TOPICS 3, 7 & 8: True or False (2015)

The main aim to be reached will be the achievement of the communicative competence, being able to communicate efficiently, both spoken and written, with the use of verbal and non-verbal means of communication, establishing accuracy over fluency.

The four basic skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) will be accomplished, by no means, through skills integration.

Succesful communication, which is the basis of understanding among human beings, depends on communicative competence and the mastery of the 4 linguistic skills.

According to the Communicative Approach, the 4 skills must be worked on and integrated at the same time and to the same extent.

The written word comes after the oral word, in order not to interfere and have a negative influence on pronunciation.

Speaking skills serve as the basis for language acquisition, enabling learners to interact in spoken communication.

Skimming requires a specific search of information of any kind.

All in all, we as teachers should prepare our students to be able to think by themselves in communicative situations, allowing students to put into practice linguistic strategies to maximize their comprehension of aural input, distinguishing relevant from non-relevant information and helping them to understand without word by word. Thus, the TLP should be focused on the process, rather than the product.

Speaking can be defined as the ability to communicate in speech within an appropriate context. Speaking does only involve using words.

According to Krashen, the ability to speak fluently comes with time, after the acquirer has built up a certain linguistic competence by understanding the input.

Errors should always be avoided, as they no longer take part of the TLP (being a negative evidence that learning is taking place).

Reading can be defined as an interactive process that goes on between the reader and the text, resulting in comprehension.

Reading comprehension is a receptive skill and therefore shares common features with listening. The main common feature is that reading is an active process in which the meaning of graphs should be decoded. However, when reading, students can work at their own pace (going back to revise).

Silent reading, reading aloud or making predictions of a text would be some stages regarding the reading skill.

When dealing with correction of written work, instead of correcting all the mistakes (which would be time consuming from the teacher's point of view, and discouraging for the students), we could correct mistakes selectively (regarding certain areas of study), indicate mistakes so that students can correct them (sp=spelling) or even let students identify and correct their own mistakes (pair and group correction).

Skills integration can be defined as the interrelation or combination of the four linguistic skills (both receptive and productive). If we think about how we communicate in everyday life, we may notice that, in general, we do not use these skills in an isolated way, but we do combine them (being interrelated and interdependent). Thus, in the English class, we have to do the same and design activities that integrate several skills at once.

Our main goal as teachers will be to allow our students acquire the communicative competence. Apart from becoming good and efficient communicators, ceasing to be disabled speakers, our students will develop their human dignity, becoming whole human beings, which should be the main aim when dealing with education.

Through which mediums are the four linguistic skills expressed?

What principles are convenient to be born in mind so that children learn in a natural way?

What is the difference between Listening and Hearing?

English is a stressed-timed language. What does it mean?

Name 4 strategies in order to deal with the listening skills.

A listening lesson, in order to be effective, should follow 3 stages. Which ones are they?

What materials and resources can be used so as to enhance the listening skill?

Regarding the speaking skill, what stages could be found?

What Plan is so promoted by LOMCE, regarding one receptive linguistic skill?