THE SIGNIFICANCE OF IS APPROACH IN FLL

ABSTRACT

The IS approach, which includes listening, speaking, reading, and writing, has become an efficient way in FLL classroom.  Integrated skills are connected with each other immensely and have an influence on each other when it comes to use your foreign language knowledge.

Keywords: integrated skills, segregated skills, language acquisition.

In daily life people use various means of communication to keep in touch with others. Also everyone takes advantage of language skills to be in contact with surroundings. Usually we use our tongue to produce a speech or to communicate with people. We use our ears to listen to each other while conversing and they serve us to receive information. Combining this two cases we can inform some piece of report through speaking or in other way – writing. Then it is read by someone. In general a person speaks, another one listens, then writes and the result will be read. Therefore, all the skills are related to each other and they cannot be used in isolation. All of them serve as a bridge between a person and society as a means of socializing.

Coming to FLL, in order to achieve a foreign language acquisition, a learner should study universally. Learning universally means that the student should try to sharpen all of his language skills and use them as possible as he can. Tajzad and Namaghi’s (2014) observation revealing that Iranian EFL learners actually had an acceptable knowledge of language components such as grammar, vocabulary and the like but could rarely use them to communicate in English because class time was devoted to learning grammar, vocabulary and the isolated reading skill and rarely provided chance to use language skills in an integrated fashion. Really, learning just new words for vocabulary supply and focusing on just grammar can limit learner’s chances to reach high language capacity. I don’t mean that learning grammar and vocabulary can’t help the learner broaden their knowledge on English. But if he doesn’t use to do activities or tasks related to listening or speaking, it cannot lead the learner to the destination of perfect proficiency.

In learning process of any foreign language, teaching methodology is mostly the same, i.e. listening, speaking, reading and writing skills approaches are used in class. Through the ability of hearing or listening to some speech in foreign language, learner can be motivated to produce his thoughts or opinions according to what he has listened to. Also, if learner reads some piece of text in FL, it can lead him to write summary of what he has read. Consequently, every skill can be a reason for another skill to be used.

For the purpose of determining a level of language competence the four language skills are tested. Apparently, IELTS and TOEFL can be an example for language proficiency testing in integration. These testing systems are established as an international and efficient way to check knowledge on English. In our country there’s a testing system of foreign language proficiency that differs from IELTS with an extra competence. In this system five parameters (Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing and Lexical & Grammatical competence) are tested. Accordingly, to examine language mastery, the most effective way is to check IS which presents the whole language capability of learner.

Carols (1990) posited that the integration of skills in the language classroom is simply a series of activities or tasks which use any combination of the four skills in a continuous and related sequence. I think the most exciting and efficient way to learn a language is to study with different activities using all the language skills. All the skills above-mentioned are related to each other immensely as it is called “Integrated Skills”. For instance, in EFL classroom a learner is given a mixed task (pictures and pieces of text). If teacher orally explains how to do it, in this case a student should have a listening ability to understand a purpose of the task. If he isn’t able to catch anything, he tries to be aware of how to accomplish it. So he should be able to ask from the teacher in English or discuss it with co-learners. Now, this circumstance lets the student use his speaking skill. Then he might be asked to narrate the text or to write a short summary of the text. As a result, a learner needs to use his speaking and writing skills. In other words, even just one task may require all the four skills at a time. Furthermore, in classroom teacher should devote the lesson to two or more language skills, e.g. listening and speaking, or reading, writing and speaking. If so, pupil’s interest in the language increases and the learning process will be more effective with a range of activities. Vice versa, focusing on just one skill, e.g. writing, or only reading, makes the student bored.

However, in some classes the skills are segregated, i.e. they are learned or taught in isolation. For instance, in EFL classroom lesson is devoted for only speaking or reading. In that case, pupils are able to focus on only these skills. This method may be powerful to enhance speaking or writing skills, but the other skills may decrease because of less attention. Therefore, segregated skills approach is not much advantageous in EFL acquisition.

According to the teachers presenting one skill discretely from the others, focusing on more than one skill at a time can be instructional impossible (Oxford, 2001). In earlier education experience, it is known that all the four skills are taught in isolation. Students just studied grammatical structures, rules and translated some texts from English into their mother tongues. As a result, this experience was not enough to master the language and to use it in communication as a native speaker of the target language.

I think nowadays impossibility of teaching students in an integrated way is that both teachers and students are used to learn in a segregated way. Thus, they cannot adapt for the new method which has become a successful approach among modern learners.

Raimes (1983) argued that to make language learning classes as close as possible to real-life communicative situations, activities that let students use all the language skills must be organized. In order to get a high result in language perfection, a natural atmosphere should be created which includes skills integration and a factor that makes a student interested in it. The surrounding which is formed of people of TL i.e. native speakers can motivate learners to do their best. They try to speak in the way how the native speaker does, to read like the native reads, totally, they begin to imitate the real native speaker in all the way what he does. Hence, the encirclement which a learner is included is a major factor that stimulates to learn beneficially.

To achieve this success activities and ways of using skills integration still should be improved. As well as possibilities for development of language skills should be provided to motivate learners to make their dreams of foreign language perfection come true.

References:

1. Carol, R. (1990). At the Chalkface: Practical Techniques in Language Teaching. ELT Methodology. Longman.
2. Oxford, R. (2001). Integrated skills in the ESL/EFL classroom. Wasgington DC, US: Maryland University.
3. Raimes, A. (1983). Techniques in teaching writing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
4. Tajzad, M. & Namaghi, S. A. O. (2014). Exploring EFL Learners’ Perceptions of Integrated Skills Approach: A Grounded Theory. English Language Teaching, 7(11), 92-98.