3.developing Linguistic Skills: Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. The Communicative Competence in English

DESARROLLO DE LAS DESTREZAS LINGÜÍSTICAS: COMPRENSIÓN Y EXPRESIÓN ORAL,
COMPRENSIÓN Y EXPRESIÓN ESCRITA. LA COMPETENCIA COMUNICATIVA EN INGLÉS
3.DEVELOPING LINGUISTIC SKILLS: LISTENING, SPEAKING, READING AND

WRITING. THE COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE IN ENGLISH
0.INTRODUCTION
1.ORAL COMPREHENSION (LISTENING)
1.1. METHODOLOGY OF ORAL COMPREHENSION
2. ORAL EXPRESSION (SPEAKING)
2.1. METHODOLOGY OF SPEAKING
3. WRITTEN COMPREHENSION (READING)
3.1. METHODOLOGY FOR TEACHING READING
4.WRITTEN EXPRESSION (WRITING)
4.1. METHODOLOGY FOR TEACHING WRITING.
5. COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENE
6. CONCLUSION
-BIBLIOGRAPHY-
0. INTRODUCTION
The relevance of this topic derives from the fact that Foreign Language Language cv for
P.E. highlights the significance of achieving the c.c., as it is established in the Organic Law (…)
The Canarian Government Decree (…) which sets the basic cv for P.E. in the Canary
Islands, in its article…., establishes the objectives of the stage. The objective…. States that
students must acquire, in at least one foreign language, skills to enable them to express and
understand simple messages and functions in everyday situations.
Learning a new language means developing skills to process what other people say in the
new language and to communicate what we want to say. In order to use language effectively we
must combine different skills.
We can identify 4 basic linguistic skills shen we use a language: LISTENING, SPEAKING,
READING, WRITING. According to Harmer, these major skills can be classified as follow:
-According to the medium of transmission: listening & speaking are transmitted through
the aural medium whereas reading & writing are transmitted through the visual medium;
-According to the activity of the participants: speaking & writing are active-expressive
skills whereas listening & reading are passive-receptive skills.
We must take into account several principles so that sts learn in a natural way. One of these
principles is the sequence to follow in the teaching-learning process: listening, speaking,
reading and writing. The main reason of this is that the mother tongue is learned in this way.
1. ORAL COMPREHENSION
Listening can be defined as the ability to understand and respond to spoken language. It
provides the aural input that serves at the basis for language acquisition and enables sts to
interact in oral communication. However, far from passively receiving and recording aural
input, listening comprehension involves the listeners actively in the interpretation of what they
hear, bringing their background knowledge relevant to the information contained in the aural
text. According to Don Byrne, listening is a sts’ ability to understand language that need to be
more extensive than their ability to produce it.
1.1. METHODOLOGY OF ORAL COMPREHENSION
It is necessary to distinguish between the practice of intensive and extensive oral
comprehension.
The aims of intensive oral comprehension practice are the acquisition of vocabulary,
structures & phonetics. This kind of practice is strictly controlled by the teacher and it is
indispensable to use adapted material. As far as the practice of extensive oral comprehension is
concerned, we can state that the student alone discovers the meaning of the oral language s/he is
exposed to.
For that reason there is less control from the teacher’s side and the global meaning is
more important than teach item.
Next the requirements for the chosen activities are exposed:
-The material must be recorded beforehand. It is important for the pupil not
only to listen to the teacher’s pronunciation but to other native voices, too;
-When choosing the text, conversation or situation, it is important to keep in

mind the topic, functions and vocabulary to be practised;
-The difficulties of the activities should be adapted to the pupil’s level;
-It is necessary to count on a good timing in order to reach comprehension
without making the pupils feel stressed;
-It is important to adequate visual aids so as to help the pupils to reach oral
comprehension;
-Another important fact is to insist on global meaning because in everyday life
it is also necessary to grasp the general meaning of a conversation.
2. ORAL EXPRESSION (SPEAKING)

Speaking can be defined as the ability to communicate in speech, which has to be
appropriate to a specific context and sociocultural rules. The main aim of oral production is to
speak fluently, that is, speakers should be able to express their ideas with clarity, correction and
without too much hesitation.
Following Stovall (1998) speaking involves 3 areas of knowledge:
1.MECHANICS: the use of the right words in the right order with the correct
pronunciation;
2.FUNCTIONS: the knowledge about when accurate delivery of message is essential
(transaction) and when precise understanding is not required (interaction);
3.CONTEXT: the sociocultural rules and the participants involved.
2.1. METHODOLOGY OF SPEAKING
The firs stage of oral expression is the presentation stage in which assimilation of the
language used takes place and phonetic, structural & lexical meaning are discovered. To do so
the ideal resource we can count on is the dialogue. In this stage the teacher’s role is extremely
important because s/he must control as well as the amount as the quality of the input.
The next stage is usually called controlled practice; it is now that the pupils use the material
presented in the previous stage in different situations. One of the basic structures to be used in
this stage are questions formulated by the teacher or the pupils themselves. It is a good idea to
use pictures as a context to provoke reactions and graded drills to reinforce the pupil’s
acquisition. In this stage the teacher mainly functions as a corrector.
Directed and free production make up the creative stage. During directed production the
teacher decides on the context situation or function to be practised. The activities are done with
the teacher first, thein in pairs or small groups.
During free production, on the other hand, the sts themselves choose the language to use in
given situations although the activities are similar to the ones in other stages. Now, the teacher
functions as an animator and assistant.
3.WRITTEN COMPREHENSION (READING)

Reading is a receptive skill and therefore shares common features with listening.
Reading is an active process in which the meaning of graphs is decoded. Teachers can help sts
to become effective readers by teaching them how to use reading strategies before, during and
after reading.
At initial stages, it is important not to place too many readings demands on younger
learners who are still learning to read in their mother tongue. At later stages pupils will be
expected to cope with independent reading required in any English programme.
Teachers must encourage sts to use different reading strategies to maximise their
comprehension of the text, to identify relevant & non-relevant information and to avoid word-
by-word comprehension.
3.1.METHODOLOGY FOR READING
When talking about methodology, we must keep in mind that the main aims of teaching
reading comprehension are, among others:
-To obtain a certain piece of information;
-To communicate in writing;
-To read for pleasure;
-To investigate any topic.
In general, it can be said that silent reading is the natural way of reading to understand
texts although pupils may also practice pronunciation when reading aloud. Besides, we can
distinguish between intensive and extensive reading. INTENSIVE reading means a detailed
analysis of the text whereas EXTENSIVE reading refers to an overall comprehension of the
text, used above all when treating literary texts.
The process of reading divides into 3 stages. The 3 ones combined form is known as
stages of reading. Besides, reading influences how much an individual remember & understand
the text. The 3 stages are:
1.PRE-READING: a person prepares her/himself for the things that they are
going to read. In addition, according to research previewing the text can increase the readers’s
involvement with the text. These are:
-Set up a purpose (to decide a written/mental goal)
-Make predictions (to generate an idea about the text)
-Questions (before you start reading)
-Build knowledge (make yourself familiar with the topic)
-Scan the vocabulary (quickly look over the text for new words and try
to find their meaning from the context)
-Skimming (to read main ideas to get an overall idea of the text)
-Scanning (quick reading on the text and look for keywords and specific
information)
2.THROUGH READING: to look for clues in the text to obtain the author’s
meaning & purpose for strengthening the skills on the reader. Then:
-Join the different elements of the text (try to figure out the sense of the
author in relation with the topic)
-Guess (when you get stuck on a word try to read the whole text and
guess its meaning accordingly)
-Silent reading (the quality of good readers)
-Get answers (it helps you to determine to predict the text)
3. POST READING: in this simple go to the pre-reading stages & try to fill the
gasps that you made according to your assumption:
-Evaluate (to carry out how effective the writing was)
-Create a map (a visual presentation of the text and the different ideas)
-Check your initial prediction (to chek if you were right)
-Answer your entire pre-reading questions.
4.WRITTEN EXPRESSION (WRITING)

When we write we use graphic symbols, which relate to the sounds we make when we
speak. But writing is much more than that, as speech is more than the production of sounds.
These symbols must be arranged according to certain conventions and limits in order to form
words, sentences and a coherent whole text.
According to Mathews (1991) there are 5 subskills related to writing:
1.GRAMMATICAL SKILLS: the knowledge of grammar rules;
2.GRAPHIC SKILLS: knowledge of graphemes, spelling, punctuation and
capitalization;
3.ORGANIZATIONAL SKILLS: the right sequencing of ideas and the
inclusion of relevant information;
4.RETHORICAL SKILLS: the ability to use cohesion devices to link parts of a
text;
5.STYLISTIC SKILLS: the ability to express precise meaning in a variety of
styles.
In the early stages writing is not very demanding. Writing correctly requires a lot of
practice and it is a slow ability to acquire. For this reason, in Primary school it should be done in
a guided way.
4.1.METHODOLOGY FOR TEACHING WRITTEN EXPRESSION

Again, we can find 3 stages:
1.CONTROLLED PRACTICE: it is based on the usage of words and sentences.
The pupil does not choose the language items s/he is going to use. The control of the
teacher is complete;
2.DIRECTED PRACTICE: it is based on definitions or descriptions letters and
easy written composition. The st can use expressions given and apply others of his/her
free choice. The control of the teacher is not as strong as in the first kind of practice;
3.FREE PRACTICE: it is given when sts write about a theme in form of letters,
compositions or essays. Now, they can use all the structures, vocabulary and
expressions they know. The teacher guides and helps, indicating the topic & extension
of the text we expect them to write.
The better the pupils manage each of the skills described, the higher their c.c. will be.
5.COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE
The main function of language is communication. The main aim of all speakers in usual
situations is to understand others and to make themselves understood. Thus, as we said before,
our main objective as FLT must be t teach students to communicate in that foreign language.
This means providing them with c.c.. The concept of language and linguistic competence had
already been formulated by Chomsky, but Hymes criticised that something was missing:
speakers need more than grammatical rules to communicate. We are able to use non-linguistic
strategies to make ourselves understood.
If speakers need more than a linguistic competence to communicate, a more
comprehensive concept had to be indroduced. Hymes deeply theorised about c.c. in his book
On Communicative Competence (1971). There, he distinguished four aspects of his competence:
1. Systematic Potential: that means that a native speaker possesses a
system that has a potential for creating a lot of language;
2. Appropriacy: the native speaker knows what language is
appropriate in a given situation, according to setting, participants,
purposes, channel and topic;
3. Occurrence: the native speaker knows how often something is said
in the language and acts accordingly;
4. Feasibility: the native speaker knows whether something is possible
in the language.
As we can see, language competence alone (grammar, vocabulary, phonetics) is not
enough to achieve the speaker’s or receiver’s communicative aim. The Decree (…) by the
Canary Government explains in tis introduction what aspects must be taken into account when
considering c.c.. It constitutes a different way of explaining Hymes’ subcompetences:
GRAMMATICAL COMPETENCE: which implies the knowledge of
how language is organised as discourse and allows one to adapt the discourse to
the specific situation;
SOCIO-LINGUISTIC C.: makes it possible to adapt linguistic
performance to the situation according to the social rules and habits, in order to
produce suitable statements in any context;
STRATEGIC C.: includes the knowledge of how to access and use

extra linguistic resources to achieve the communicative objective;
SOCIO-CULTURAL C.: allows one to interpret the elements of the
social and cultural reality, transmitted or referred to by language.
In other words, c.c. implies a certain mastery of a language system and, moreover, the
capability to use and interpret non-linguistic communicative resources.
6.CONCLUSION
Once we have studied the most important aspects related to this topic, we can draw
several conclusions. The most important one is that the more the teacher knows about the
different aspects that take part when learning a language, the better s/he will teach. Knowing
how the four skills work and that they should be use in an interactive way, enables the teacher to
plan more efficiently as s/he will know with what s/he has to deal with. The c.c. is an aspect that
we cannot forget about, since it is our main objective for our sts to communicate and to achieve
a performance.
We can help sts to develop the ability and the confidence to handle communicative
situations by increasing their awareness of these skills. In this way, we give sts the foundation
for c.c. in a new language. According to Larsen-Freeman, ‘teachers should talk less and listen
more, and become active facilitators of their sts’ learning’.
-BIBLIOGRAPHY-
WIDDOWSON, H (1988) Teaching Language as Communication.OUP
RICHARDS, JC & SCHMIDT, R (1983) Language and Communication.London.Longman
CANALE,M & SWAIN, M (1980) Theoretical Bases of Communicative Approaches to Second
Laguage Teaching and Testing.Applied Linguistics.
ALLRIGHT, R (1985) Language Learning through Communication Practice.OUP
CLAY, M (1975) What did I write?.Heinemann
GRAVES,D (1983)Writing: Teachers and Children at Work
SILBERSTEIN,S (1994) Techniques and Resources in Teaching Reading.OUP
HYMES,D (1972) On Communicative Competence.OUP
COLLINS ENGLISH DICTIONARY (1999) MILLENIUM EDITION. GLASGOW. COLLINS

3.developing Linguistic Skills: Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. The Communicative Competence in English

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DESARROLLO DE LAS DESTREZAS LINGÜÍSTICAS: COMPRENSIÓN Y EXPRESIÓN ORAL,

COMPRENSIÓN Y EXPRESIÓN ESCRITA. LA COMPETENCIA COMUNICATIVA EN INGLÉS

3.DEVELOPING LINGUISTIC SKILLS: LISTENING, SPEAKING, READING AND

-When choosing the text, conversation or situation, it is important to keep in

2. ORAL EXPRESSION (SPEAKING)

3.WRITTEN COMPREHENSION (READING)

4.WRITTEN EXPRESSION (WRITING)

4.1.METHODOLOGY FOR TEACHING WRITTEN EXPRESSION

STRATEGIC C.: includes the knowledge of how to access and use

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