Acquiring Language Skills

Written By

Magda Al Sebai

Appropriate textbooks are the basic part of the course through which students can learn all language skills. The reading texts are selected to be relevant to the students’ field of study. Supplementary reading materials are adapted from original sources such as specialized magazines, computer programs and reference manuals.

Reading tasks are designed to develop a great variety of reading strategies such as speed and comprehension, predicting, recognizing paragraph patterns (analysis, description, comparison and contrast, analogy, definition, reference and connectives…etc), skimming, scanning, matching texts to pictures, interpreting, appreciation and criticism. Students have to look for information, find reference signals, identify cohesion devices or distinguish facts and opinions. 

Vocabulary building is related to student’s academic courses. Vocabulary tasks include the difference between synonyms and antonyms, affixation and conversion. Using the Glossary of the book, dictionaries, and pronunciation charts will help the students to develop their vocabulary skills. Creating personal archives of words and storing lists of words on the computer will help the students to organize and use them effectively instead of memorizing them or writing them in the traditional notebook.

The speaking tasks are integrated with listening and reading. These tasks are  designed to develop the students’ oral skills through group presentation, individual presentation, describing technological inventions presented in some of the reading texts, magazines, Journals, or the Internet.  

The listening tasks include conversation and  interviews. The textbook cassettes and computer presentations are among the interesting activities inside the classroom. Listening tasks also include pre-listening activities such as ‘brainstorming ‘ the reading topic. Phonetic charts are used to help students who need to improve their language skills recognize the sound pattern of the language.

Grammar is taught as a functional part of the text. Grammar rules are not presented as items to be memorized. Students should be able to relate these grammatical rules to their functions in the texts. They should also be able to construct their own sentences. Grammar is also taught as part of their writing practice.

Writing is approached as an interactive process as the student who is the ‘writer’ in this special situation should try to communicate something meaningful and linguistically correct to an ‘imaginary reader’. As writing is the most difficult skill in learning any language, teaching materials focus on the organization of the ideas, coherence, and grammatical accuracy. Spelling, dictations and handwriting rules should be practiced daily. 

Technical Terms are incorporated in the reading texts. The book also contains lists of technical terms in computer applications and information technology. Lists of abbreviations are also included.  
 
To help students acquire language skills, a number of instructional models are adopted including Gagne and Briggs (1979). This Model is selected because it is learner-centered and it allows a presentation of each lesson at various cognitive levels. It also places emphasis on prerequisite skills, experiences of prior knowledge, and proficiency in using cognitive skills required to master the content area (Richey, 1986). Gagne and Briggs identified nine instructional events and corresponding cognitive processes that have been used in designing my instructional plans. These are: gaining attention (reception); informing learners of the objective (expectancy); stimulating recall of prior learning (retrieval); presenting the stimulus (selective perception); providing learning guidance (semantic encoding); eliciting performance (responding); providing feedback (reinforcement); assessing performance (retrieval); enhancing retention and transfer (generalization). These events provide the necessary conditions for learning and serve as the basis for designing instruction and selecting appropriate media (Gagne, Briggs & Wager, 1992). The strength of this Model is that it focuses on front-end analysis while creating learner-centered environments. All the steps of the model are sequenced and this facilitates its implementation (Gagne & Briggs). Using this sequence helps to ensure that my students will master the desired objectives.  

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