paran

 (op.cit.) points out the difficulties in being able to experimentally
provide support for the benefits of extensive reading: this requires
longitudinal studies in which proficiency measures are tested before
and after the experimental intervention and in which other variables
are controlled. Because of the nature of the intervention, such studies
are very few and far between. Most of the support for extensive reading
comes from correlational studies and cannot therefore be taken as
conclusive evidence of a causal relationship between the extensive

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reading programme and learner achievement. However, Grabe (op.
cit.) suggests that the very large number of such studies, conducted
over many years and in a variety of educational contexts, is sufficient to
form a convincing argument and offset the weakness of correlational
evidence. In terms of the classroom, what is probably more germane to
the argument are the other reasons that Grabe cites, which have mainly
to do with the perceptions of different stakeholders—teachers, parents,
administrators, learners—of the efficacy of extensive reading, and the
lack of immediate specific indicators of success or individual learning
objectives which can be demonstrated to have been attained after
even one session and which have come to dominate some educational
contexts. (An interesting parallel to the point made earlier regarding
the length of time needed to develop awareness of some phenomena
of spoken English.) Extensive reading also involves devolving
responsibility (in different measures) to the learners, something which
some teachers may find difficult to do, preferring to maintain a central
role in the classroom (Renandya and Jacobs op.cit.).

The use of literature Another area making a comeback in the teaching of reading is the
use of literature in the language classroom, which figures notably
more in the discussion of reading than previously. The literature/
reading boundaries are not easy to define, but increasingly the use
of literature is included in teacher handbooks about the teaching of
reading (for example Hedgcock and Ferris 2009), as well as in research
into reading and into comprehension processes (though this assumes
that the processes of reading literature and of reading non-fiction
are the same, which is not necessarily the case). This may well be
because researchers realize that much of what most people read is
fiction in one form or another, rather than non-fiction. This is bound
up with the developments in the use of extensive reading, where the
majority of the texts are likely to be fiction. There is also a realization
that the way literature is taught can contribute to general language
development; for example Kim (2004) shows how literature circles
provide opportunities for interaction that go beyond the IRF sequence,
thus illustrating the link between the different skills that I commented
on earlier, and bringing home the point that reading does not exist in
isolation from the ways in which we talk and communicate about it.
There is increasingly imaginative use of contemporary literature as
well as non-canonical literature, such as thrillers, techno-thrillers, and
detective fiction, in a variety of settings (including, for example, English
for Specific Purposes). Many teachers integrate the use of technology
with literature. Both the use of literature and extensive reading are
thus examples in which teachers and materials writers are beginning

Language skills: questions for teaching and learning 455

 to confront issues of ecological validity in the classroom, as well as
incorporating understandings of the different ways we use language.

Teaching listening The impetus for change in the teaching of listening has been the
recognition that many learners find listening more difficult than most
teachers realize. In terms of teaching, listening has been the last of the
skills to shake off what Field (2008) calls a comprehension approach,
where the focus is on the product of listening, focusing mainly on

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answering comprehension questions at different levels; in effect, testing
listening rather than concentrating on teaching it (see also Goh 2008).
Whereas in the teaching of reading both researchers and teachers have
been talking about strategies since the early 1980s, focusing on the
process of reading rather than on comprehension as its elusive product,
with listening it is only in the past few years that the focus has shifted
to the process of listening rather than on its product. Within this shift
two important strands stand out, both of which focus on the process
of listening, though what is meant by the word ‘process’ is slightly
different in each case: one is a renewed interest and focus on decoding;
the other is a focus on metacognition and raising the awareness of
learners to the process of listening.

The role of decoding Our understanding of the importance of decoding in listening is rooted
in the fact that unlike the written word, the spoken word has many
forms. This refers not only to different speakers with different accents,
but also to the way in which even the same speaker will pronounce
words differently in natural connected speech from the way they are
pronounced in isolation. Almost any given word will have different
forms depending on a variety of factors, including speed of delivery,
register, and the phonetic environment. The result is that listeners
at all levels, but overwhelmingly at lower levels of proficiency, may
experience difficulties in recognizing words. Field (op.cit.) suggests
a variety of exercises focusing on decoding at the phoneme, syllable,
and word level. He suggests that within the multi-strand approach he
proposes for the development of listening, the process development
strand should focus on decoding for a substantial part of the learner’s
development.

The role of A complementary approach is advocated by Goh (op.cit.), who focuses

metacognition mainly on making the mental processes involved in listening clearer
to learners. Goh (ibid.) suggests that there are two main elements that
learners need to develop. One is metacognitive knowledge, in which
the learners develop an understanding of themselves as listeners,
understand the task of listening better, and understand the roles of
different strategies in listening. The second strand is metacognitive
strategies, in which learners are able to plan their listening, monitor
the progress of their comprehension, and evaluate the success of their
listening. Interestingly, much of the language in which Goh
(op.cit.) couches this second strand is similar to the language used in
discussions of the development of autonomy; importantly, through
such instruction, learners are hypothesized to learn to be able to set
their own goals for listening outside the classroom. This is similar to

456 Amos Paran

 the points made by White (2006), who suggests that shifting much of
the responsibility of learning listening to the learners is crucial in any
changes in the methodology of teaching this skill.

Conclusion: a The previous sections have outlined some of the developments in

spiky profile teaching the language skills in the last 15 years and the ways in which
language teaching has become increasingly complex, with a more
nuanced view of what learners need to achieve and a greater awareness

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of the complexity of achieving it. A number of developments are
evident to different degrees: a better understanding of various aspects of
language and of language processing; shifts in the view of what needs
to be taught; a better conceptualization of the different language skills
qua skills, and moving towards an understanding of how this skilled
behaviour can be learnt, away from focusing on the use of the skill to
learn language towards a focus on the skill itself; a balance of extensive
and intensive input and practice and a balance between exposure
to language and focus on specific elements; the focus on discoursal
functions both for production and for comprehension; the increasing
use of technology both in identifying what should be taught and how
it is taught; a focus on autonomy and shifting the responsibility to the
learner. There are also signs of a paradigm shift occurring in some
places, moving from a focus on teachers and teaching to learners and
learning. This shift is extremely productive in contexts where learners
are adults who are willing to take responsibilities on themselves, or
indeed, young learners. This shift is probably less productive, and less
successful, where secondary classrooms are concerned.
Overall, the changes exhibit a spiky profile. Some areas have undergone
great changes and possibly the beginning of a paradigm shift, others
show slow changes resulting from implementations of previous
theoretical developments, and others show little change. Indeed, the
changes described above play out differently in different contexts, and
it is crucial to recognize that many of the changes have ‘been slow to
percolate into materials development and, perhaps more importantly,
teacher training’, to quote Hughes’s (op.cit.: 213) point about teaching
speaking. To take the point further, even in cases where changes
have been evident in materials or in training, they have often failed
to penetrate the classroom. We do have increasing evidence that what
was a veritable teaching revolution in the 1970s, with a variety of
communicative approaches to language teaching, has not in fact filtered
down to the teaching profession to the extent that we like to think it has.
At best, the picture that emerges is of teachers battling with the conflict
between their beliefs, their training, the realities of the classroom, the
demands of parents and learners, the requirements to demonstrate
immediate attainment, and the increasing focus on exams.
The challenge remains for future researchers, materials writers,
and teacher trainers to find ways to work with teachers to facilitate
classroom change and the identity shift mentioned above (including
a shift away from the centre of the classroom) in environments where
other change is overloading them, and to establish a way in which our
understandings of language-teaching methodologies and of language

Language skills: questions for teaching and learning 457

 learning can be implemented in classrooms without being eroded. In
this sense, it is not only impossible to separate the different skills from
each other, but it is also impossible to separate changes in teaching
them from the developments described in the other papers in this
issue. Indeed, a surprising and possibly paradoxical conclusion to this
overview might be that developments in teaching the four skills can
only be achieved in the classroom through focusing on other aspects
of teaching.

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Grabe, W. 2009. Reading in a Second Language: Amos Paran is Senior Lecturer in Education at the
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academics and global English: a corpus Email: a.paran@ioe.ac.uk

458 Amos Paran