How To Learn 4 Skills and Strategies English

Listening Strategies

Listening strategies are techniques or activities that contribute directly to the comprehension and recall of listening input. Listening strategies can be classified by how the listener processes the input.

Top-down strategies are listener based; the listener taps into background knowledge of the topic, the situation or context, the type of text, and the language. This background knowledge activates a set of expectations that help the listener to interpret what is heard and anticipate what will come next. Top-down strategies include

• listening for the main idea
• predicting
• drawing inferences
• summarizing

Bottom-up strategies are text based; the listener relies on the language in the message, that is, the combination of sounds, words, and grammar that creates meaning. Bottom-up strategies include

• listening for specific details
• recognizing cognates
• recognizing word-order patterns

Strategic listeners also use metacognitive strategies to plan, monitor, and evaluate their listening.

• They plan by deciding which listening strategies will serve best in a particular situation.
• They monitor their comprehension and the effectiveness of the selected strategies.
• They evaluate by determining whether they have achieved their listening comprehension goals and whether the combination of listening strategies selected was an effective one.

Material for this section was drawn from “Listening in a foreign language” by Ana Maria Schwartz, in Modules for the professional preparation of teaching assistants in foreign languages (Grace Stovall Burkart, ed.; Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1998)

Source : http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/listening/stratlisten.htm

Reading Strategies

Language instructors are often frustrated by the fact that students do not automatically transfer the strategies they use when reading in their native language to reading in a language they are learning. Instead, they seem to think reading means starting at the beginning and going word by word, stopping to look up every unknown vocabulary item, until they reach the end. When they do this, students are relying exclusively on their linguistic knowledge, a bottom-up strategy. One of the most important functions of the language instructor, then, is to help students move past this idea and use top-down strategies as they do in their native language.

Effective language instructors show students how they can adjust their reading behavior to deal with a variety of situations, types of input, and reading purposes. They help students develop a set of reading strategies and match appropriate strategies to each reading situation.

Strategies that can help students read more quickly and effectively include

• Previewing: reviewing titles, section headings, and photo captions to get a sense of the structure and content of a reading selection
• Predicting: using knowledge of the subject matter to make predictions about content and vocabulary and check comprehension; using knowledge of the text type and purpose to make predictions about discourse structure; using knowledge about the author to make predictions about writing style, vocabulary, and content
• Skimming and scanning: using a quick survey of the text to get the main idea, identify text structure, confirm or question predictions
• Guessing from context: using prior knowledge of the subject and the ideas in the text as clues to the meanings of unknown words, instead of stopping to look them up
• Paraphrasing: stopping at the end of a section to check comprehension by restating the information and ideas in the text

Instructors can help students learn when and how to use reading strategies in several ways.

• By modeling the strategies aloud, talking through the processes of previewing, predicting, skimming and scanning, and paraphrasing. This shows students how the strategies work and how much they can know about a text before they begin to read word by word.
• By allowing time in class for group and individual previewing and predicting activities as preparation for in-class or out-of-class reading. Allocating class time to these activities indicates their importance and value.
• By using cloze (fill in the blank) exercises to review vocabulary items. This helps students learn to guess meaning from context.
• By encouraging students to talk about what strategies they think will help them approach a reading assignment, and then talking after reading about what strategies they actually used. This helps students develop flexibility in their choice of strategies.

When language learners use reading strategies, they find that they can control the reading experience, and they gain confidence in their ability to read the language.

Reading to Learn

Reading is an essential part of language instruction at every level because it supports learning in multiple ways.

• Reading to learn the language: Reading material is language input. By giving students a variety of materials to read, instructors provide multiple opportunities for students to absorb vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, and discourse structure as they occur in authentic contexts. Students thus gain a more complete picture of the ways in which the elements of the language work together to convey meaning.
• Reading for content information: Students' purpose for reading in their native language is often to obtain information about a subject they are studying, and this purpose can be useful in the language learning classroom as well. Reading for content information in the language classroom gives students both authentic reading material and an authentic purpose for reading.
• Reading for cultural knowledge and awareness: Reading everyday materials that are designed for native speakers can give students insight into the lifestyles and worldviews of the people whose language they are studying. When students have access to newspapers, magazines, and Web sites, they are exposed to culture in all its variety, and monolithic cultural stereotypes begin to break down.

When reading to learn, students need to follow four basic steps:

1. Figure out the purpose for reading. Activate background knowledge of the topic in order to predict or anticipate content and identify appropriate reading strategies.
2. Attend to the parts of the text that are relevant to the identified purpose and ignore the rest. This selectivity enables students to focus on specific items in the input and reduces the amount of information they have to hold in short-term memory.
3. Select strategies that are appropriate to the reading task and use them flexibly and interactively. Students' comprehension improves and their confidence increases when they use top-down and bottom-up skills simultaneously to construct meaning.
4. Check comprehension while reading and when the reading task is completed. Monitoring comprehension helps students detect inconsistencies and comprehension failures, helping them learn to use alternate strategies.

Material for this section was drawn from “Reading in the beginning and intermediate college foreign language class” by Heidi Byrnes, in Modules for the professional preparation of teaching assistants in foreign languages (Grace Stovall Burkart, ed.; Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1998)

Source : http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/reading/stratread.htm

Writing Strategies

These strategies are organised according to the order in which an academic might implement them.  Following each strategy is a word that describes whether the strategy targets motivation, instruction, practice, or feedback.

1. Emphasise to students that good writing skills are important, both to their satisfactory completion of the unit and to their future careers. Encourage students to improve their writing skills.  (Motivation)

2. Provide students with an anecdote about the implications of substandard writing or the value of good writing. For example, you may talk about a job candidate who missed selection due to his or her poor writing.  (Motivation)

3. Read aloud quality writing done by a former student, and encourage students to listen to its flow. With the permission of the writer, name and praise him or her.  (Motivation, Instruction)

4. Encourage students to pay close attention to the grammar and punctuation they see in textbooks and other books and articles, as well as in any sample paper.  (Instruction)

5. Encourage students to complete a writing unit, such as ENCO 100 at the University of New England (UNE).  (Instruction)

6. Refer students to writing skills web sites. UNE's Academic Skills Office provides useful fact sheets.  (Instruction)

7. Explain to students that certain writing skills are fundamental to almost all types of writing, but there are also purpose-specific writing skills and styles. (Instruction)

8. Tell students: With practice and feedback on performance, writing becomes better. Learning most complex skills involves many attempts; students need not feel discouraged if they are not instantly accomplished writers in a specific genre. Once a certain level of skill has been reached, the process of writing becomes increasingly enjoyable.  (Motivation)

9. Describe to students the process you use to write journal articles and reports and how using the process benefits you. This process might include starting with an outline, completing several drafts of the document, checking the writing against the requirements, and asking another individual to proofread the document.  (Motivation, Instruction)

10. Give students handouts containing important writing rules. "The Writer's Workplace" by Sandra and John Scarry, the "Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association," both available at the UNE Library, and web sites with content such as UNE's writing fact sheets are good sources of concise rules regarding grammar and punctuation.  (Instruction)

11. Teach students one important rule relating to grammar or punctuation in each lecture or in each unit. (Instruction)

12. Give students a course-related worksheet, have them write a précis of its content, and then ask them to critique each other's writing.  (Practice, Feedback)

13. Toward the end of a lecture, ask students to spend five minutes writing a summary of the content of the lecture. Next, have students critique each other's writing.  (Practice, Feedback)

14. Give a writing assignment and in the marking criteria set aside a specific number of points for writing quality. Give students a copy of the marking criteria before they begin writing.  (Practice, Motivation)

15. Explain to students before they complete a writing assignment the most common writing errors made in the past as well as the rules the errors violate.  (Instruction)

16. Provide students with a list of poorly structured sentences from assignments of prior years. Ask the students to improve the sentences, and then discuss the improvements as a class. (Practice, Feedback)

17. Provide students with a checklist of writing-process suggestions (e.g., see item 9 above) they can apply to a written assignment. Ask them to submit a completed checklist with the assignment.  (Instruction)

18. To the extent feasible, correct writing errors on student papers and provide printed statements of important rules violated by the errors.  (Feedback, Instruction)

19. Encourage students to learn the rules they violated in making the errors.  (Instruction)

20. Praise students freely for excellent or improved writing.  (Motivation)

Strategy Sources: Some of the ideas are ours. Other sources include Dr Einar Thorsteinsson, Dr Sue Watt, Sam Bjone, and Liz Temple of the UNE School of Psychology; UNE Academic Skills Office staff; and the following writing skills text book and web sites:

Davis, B. G. (2002).  Helping students write better in all courses.

Murray, D. M. (1985). A writer teaches writing (2^nd ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

University of Wisconsin, Whitewater, School of Graduate Studies and Continuing Education (2006). Efficient ways to improve student writing.

Source : http://www.une.edu.au/about-une/academic-schools/bcss/study-areas/psychology/research/psychology-community-activities/simple-strategies-academics-can-use-to-help-students-improve-their-writing-skills

Speaking Strategies

Students often think that the ability to speak a language is the product of language learning, but speaking is also a crucial part of the language learning process. Effective instructors teach students speaking strategies -- using minimal responses, recognizing scripts, and using language to talk about language -- that they can use to help themselves expand their knowledge of the language and their confidence in using it. These instructors help students learn to speak so that the students can use speaking to learn.

1. Using minimal responses

Language learners who lack confidence in their ability to participate successfully in oral interaction often listen in silence while others do the talking. One way to encourage such learners to begin to participate is to help them build up a stock of minimal responses that they can use in different types of exchanges. Such responses can be especially useful for beginners.
Minimal responses are predictable, often idiomatic phrases that conversation participants use to indicate understanding, agreement, doubt, and other responses to what another speaker is saying. Having a stock of such responses enables a learner to focus on what the other participant is saying, without having to simultaneously plan a response.

2. Recognizing scripts

Some communication situations are associated with a predictable set of spoken exchanges -- a script. Greetings, apologies, compliments, invitations, and other functions that are influenced by social and cultural norms often follow patterns or scripts. So do the transactional exchanges involved in activities such as obtaining information and making a purchase. In these scripts, the relationship between a speaker's turn and the one that follows it can often be anticipated.
Instructors can help students develop speaking ability by making them aware of the scripts for different situations so that they can predict what they will hear and what they will need to say in response. Through interactive activities, instructors can give students practice in managing and varying the language that different scripts contain.

3. Using language to talk about language

Language learners are often too embarrassed or shy to say anything when they do not understand another speaker or when they realize that a conversation partner has not understood them. Instructors can help students overcome this reticence by assuring them that misunderstanding and the need for clarification can occur in any type of interaction, whatever the participants' language skill levels. Instructors can also give students strategies and phrases to use for clarification and comprehension check.
By encouraging students to use clarification phrases in class when misunderstanding occurs, and by responding positively when they do, instructors can create an authentic practice environment within the classroom itself. As they develop control of various clarification strategies, students will gain confidence in their ability to manage the various communication situations that they may encounter outside the classroom.

Material for this section was drawn from “Spoken language: What it is and how to teach it” by Grace Stovall Burkart, in Modules for the professional preparation of teaching assistants in foreign languages (Grace Stovall Burkart, ed.; Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1998)

Source : http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/speaking/stratspeak.htm

Conclusion: 

learning English has four skills: listening, reading, writing and speaking. The fourth English language skills needed to speak good English. The need for a strategy for the study. so skill and strategy are two aspects required in learning English.