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One of the units in this course talked about the importance of teaching receptive skills. There are four basic skills to any language that language learners need to know, receptive skills are two of those basic skills. When students learn receptive skills, they are learning reading and listening skills. There are two main reasons that people use their reading and listening skills for. The first is doing it for a purpose and the second is doing it for entertainment. When people read or listen for a purpose this means that they are reading and listening with a particular aim or goal in mind. This is something they are trying to achieve through their reading and listening. For example, this could be reading instructions of how to put something together or listening to directions, so they know what to do. When people read or listen for entertainment this means that they are reading and listening to something because they find it pleasurable or enjoyable. For example, this could be reading a book or watching a show that they like. Often the motivations for reading and listening are a mix of the two categories. When language students are learning to read and listen in another language, they need to be able to recognize and understand the words, while also being able to process them and make meaning out of them. There are a number of specialized skills students use when learning to read and listen. They use predictive skills to predict different things. While sometimes students are also scanning, to look for specific information, or skimming, to try and get a general idea of the text or dialogue other times, when reading or listening they are trying to understand everything in detail. Students also use the skills of deduction to understand individual words or phrases. Students can also run into a number of potential problems when they are learning receptive skills. There are ways to address these potential problems before they occur though. Sentence length, word length, and unfamiliar words can pose problems for students. One way to begin to prevent these difficulties is to pre-teach certain vocabulary to the students. Typically, teachers will pre-teach words that are essential to understanding the text or audio, without pre-teaching all of the unknown words. Another way to prevent too many obstacles is to carefully select the texts you are going to use. Non-authentic texts will allow students access to materials more suited to their abilities, while authentic texts will expose students to materials that will give them confidence in their language abilities. There are a number of ways for teachers to create motivation among students when teaching receptive skills. It is important what the topic of the text or dialogue they choose is. If the topic is not interesting it is less likely the students are going to engage with it. We need to create interest among the students by discussing the topic, showing pictures, and doing some predicting. The tasks chosen are also important. They need to promote understanding; they should be a realistically achievable task for the students while still challenging them. Keeping these different things in mind is important while planning lessons on teaching receptive skills.
