The Four Skills Of ESL

The Four Main skills of ESL

The four language skills

A language covers many forms of communication. When teaching ESL, the four skills reading, writing, speaking and listening are considered. In order for the teaching to be affective, and proficiency to be achieved in the target language it is necessary to approach each of the language skills in different ways.

A broad teaching method such as the direct method could in theory be applied to the four skills. But the same is not the case with a narrow method such as the grammar translation method, which itself it not suitable for teaching speaking and listening skills. This method however can be used for teaching writing and reading skills effectively.

Another important aspect of teaching the

It is the skill that can play a major function in development relationships and expressing ideas and other important verbal interaction. The student in many cases already appreciates the power of speaking in his or her native language. This can often be a key motivator in improving proficiency of speaking skills in the target language (Study Mode, 2010).

Reading

Reading is also considered to be an important skill in ESL, which is often linked to overall academic achievement. Studies have shown that students that develop proficiency in reading are more likely to succeed academically overall. Thus, this can be a major motivator for a student wanting to gain proficiency in the target language (Shoebottom, n.d.).

When proficient reading skills have been developed in the target language, the reader will not only possess alphabet knowledge, but also be able to understand individual sentences and the structure of a piece of writing. Such characteristics are considered to be indicators of

What makes this sub-skill particularly important to teach in the classroom is that quite often the ESL student will make the mistake of attempting to read every word in the L2 language.

Using this sub-skill it promotes improved reading skills correcting this common mistake. This therefore allows reading skills to be developed more effectively.

What can be highlighted in ESL is the practical applications that can be applied to the Scanning in the reality. Exercises in involving detailed information such as train or plane timetables or even a TV guide can be practical applications of this skill.

Skimming – Also known as skim reading. This can be considered a study skill, which as discussed at the beginning of this section, is a sub skill related to reading that the student may already possess. Unlike scanning where information is extracting from a main text, skimming allows the student to scan through a text in order to understand the essence of the text.

Like with the scanning sub skill, there are also ‘real world’ applications which can be taught as exercises in the classroom to encourage and teach these important subskills which naturally improve an ESL student’s reading