Introduction to Language Skills

Teaching English language is teaching four skills – listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The skills are divided into two types: receptive skills, such as reading and listening, i.e. passive skills, during which students receive the language, they extract the meaning from the discourse; and productive skills, namely speaking and writing, where the students have to get actively engaged and make an effort to produce language. It is generally assumed that receptive skills are somewhat faster to improve and easier to be practiced on their own, whereas productive skills practice might require longer time and more teacher guidance.

Although teacher may choose to focus on teaching a specific skill, it is an integration of them that is a major factor in lesson planning. In ideal, a good lesson plan will be organized and prepared in a way that incorporates all four skills although the amount of time spent on each of them might differ.