Recommended Reading
Interdependence of speaking, listening, reading and writing
“It is common place to see a remarkable special effect on a television screen by exclaiming: “How did they do that?” It is not quite so usual to exclaim when we observe someone speaking, listening, reading, writing, or signing. And yet if anything is worthy of exclamation, it is the human ability to speak, listen, read, write and sign.
An alien visitor to Earth might well wonder what was going on. It would see humans approaching each other, use their mouths to exchange a series of noises, and – apparently as a result of making these noises – cooperate in some activity. It would see human eyes look at a set of marks inscribed on a surface, and the eye-owners then behaving in the same way – going out of one door rather than another in a theatre, for instance... In each case it might think: “How did they do that?” And in each case the answer would be the same: “through the use of language”. (Crystal, 2007, p.2)
Just as a human body can be described in a lot of different ways: as a system of bones, or a totality of muscles, or an aggregate of cells, there are numerous ways of describing language depending on the perspective. “I have lost count of the number of times I have tried to introduce this subject to one readership or another.” (Crystal, 2007, p.xi) And just as all the systems in a human body are present simultaneously, language, like a living being, functions in various ways at the same time.
Almost all linguistic theory has its origin in practical problems of descriptive linguistics. Phonetics is the study of the way humans make, transmit and receive speech sounds. Articulatory phonetics studies the way the vocal organs are used to produce sounds, acoustic phonetics studies physical properties of speech sounds, and auditory phonetics studies the way people perceive sounds of speech. Phonology is the study of the sound systems of languages. Graphetics is the way people make, transmit and receive written symbols. Graphology is the study of linguistic contrasts that writing systems express. Lexicology studies all aspects of the vocabulary of language: how words are formed, how they develop, how they are used now, how they relate to each other in meaning. Syntax has developed to describe the rules concerning how words relate to each other to form sentences. Sociolinguistics studies the effect of the society on the language.
“There are two quite different ways of talking about language, whether spoken or written. On the one hand, you can talk about its physical aspect,.. such as loudness, duration or pitch of the sounds of speech, or the number, size or contrast of the printed marks of writing. All of these observable characteristics of language...may be called surface structure... On the other hand, there is a pert of language that can neither be directly observed nor measured, and that is meaning. In contrast to surface structure, whether spoken or written, can be referred to as deep structure...Meanings do not lie at the surface of language but far more profoundly in the minds of the users of language: in the mind of the speaker or writer and in the mind of the listener or reader”. (Smith, 1982, p.70)
The relationship between writing and speech has never been simple. The written language was the medium of literature, and a source of standards. The rules of grammar were illustrated from written texts. The spoken language was ignored. It was considered unworthy of linguistic attention, and thought to have no rules or organisation. In the 20th century an alternative approach became widespread. It pointed out that speech is many thousands of years older than writing, and that it develops naturally in children. “Writing is not language”, insisted the American linguist Leonard Bloomfield, “but merely a way of recording language by means of visible marks”...(Crystal, 2007, p.148)
It was now the turn of writing to fall into disrepute. Many linguists came to think of written language as a tool of secondary importance.
Writing and speech should never have been allowed to confront each other in this way. There is no sense in the view that one medium of communication is intrinsically “better” than the other. Whatever their historical relationship, the fact remains that modern society makes available to its members two very different systems of communication, each of which has developed to fulfil a particular set of communicative needs, and now offers capabilities of expression denied to the other. Writing cannot substitute for speech, nor speech for writing, without serious disservice being done to each.” (Crystal, 2007, p.148)
The contrast between writing and speech is mainly in their physical form. Speech uses sounds, and writing uses graphic signs. But apart from physical differences, there is a great difference in structure and function.
Even a well-prepared lecture or sermon does not look good on paper, and many lecturers are disappointed to see their exact words published. This is due to the fact that speech, even prepared, is never devoid of a spontaneous element, and of some sort of interaction with listeners.
Speech is time bound, while writing is space-bound. Speech is dynamic, writing is static.
A reader can reread a text, and analyse it. That is why careful organisation is essential in writing. There is a saying in Russian, “What is written with a feather cannot be cut out with an axe”. Therefore a writer must be extremely careful about his expression, wording and structure: he is creating something permanent, and misunderstanding on the part of a reader might have a serious effect.
Speech is spontaneous, there is an immediate response, and an opportunity for clarifying and extending the subject, as well as correcting mistakes immediately. Spontaneity of speech makes careful preplanning unnecessary. A speaker can think “on his feet” and use simpler constructions, repetition.
A writer cannot point to an object and say “over there, this one”.
Written language uses punctuation and capitalisation, as well as graphic effects such as font type, size and colour, bold type, italics – features not found in speech. But a speaker can use intonation, pitch, volume and expression.
There are also grammatical and lexical differences between writing and speech.
Certain items of vocabulary are never or rarely spoken, such as chemical terms or legal terms. Some items of spoken vocabulary are hardly ever written such as “what's his name”, or “innit”.
Written language is more formal as a rule.
So, when we compare written and spoken language at text/discourse level, we notice a better organisation and more complicated structures in a written text.
I chose an interview with a foster carer, and an article from the Times to compare spoken and written language of the same topic.
In a text there is a clear introduction and conclusion, that are not typical of the majority of discourse. While starting a conversation, we hardly plan a conclusion, though there are certain conventions even in spontaneous speech (turn taking, introductory remarks, indications of subject change).
On a sentence level, we find more complex and compound sentences in texts than in speech. There are a lot of elliptical constructions. A speaker is thinking on his feet, and makes a lot of pauses, leaves sentences unfinished, and uses filler words and phrases to gain time or to fill a pause.
“I continued to be a foster parent because there's a need... um... I've been a foster parent for … thirteen plus years...because of the... children looking for a home... um... they need someone to really care about them and … um ... so I'm gonna continue to do that”. The speech lacks coherence, and it is hard to say when one sentence finishes and another starts. Let us compare this with a sentence from an article:
“A crisis in the care system is looming with two thirds of foster parents being near or beyond retirement age, a charity warns today”. This is a well-constructed sentence, with a clear ending.
Analysing these examples on word level, we see a significant difference in the vocabulary. There are a lot of colloquial expressions and informal words in the interview, that are not to be found in the article. “kids, gonna, the training bit, folks, ups and downs, ends and outs, you know, this perfect”. The vocabulary of the article however is entirely different, it is much more formal despite the similar subject: “beyond retirement age, applications, submitted, workforce, vacancies, target recruitment”.
The purpose of language teaching is communication in the target language. The learner must be able to understand spoken and written language, and to express himself orally and in writing.
Listening and speaking are audio-lingual skills. Reading and writing are graphic skills. Listening and reading are receptive skills. Speaking and writing are expressive (or productive) skills. Reception is easier than production, therefore listening and reading are the passive aspect of language learning, and speaking and writing are the active aspect.
“Pronunciation, fluency, expression, rhythm and intonation are essential parts of speaking and listening. Spelling, handwriting, and punctuation are essential to writing. The four language skills – listening, speaking, reading and writing are to be developed in sequential order. These language skills are interdependent in the sense that failure to acquire one will lead to a general failure in learning the language... The interdependence and importance of the four language skills pose a challenge to the teacher to coordinate the learning of these skills... At any stage of learning when one skill is being developed, the skill next below it in the hierarchy of skills should also be kept in view.” (Dash, 2007, p.36)
There are two ways of describing comprehension of spoken language: “bottom-up” and “top-down”. According to the former, we piece a message together by first understanding the smallest units of language – phonemes. Then we connect them together to form words. In the “top-down” model base on our knowledge of the topic and situation, we can figure out the specific meaning of a sentence or words forming it. The interactive model suggests that listeners use both top-down and bottom-up strategies simultaneously.
In the Times Educational Supplement there was an article called “Five Million Words Missing”. Scientists analysed situations in disadvantaged families, and came to a conclusion that by the age of five a child of a deprived background missed on average five million words directed to him. So, the apparent declining standards in reading and writing among new pupils are first of all due to a sheer lack of adequate communication. Children who hardly practised speaking and listening skills in the first years of their lives, cannot be expected to be successful readers or writers. Their poor reading and writing abilities are not attributed to the lack of books, computers or encyclopaedias in the first place. Rather, it is essential linguistic deprivation, poor communication with the adults.
In the Russian educational system the interdependence of speaking and listening, reading and writing is officially recognised, and teachers work closely together with speech and language therapists. It was proved long ago, that to achieve efficient reading and writing skills, one needed to address speaking and listening first. That is why children receive a consultation of a speech and language therapist at the age of three. Those with problems of varying severity, starting with a lisp or stuttering, and ending with apraxia or a specific language expressive/receptive disorder, get help as soon as they are diagnosed. They have regular speech therapy sessions in pre-schools, and they continue to receive speech and language support up until the age of twelve. It is interesting to note that those children who experience significant difficulties with their spelling, essentially improve their writing as a result of one-to-one speech therapy sessions. Writing reflects all the pronunciation defects. A child who pronounces “w” instead of “r”, for instance, writes in the same manner: “sorry” is spelled “sowwy”, and “all right” turns into “all white”.
But in reality the link is much deeper than on pronunciation level. Speech therapists help children to improve their speech, to use correct grammar structures, and to organise their thinking. Children are encouraged to retell stories, to make up stories based on a set of pictures, to memorise rhymes, to recite poems, to practise tongue twisters and much more.
It is no secret to speech and language therapists that a child who needs help with his speech, will later need help with reading and writing, and the sooner he gets it, the better his prospects are.
The same integration approach is used in ESOL teaching.
It makes little sense to talk about skills in isolation since, as Eli Hinkel points it out, “in meaningful communication, people employ incremental language skills not in isolation, but in tandem” (Hinkel, 2006, p.113)
“When we are engaged in conversation, we are bound to listen as well as speak because otherwise we could not interact with the person we are speaking to... Lecturers frequently rely on notes they have written previously, and people listening lectures often write notes of their own. Even reading, generally thought of as a private activity, often provokes conversation and comment.
Writing, too, is rarely done in isolation. Much of today's communication is electronic...We read what people say to us and then reply fairly instantly. And even when we are writing on our own, we generally read through what we have written before we send it off...
Clearly, therefore, if skill use is multi-layered in this way, it would make no sense to teach each skill in isolation...
Receptive skills and productive skills feed off each other in a number of ways. What we say or write is heavily influenced by what we hear and see. Our most important information about language comes from this input. Thus the more we see and listen to comprehensible input, the more English we acquire , notice or learn... But students get their input, too, especially in relation to their own output. When a student produces a piece of language and sees how it turns out, that information is fed back into the acquisition process. Output – and the students' response to their own output – becomes input” . (Harmer, 2009, p.266)
The majority of Level1 ESOL students come to class in hope to improve their reading and writing skills, their speaking and listening skills being developed well enough to enable them to communicate effectively in everyday life. But concentrating on reading and writing at the cost of speaking and listening would not make learning of the former skills more effective. The four skills are interdependent and should be practised together. Keeping that in mind, I plan my lessons to promote equal opportunities for practising all of them.
It is very useful to have a discussion before reading a text. Eliciting information related to the learners' experience I prepare the students to perceive new information. According to Smith, a reader's role is not at all passive as we used to think. On the contrary, prediction is an essential part of reading (and listening), therefore the more experience a reader has prior to reading, the more effective his reading will be. We start with pre-reading activities: have a brief discussion related to the topic of the text, then I ask questions about the title: what do the students expect of the story with a particular title, what genre could the story be. Then they read the first paragraph and see whether their initial guess was correct. After that I give them a few minutes to read the story briefly, and dictionaries are not allowed at this stage. After the brief reading, the learners are encouraged to discuss the text in pairs. This pair work proves to be helpful. Sometimes more advanced students helps their partners, or in most cases one student understands one part of the story, and the other deals with a different part better. Together they try to form a whole picture.
At the final stage, the students read the whole story thoroughly, using dictionaries and consulting the teacher. When the text of my choice is fiction, there are inevitable difficulties with this. Even simplest pieces of fiction present a certain problem to a non-native speaker: local realities, double meaning, humour or other forms of creative language use can be lost upon a foreigner. Being a non-native speaker myself I encourage the learners not to concentrate on every word separately (there are a few students who never read further unless they know the translation of every single word in a passage), but to treat a text as a whole, and to rely on context, prediction, and the general atmosphere of the story.
After reading the whole text, we discuss it. First we discuss the story itself, and its message, and then we develop the discussion further. The learners are encouraged to express their attitude towards the problem of the story. Then I ask them to write a different ending to the story, and after that to act it out. What makes all these activities successful is the unfailing interest of the students, and their full engagement in the tasks. Referral to their experience and opinions makes language learning personal and therefore meaningful for them. Interaction with one another enriches them linguistically and emotionally, and practising the four skills leads to improvement of all aspects of English.
When there is a writing activity in the centre of our attention, we also begin with a brief discussion, followed by the reading of two texts on a similar topic, and analysing them. It is recommended to practise receptive skills before productive, so it is useful to read before writing, and to listen before speaking: it tunes a person in, and helps him to perform better. So the students engage in reading prior to writing, they analyse texts and see what makes them expressive. We have a discussion related to the topic, and the learners are encouraged to speak about what they are going to write. Speaking helps them to organise their ideas, this is particularly true about struggling writers. After reading and discussing, the learners are more inspired to write, in comparison with writing without prior preparation. Even those who normally complain of a complete lack of creativity and a “blank mind”, manage to produce creative work.
“Skill integration is a major factor in lesson planning... Weaving threads of different skills and topics is a major art of teachers who plan for a sequence of lessons. Skill integration also happens when students are involved in project work, which may well involve researching (through reading or listening), speaking (e.g. in discussions or when giving a presentation) and writing (e.g. submitting a report). (Harmer, 2009, p.267)
References:
Crystal, David (2009) “The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language”, Cambridge University Press
Crystal, David (2007) “How Language Works”, Penguin Books
Dash, Neena (2007) Teaching English as an Additional Language, Atlantic Publishers and Distributors (P) Ltd
Harmer, Jeremy (2009) The Practice of English Language Teaching”, Pearson Longman
Smith, Frank (1982) Understanding Reading, Holt, Rinehart, Winston
Spiegel, Marina, Sunderland, Helen (1999) Writing Works, London Language and Literacy Unit
Appendix: Care crisis looms as two thirds of foster parents near retirement (The Times,
May11, 2009)
Interview with a foster parent (script), youtube
