Resumen TEMA 3

DEVELOPMENT OF THE LINGUISTIC SKILLS: ORAL EXPRESSION AND
COMPREHENSION, WRITTEN EXPRESSION AND COMPREHESION.

COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE IN ENGLISH.
1. DEVELOPMENT OF THE LISGUISTIC SKILLS: ORAL EXPRESSION

AND COMPREHENSION, WRITTEN EXPRESSION AND
COMPREHENSION.
It is recommendable to practise the four skills together. That means in one lesson
students should practise all the skills. However, in some lessons one of the skills will be
predominant. If we start teaching a new topic, the listening and speaking skills will be
practised before the reading and writing skills. In this sense, this fact can be seen in the
Educational Law which states that: ‘comprehension and oral expressions will be
prioritized’.
Practising the four skills is necessary because of the advantages and aspects we
describe in the following:
- Input goes before output.
That means that students, as Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development theory
stated, have to listen to new words before they will be asked to pronounce them,
and they will have to read structures before they will be asked to write them.
- Realism.
The situations in which we practise the four skills must be connected with our
pupils’ lives, customs and experiences. This fact can be seen in the methodological
guidelines of the Order 17th March of 2015, which describes the curriculum
corresponding o Primary Education in the Autonomous Community of Andalusia.
- Variety.
The topics we present should belong to a great variety of semantic fields so that
the students acquire a wide range of vocabulary and structures.
- Confidence.
The atmosphere in class should be good enough for the students to feel confident
to express themselves.
Classification of the linguistic skills.
Linguistic skills can be classified according to means or to participant’s activity.
According to means:
- Oral: speaking, listening. Written: writing, reading.
According to the participant’s activity:
- Productive: speaking, writing. Receptive: listening, reading.
1.1.ORAL COMPREHENSION (listening).

To understand the methodology of oral comprehension it is necessary to distinguish
between the intensive and extensive practice.
The aim of intensive practice of oral comprehension are the acquisition of

vocabulary, structures and phonetics. It is strictly controlled by the teacher and it is
indispensable to use adapted material, as stablish the Order 17th March 2015 in its
methodological guidelines.
As far the extensive practice of oral comprehension is concerned, the student alone
discovers the meaning of the oral language. For that reason there is less control from the
teachers’ side. In this sense, students will not only develop the ‘communicative
competence’, but also their ‘sense of initiative and entrepreneurship’ defined in the Order
ECD 65/2015 of 21st January, which describes the relation among Competences, contents
and evaluation criteria for P.E.
As regards historical development of methodology, together with the

psychological theory of language acquisition, the spoken language became the main
source for foreign language learning and the listening skill gained importance. It was then
when it assumed that someone learns to understand and speak a language by hearning and
imitating speakers. This idea is reflected in methods like the audiolingual one and also
the Royal Decree 126/2014 28th February which highlights the presence of interaction
between them a native speakers.
Methodology of oral comprehension
Once the activities have been chosen, it is the moment to develop the listening
skill. Wer are going to divide the process in three parts in relation to listening:
Pre-listening stage
These activities give a useful review of the content and procedures in the activity
should be used. The teacher should:
1. Introduce difficult/new vocabulary, structures in advance.

2. State the main idea clearly.
3. Provide some questions in advance.
4. Organize a warm-up discussion to the topic.
While-listening stage
In this stage we will listen to the text for the fist time, and we can suggest easy
activity to be done, for example, identifying among four pictures which is more closely
related to the story. The main aim of this first listening is to understand the text better,
and familiarise themselves with the intonation and global meaning.
In the second listening we can present more specific tasks. Thus, we can work both on
global listening, such as get the meaning from the context; and also selective listening,
differentiating between key words and secondary words.
Post-listening stage
Finally, post-listening exercises lead the learner to the social interaction phase,
suggesting topics for further expansion or recommending group activities for learners.
Therefore, due to this interaction it is possible the development of the ‘social and civic
competence’, specified in the Order ECD 65/2015 21st January.
1.2.ORAL EXPRESSION (speaking)
Speaking is the one of the four skills which is different. The other three can be done
alone, but people do not usually speak alone. That is a good reason to practise in pairs
or groups. At this point we must emphasize that in the Order 17th March, 2015, it is
stated that:
‘It will be very important to work as teams, teams composed of different number
of members, where students are the protagonist of their knowledge’.
This statement refers to the methodology of cooperative learning which can be

defined as a successful teaching strategy in which the whole class or groups of
students with different levels of ability work together to get a final task.
Methodology to practise oral expression
A PPP (presentation-practice-production) approach to the development of the

productive skills should be taken.
The first one is the presentation stage in which assimilation of the language used and
language elements take place. According to methodological guidelines of the Order
17th March, 2015, the ideal resource is the dialogue. The teacher must control as well
the amount as the quality of input.
The next stage is usually called controlled practice. In this case, pupils use the
material presented in the previous stage. Basic structures are questions formulated by
the teacher or the pupils themselves. Moreover, the teacher functions as a corrector.
Directed and free production make up the creative stage. During directed
production the teacher decides on the context, situation to be practised. First, it is done
with the teacher; secondly in free production, groups of students choose alone the
language to use.
Examples of speaking activities: jazz chants, role-plays, dramatizations…
1.3.WRITTEN COMPREHENSION (reading)
Reading comprehension is a receptive skill and it shares similar features with

listening. Therefore, reading comprehension is a complex active process in which the
meaning of graphemes should be decoded, so the students must develop reading
strategies.
To improve student’s reading skills we could follow these guidelines:
In order to become a successful readers, they need to know vocabulary. It is thus a

good idea to teach five vocabulary words per day. Moreover, every month students should
be asked to read a longer text. To control the reading process, pupils may be asked to
write entries on their reading notebook, tell the whole class about what they have read or
to do comprehension questions.
In consequence, these techniques help teachers to reach the main aims of teaching
reading comprehension:
- To obtain a certain piece of information.

- To communicate in writing.
- To read for pleasure.
- To investigate any topic.
Methodology for teaching written comprehension
Theorists like Lebauer, Barnett or Pearson have distinguished 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.
In addition, these theorists divided the practice of reading activities into pre, while
and post reading stages.
1.4.WRITIEN PRODUCTION (writing)
Written production skill need special techniques to be taught due to their specific
characteristics. One of these could be that the interlocutor is not present when we
write, thus we use a kind of monologue which is characterised by a lack of reaction
on the receiver’s side. This lack of feedback impedes us to change our discourse
immediately if we notice that the interlocutor does not understand.
Consequently, students feel less motivated to practice written language because it

seems to be more difficult than to practice oral language. Hence it might be interesting
‘to present written language as a means of communication and always reffering to familiar
contexts for the students of this age’, specified in the RD 126/2014.
Methodology for teaching written expression.
In the same way as we distinguish controlled, guided and directed and free practice
in oral language, we should discriminate them in written language. These stages help
teacher in the teaching-learning process of the block of contents 4 ‘Production of written
texts’ established both in the Royal Decree 126/2014 of 28th February and in the Order
17th March. 2015.
Examples of writing activities:
- Controlled practice stage: scrambled sentences, written text which only represents
what one interlocutor says, written text to be written again substituting some
words…
- Guided stage: letter or email referring to familiar contexts (Royal Decree
126/2014, 28th February)
- Free production stage: it is convenient to use preparatory exercises such as: read
an article in a magazine or talk orally about an interesting topic for our pupils.
2. COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE IN ENGLISH.
Communication in the foreign language classroom is strongly related to

communicative competence and, in the same way to the objective f) of Primary
Education: ‘acquire, in at least, one foreign language, the basic communicative
competence that enables them to express and understand simple messages and to function
in everyday situations’.
For that reason, this competence is also established in the Order 65/2015 of 21st
January which describes the relation among Competences, Contents and Evaluation
Criteria for Primary Education. The desired final result of the language learning process
is the ability to communicate competently, not the ability to use the language as a native
speaker does.
Moreover, communicative competence is made up of five sub-competences,
described by Canale and Swaim: linguistic, sociolinguistic, discourse, strategic and
sociocultural competence.
- Linguistic competence is knowing how to use words and how to put them into
phrases and sentences.
- Sociolinguistic competence is knowing how to use and respond to language
appropriately depending on the situation given.
- Discourse competence is knowing how to interpret the larger context and how to
construct words, phrases and sentences in a coherent way.
- Strategic competence is knowing how to recognize and repair communication
breakdowns and how to learn more about the language an in the context.
- Socio-cultural competence or ability to familiarize with the social and cultural
context in which the foreign language is spoken.
In the following we are going to describe two activities will lead to the acquisition of
communicative competence.
Using problem-solving activities, learners work in small groups and discuss issues
that are relevant to their lives. Problem-solving groups work well when each member of
the group has a specific role and they use language to communicate for real reasons: to
explain their ideas, make suggestions, and reach a consensus. In this sense, it is applicated
keys of CLT (Communicative Language Teaching), defined by Brown: Cooperative,
task-based and learner-centred approaches, reflecting the methodological guidelines of
the Order 17th March, 2015.
Jigsaws are highly interactive activities that require to pool their information to
complete a task. For example, in a jigsaw reading activity learners work together in small
groups to unscramble a text which has been cut into logical chunks by the teacher. The
interaction among students includes questions and explanations using their background
knowledge.

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DEVELOPMENT OF THE LINGUISTIC SKILLS: ORAL EXPRESSION AND

COMPREHENSION, WRITTEN EXPRESSION AND COMPREHESION.

1. DEVELOPMENT OF THE LISGUISTIC SKILLS: ORAL EXPRESSION

1.1.ORAL COMPREHENSION (listening).

The aim of intensive practice of oral comprehension are the acquisition of

As regards historical development of methodology, together with the

Methodology of oral comprehension

1. Introduce difficult/new vocabulary, structures in advance.

1.2.ORAL EXPRESSION (speaking)

This statement refers to the methodology of cooperative learning which can be

Methodology to practise oral expression

A PPP (presentation-practice-production) approach to the development of the

1.3.WRITTEN COMPREHENSION (reading)

Reading comprehension is a receptive skill and it shares similar features with

To improve student’s reading skills we could follow these guidelines:

In order to become a successful readers, they need to know vocabulary. It is thus a

- To obtain a certain piece of information.

Methodology for teaching written comprehension

1.4.WRITIEN PRODUCTION (writing)

Consequently, students feel less motivated to practice written language because it

Methodology for teaching written expression.

Examples of writing activities:

2. COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE IN ENGLISH.

Communication in the foreign language classroom is strongly related to

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