Teach English in Wazijie Zhen - Yan'an Shi

Writing and Speaking: an Ideal Skills-pair? In the context of teacher-training, it is frequently argued that Speaking and Writing should be considered together: they are both productive skills. The natural obverse of this proposition is that, as receptive skills, Reading and Listening should form the other pair. Yet, in the context of the classroom, while putting their training into practice, teachers are encouraged … indeed in many instances required by the materials provided by publishers… to pair Writing with Reading and Listening with Speaking. My question here will be to ask which combination of skills will better assist the teacher to teach and the learner to learn. This main question begs a subsidiary: who is the teacher and who is the learner? If it is the trainee-teacher who is learning, then there is a strong probability that the productive skills should be taught in tandem. First, this technique serves to highlight the differences of expression between both skills: in Speaking, the contractions without which speech may sound affected or even intimidating: the need for spontaneity, one of the most difficult sub-skills of speech to acquire, and the most demanding to teach. In Writing on the other hand there is the need for more formal vocabulary and construction, while accuracy in grammar, spelling and punctuation is paramount. In contrast to encouraging and developing spontaneity, the emphasis on free writing, especially at the higher levels, is drafting: revision, re-revision and re-re-revision. So much for the differences: combined presentation of both skills may well help the trainee teacher to grasp the features both have in common. In the first place, there is the question of location: Writing, as well as Speaking, should be carried out in class. It has been pointed out that Writing is frequently relegated to homework. In my experience, this can be a serious mistake. It is an open invitation to the students to get someone else to do the work for them, or at least to assist to a degree that impinges on the requirements of originality. This danger is most prevalent, and most damaging, at the level of English for Academic Purposes. There are methods for checking on this (comparison of early drafts with the finished product: use of carriage return records on Google Docs to guard against cutting and pasting), but in my opinion the most reliable is having the Engage, Study and Activate stages of both Writing and Speaking carried out in class. The activities involved in each stage must differ according to the level being taught. Nevertheless, elicitation of vocabulary appropriate to the topic should come first in both skills, followed by layout and punctuation at the lower levels of Writing to brainstorming at the higher. Corresponding activities in Speaking would be controlled practice at the appropriate level. Activation would be free, creative production, be it spoken or written simple sentences, or formal presentations or extended essays. Feedback would then be appropriate to the skill and level involved. The trainee may find this combined consideration of both skills helpful in consolidating his/her training. When trainee becomes teacher, however, classroom performance may indicate that each productive skill has demands that can best be met by matching it with one or other of the receptive skills. In Speaking, the need for correct pronunciation, appropriate inflection and pacing can be met only by example. The teacher can satisfy this need to only a limited extend: exposure to recorded examples must do the rest. In Writing, personal style must be underpinned by a grasp of cohesion, coherence and the contextually-appropriate use of vocabulary. Again, the receptive Reading is the model that best serves the need. Here, in particular, we touch on the teaching of Grammar. Should it be taught in isolation almost as a separate skill? And the student then expected to transfer the knowledge to a productive skill? Or should grammar be introduced through its use in the skills? This is not the place to enter into the deductive/inductive debate. However, in my experience, and that of more experienced colleagues, illustration of the use of constructions appropriate to a particular genre will assist students to achieve greater accuracy and, as a result, better clarity, in their writing. In practice, this illustration can be achieved through exposure to the receptive skill, Reading. Finally, however, it could be argued that… at least in the classroom context … the division of a lesson into pre-determined skills-pairs may be artificial. Skills applied may well depend on the purpose of the lesson and the age of the students. An introductory lesson to five-to-none year-olds would probably start with pupils listening to songs and chants and repeating them again and again: a clear combination of Listening and Speaking. Later, when pupils are being taught the alphabet, they will see the letter, hear its phonetic equivalent and repeat it, a different combination of both receptive and productive skills essential to the children’s language development. Finally, they will hear the sound s and write the corresponding letters, yet another receptive/productive combination. Teaching adult beginners, although requiring different materials and techniques, would probably follow much the same variety of skills-matching. At the other extreme, English for Academic Purposes might put emphasis on note-taking, a combination of Listening and Writing. In conclusion, I would say that pairing Writing with Speaking is suitable for teacher-training. Classroom-teaching, on the other hand, class for a closer matching of Writing and Reading. Nevertheless, in any lesson, the skills involved must ultimately depend on the lesson’s purpose and the level of the students.