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ALLAMA IQBAL OPEN UNIVERSITY

ISLAMABAD

Name: Shaukat Hussain Afridi

Registration No:
Roll No:
Programme: PGD TEFL

Assignment / Subject: Language Skills-I (5659)

Submitted by: Shaukat Hussain Afridi

Submitted to:
Date: 30TH April,-------------
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Q.1 a) Devise an information gap activity to develop communicative skills.

b) What are the merits and demerits of different types of tests for
language acquisition and language learning?

Ans: (A) Information Gap Activities:

T Teachers are often searching for activities to make their classroom

more interactive; language teachers in particular are
also looking for activities that promote target
language use. Info Gap activities are excellent
activities as they force the students to ask each other
questions; these activities help make the language
classroom experience more meaningful and
authentic. This section will explain in more detail
what Info Gap activities are and why they are useful; it will also give some
examples of Info Gap activities for any language classroom.

What is an Info Gap activity?

An Info Gap activity takes place between students, not between a student and a
teacher, though a teacher can certainly demonstrate the activity. The two
students will be asking each other questions to which they don‘t know the
answer; these questions are called referential questions. The goal of the activity
is for the students to discover certain information, whether about the other
person or related to a specific activity.

Why are Info Gap activities useful?

Info Gap activities are useful because they are very meaningful; all students are
involved in the process equally and they are all moving towards a specific
purpose. Each student has the task of finding out certain information, and
therefore must find a way in which to ask for this information. Motivation is
usually quite high in these activities. These activities help move the students
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from working in a more structured environment into a more communicative

environment; they are hopefully using lots of the target language, and in the
process discovering where they have gaps. Knowing where these gaps are gives
them a direction in which to improve.

(B): LANGUAGE LEARNING AND LANGUAGE TEACHING

Behaviorisms and Cognitivism

Behaviorism is a worldview that assumes a learner is essentially passive,
responding to environmental stimuli. The learner starts off as a clean slate (i.e.
tabula rasa) and behavior is shaped through positive reinforcement or negative
reinforcement. Both positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement increase
the probability that the antecedent behavior will happen again. In contrast,
punishment (both positive and negative) decreases the likelihood that the
antecedent behavior will happen again. Positive indicates the application of a
stimulus; Negative indicates the withholding of a stimulus. Learning is therefore
defined as a change in behavior in the learner. Lots of (early) behaviorist work
was done with animals (e.g. Pavlov‘s dogs) and generalized to humans.

Cognitivism The cognitivist revolution replaced behaviorism in 1960s as the

dominant paradigm. Cognitivism focuses on the inner mental activities –
opening the ―black box‖ of the human mind is valuable and necessary for
understanding how people learn. Mental processes such as thinking, memory,
knowing, and problem-solving need to be explored. Knowledge can be seen as
schema or symbolic mental constructions. Learning is defined as change in a
learner‘s schemata.

Cognitivism A response to behaviorism, people are not ―programmed animals‖

that merely respond to environmental stimuli; people are rational beings that
require active participation in order to learn, and whose actions are a
consequence of thinking. Changes in behavior are observed, but only as an
indication of what is occurring in the learner‘s head. Cognitivism uses the
metaphor of the mind as computer: information comes in, is being processed,
and leads to certain outcomes.

ACQUISITION AND LEARNING

Recently a distinction between acquiring a language and a learning a language,

most notably by American writer Krashen. He characterizes the former as
subconscious process which results in the knowledge of a language whereas the
latter, learning is a conscious process which results only in ‗knowing about‘ the
language. Acquiring a language is more successful and longer lasting than
learning.
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Foreign Language Learning

COMMUNICATION

Communication is at the heart of second language study, whether the

communication takes place face-to-face, in writing, or across centuries through
the reading of literature. Students engage in conversations, provide and obtain
information, express feelings and emotions, and exchange opinions. Students
understand and interpret written and spoken language on a variety of topics.
Students present information, concepts, and ideas to an audience of listeners or
readers

CULTURES

Through the study of other languages, students gain a knowledge and

understanding of the cultures that use that language and, in fact, cannot truly
master the language until they have also mastered the cultural contexts in which
the language occurs. Students demonstrate an understanding of the relationship
between the practices and perspectives of the culture studied. Students
demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between the products and
perspectives of the culture studied.

CONNECTIONS

Learning languages provides connections to additional bodies of knowledge that

may be unavailable to the monolingual English speaker. Students reinforce and
further their knowledge of other disciplines through the foreign language.
Students acquire information and recognize the distinctive viewpoints that are
only available through the foreign language and its cultures.

COMPARISONS

Through comparisons and contrasts with the language being studied, students
develop insight into the nature of language and the concept of culture and
realize that there are multiple ways of viewing the world. Students demonstrate
understanding of the nature of language through comparisons of the language
studied and their own. Students demonstrate understanding of the concept of
culture through comparisons of the cultures studied and their own .

COMMUNITIES

Together, these elements enable the student of languages to participate in

multilingual communities at home and around the world in a variety of contexts
and in culturally appropriate ways. Students use the language both within and
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beyond the school setting. Students show evidence of becoming lifelong

learners by using the language for personal enjoyment and enrichment.

Q.2: Define and illustrate the three levels of reading comprehension?

Ans: The Three Levels of Comprehension

1. The Literal Level

The literal level focuses on reading the passages, hearing the words or viewing
the images. It involves identifying the important and essential information. With
guidance, students can distinguish between the important and less important
ideas.
Question: What did the author say?

Example: Where did Henry’s family go on vacation?

2. The Interpretive Level

At the interpretive level, the focus shifts to reading between the lines, looking
at what is implied by the material under study. It requires students to combine
pieces of information in order to make inferences about the author's intent and
message. Guiding students to recognize these perceived relationships promotes
understanding and decreases the risk of being overwhelmed by the complexities
of the text being viewed, heard or read.

Question: What was meant by what was said?

Example: Why did Henry roll his eyes when his dad started to play
the guitar?

3. The Applied Level

Understandings at the literal and interpretive levels are combined, reorganized
and restructured at the applied level to express opinions, draw new insights and
develop fresh ideas. Guiding students through the applied level shows them how
to synthesize information, to read between the lines and to develop a deeper
understanding of the concepts, principles and implications presented in the text.
Question: How would the author’s message apply to other situations given
what you memorized and understood at the other two levels?

Example: If Henry’s friend Tom was the one playing the guitar, do you
think Henry would have rolled his eyes? Why or why not?
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Q.3 Write notes on the following:

a) Roughly tuned input
b) Finely tuned input
c) Controlled output
d) Free output

Ans: FINELY AND ROUGHLY TUNEDINPUT

Before dwelling on the terms roughly and finely tuned input, it is better to
clarify the term input. Input is "The material and process of putting in or feeding
in; esp. the feeding of data etc. into a computer or feeding data into mind".
Therefore input is the language to which students are exposed: teacher's talk,
listening activities, reading passages, and the language heard and read outside of
class. Input provides learners with the material needed to enhance their skill to
employ the language on their own. (NLRC) The input (material) is of two kinds .
A.Finely tuned'' input
As the term itself implies it is the material which is organized in a skilled
manner and it has a goal to achieve.
1. It is matched to learners' present understanding level and associated to
what they are already familiar with.
2. It focuses on conscious learning of a specific point: the pronunciation of a
word, the contrast in the uses of two verb tenses, new vocabulary, useful
social formulas.
3. It is controlled by the instructor or textbook author.
4. It is used in the presentation stage of a lesson
B. Roughly tuned input
The term implies more than what it seems on the surface. It is not tailored to the
requirements of the class or students; rather it challenges the learners to enhance
their knowledge.
1. It is more complex than learners' current proficiency and stretches the
boundaries of their current knowledge.
2. It focuses on authentic use of language in listening or reading
passages.
3. It is used "as is," with minimal alteration by the instructor or textbook
author
4. It is used in the activity stage of the lesson

C.Controlled output:
Controlled output is at the practice stage of the lesson which follows the
presentation. It input is largely concerned with the receptive skills then
output is very much concerned with production with speaking and
writing. However before we encourage our students to produce new
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language forms for themselves in different contexts, we need to give

them controlled practice. That is we need to give them linguistic prompts
to which their responses are fairly predictable. That is we want the
grammar of the responses to be predictable but leave scope for a basic
level of real communication.
D. Free Output:
It concentrates on use rather than usage. At this later productive stage
students are concerned with communication. They are new much more in
control of the whole situation and more concerned about meaning than
about form. This being the case the teacher can expect more mistakes and
should be much more tolerant of them when they occur. The students
thinking may be well ahead of their linguistic competence so they should
be encouraged to ‗have a go‘ at saying it in English and be rewarded for
successful communication. One of the communicative activities at this
stage could be a guessing game which would provide a degree of free
practice and also provide a realistic context for question forms and short
answers using the simple present tense.
Q.4. Differentiate between knowledge & skills. What knowledge & skills
does a learner need to have in order to communicate effectively in a foreign
language?
Ans:
The Difference between Knowledge and Skills: Knowing Does
Not Make You Skilled For many people, knowledge and skills
are similar concepts used to describe competency. But for
learning professionals they should be considered as two quite
different yet related concepts.

Identifying the Difference between Knowledge and Skills

Knowledge is information acquired through sensory input:

Reading, watching, listening, touching, etc. The concept of knowledge refers to
familiarity with factual information and theoretical concepts. Knowledge can be
transferred from one person to another or it can be self-acquired through
observation and study.

Skills, however, refer to the ability to apply knowledge to specific situations.

Skills are developed through practice, through a combination of sensory input
and output. As an example, social skills are developed through interaction with
people by observing, listening, and speaking with them. Trial and error is
probably the best way to achieve skills mastery.
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To make it simple, knowledge is theoretical and skills are practical. You can
know all the rules of a sport, know all the teams and all players, know all the
statistics, but this only makes you knowledgeable about this sport; it does not
make you any good at it. To become good at a sport you must play it, practice
its techniques, and improve your skills through experience. You don‘t need to
know all the teams or all the players to practice a sport and you can easily learn
the rules as you play, through trial and error.

The same applies to a job: One can know a lot about a subject matter, but might
not have the skills required to apply that knowledge to specific tasks, since
knowledge does not provide skills. However, developing skills normally
provides some knowledge, as practicing those skills results in sensory inputs.
As an example, an aerospace engineer may know a lot about avionics and flight
theory, but this alone does not make him an aircraft pilot. On the other end, an
aircraft pilot only requires a minimal level of knowledge about avionics and
flight theory in order to be able to fly the plane, and this knowledge will
continue to increase as he gains experience flying a simulator or an actual plane.

Developing Skills
Therefore, if you want to better prepare individuals to meet a desired
performance, they don‘t need more lectures. What they need is more practice.
The production of more presentations and more page turners will only make
people more knowledgeable; it will not provide them with skills to better do
their job. Seems logical, no? Why then are so many learning professionals still
addressing performance gaps with lectures, online presentations, or other
theoretical content?

In order for people to achieve a desired performance at a task they must be

provided with opportunities to perform the actions required so they can improve
their performance at this task until they master it. While a lot of what is actually
called training is basically nothing more than information dump, no surprise that
such training programs fail to deliver results. Training should be about
activities, scenarios, and simulation. When training is about lectures,
presentations, and quizzes we end up with individuals who know a lot of things
but can‘t do much with it.

Of course skills can be developed more easily if one has prior knowledge of the
task to be accomplished: Learning to fly a plane through trial and errors without
having a slight idea about how planes fly may be quite risky, but theory should
be limited to the minimum required to be able to perform the task. You cannot
learn how to drive a car without knowing where the accelerator and brake
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pedals are. However, the best way to learn the effects of acceleration and brakes
is not to read about it, but to actually experience it.

Practice is the only way to develop skills: The more you do something, the
better you get at doing it.

Q.5: Explain how and why listening skills have been neglected in
the language learning situation in Pakistan?

Ans: The listening skill:

Listening is the act of hearing attentively. Research shows that 45% of our time
is spent on listening. We listen more than speak.If this listening skill is used in a
proper way we can master the tools of communicative skills. Listening is
difficult, as human mind tends to distract easily. A person who controls his
mind and listens attentively acquires various other skills and is benefited.

Listening skill can be defined as, ―Listening is the act of hearing attentively‖. It
is also a process similar to reading which should possess knowledge of
phonology, syntax, semantics and text understanding. Thomlison (1984) defines
listening as, ―Active listening, which is very important for effective
communication‖. Listening can be also defined as, ―More than just hearing and
to understand and interpret the meaning of a conversation‖.

Listening skill makes you successful in workplace, family and in the society.
Good listening skill is mandatory to get into a profession in communications,
management, planning, sales, etc. Listening skills involve a different set of
etiquettes, questioning for explanation, showing empathy and providing a
suitable response. Good listening skills include the understanding ability. Body
language is also a part of listening skill. Eye contact with the speaker, sitting
straight and alert are the good gestures of a good listener.

Types of Listening
There are different types of listening depending upon the situation and the
environment, where the listening takes place. Few important types are the
following,

 Whole-person listening-understanding the speaker, his words, thought,

motive etc.
 Appreciative Listening- Listening for appreciation and pleasure.
 Attentive Listening –attentively listening each and every word.
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 Casual Listening- Listening not very attentive, listening casually without

any interest.
 Evaluative Listening- Listening to evaluate or judge something.

Tips for Effective Listening

Few tips to master the tool of listening skill are given below.

 Have eye contact with the speaker.

 Sit straight and adapt a posture to tell the speaker that you are listening.
 Show some gesture which represents attentive learning, for example
nodding of the head.
 Verbal responses while listening shows that you are a good listener.
 Wait for the speaker to complete his speech and then share your views,
don‘t interrupt him.
 Try to concentrate on the complete speech.
 Do not give your views unless you are asked to do so. Interrupting and
thrusting your views are mostly not liked by all people.

Listening skill is a technique used for understanding, what is being said by

taking into account how something is said and the nonverbal signs and body
language that accompanies it. This technique requires practice as listening is
very difficult. A person who controls is mind and practices attentive listening
will be successful in life and his career.

"Which skill do you think is most neglected in MFL/WL classrooms?" The four
options were listening, reading, speaking and writing.

Listening 47%
Reading 7%
Speaking 40%
Writing 6%

I have usually written that listening is the most neglected skill and this accords
with what the respondents to the poll thought. I wonder if this is because of the
way we perceive "listening" in language teaching and the way it is assessed.
One of the unfortunate by-products of the GCSE exam system in England and
Wales, introduced around 1987, is that listening is seen as a separate skill,
assessed separately and therefore to be taught separately. (For readers outside
England and Wales, about half of our 15-16 year-olds do a high-stakes, national
exam called GCSE which has always assessed (reasonably discretely) listening,
reading, speaking and writing.)
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This had tended to encourage teachers to divide up planning and lessons into
these four skills. As a consequence, listening sometimes (by no means always)
ends up being practised in the form of separate exercises or tests which typically
consist of short snippets or longer extracts of recorded speech accompanied by
various question types - true/false/not mentioned, matching, gap-fill, ticking
correct statements and questions in English or TL.
In addition, teachers wisely spend a good deal of time doing practice exam
papers to help their students prepare for exams. This reinforces the notion of
listening as a test.

As Gianfranco has written in his blog, and as we wrote in The Language

Teacher Toolkit, teaching listening therefore becomes testing with the emphasis
on right/wrong answers and a certain degree of resultant stress for students.
Students often express dislike for listening. But actually, when you think about
it, much of the listening students do takes place during classroom interactions
when they hear either the teacher or a partner speaking. This can be enhanced
by the use of well-chosen recorded extracts involving manageable, scaffolded
tasks which need not be in the form of testing questions.

Don't forget (if you did) that teacher-fronted question-answer work and other
forms of interaction are as much, if not more, about developing listening skill as
oral skill. If we neglect such teacher-led work we deny students the chance to
develop their confidence with listening skill and confidence over time.

Poor practice would be to teach some grammar, teach some vocabulary, do a

few practice tasks then move straight to an audio recording of paragraph-length
speech. Better would be to engage in lots if interactional activities, all carefully
scaffolded, using the teacher's voice as much as possible, along with the voices
of fellow students, before moving to short recorded snippets, then longer
recorded sections which link with previously learned material. Over several
years this type of approach will produce more confident listeners. Of course,
you'll never remove the stress of doing listening exams altogether. By their very
nature (total concentration is needed, you only hear the material twice) listening
tests will always cause difficulty. But if you let listening become a very large
part of every listen by doing "multi-modal" tasks, to use the jargon, listening
skill will develop more organically. So I would argue that you should not worry
about talking a good deal in TL to classes, as long as your talk is supported by
all the aids needed to make your self understood. Similarly, allowing students to
do well-constructed pair or group tasks and combining listening with reading
and writing via transcription, gap-fill, reading aloud, note-taking, writing
answers to oral questions and so on, will help develop confident listeners
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Neglect of Listening Skill in General

Long‘s study (in Long, 1987) shows that only 2% of total classroom time is
spent for the development of listening skill. Long (1987:921) mentions that
though the awareness is growing the teachers are not giving full attention to the
development of their students‘ listening skill. Listening has been identified as a
―Cinderella skill‖ by Nunan (1999) which is always ignored by its elder sister
speaking. Wang (2008) points out that in teaching English in the EFL contexts
of Japan, Korea and China listening skill is ignored even in the modern EFL
teaching process.

Pakistani Context
Munir Naqvi (2002:134) identifies listening as a challenging skill for the
foreign language learners because this skill requires substantial endeavours by
the learners. In case of acquiring our mother tongue we listen and speak, and
then learn reading and writing but it is totally opposite when we are learning
English— reading and writing and then occasionally listening and speaking .
The author claims that this is the reason why Pakistani students face difficulty
in case of listening English and they need to invest sufficient endeavours to
acquire this skill. But the true fact is that students are never given that chance,
because as Waqas Ahmed (2008:193) explains that in the schools, colleges and
even in the university education Pakistani learners are never directed how to
listen. As the students of Pakistan are never exposed to listening they fail to
manage any kind of interaction claim that the neglect of listening skill in our
language classes makes the learners weak in the spoken language also. It has
been found that in most of the language courses in our country listening is never
taught.

Status of English in Pakistan

English played a predominant role in Indian subcontinent due to the successful

expansion of English language by the British colonial power (Rahman,
1999:13). After the partition of India the status of English remained almost the
same in Pakistan because English was the chief means of communication
between the people of East and West Pakistan, as a result English got the status
of a second language in Pakistan (Rahman (1999:14) mentions that after the
emergence of Bangladesh English achieved the status of a foreign language in
Pakistan. Since English is an international language it necessitates its learning to
the Pakistani people and this learning requires updated teaching of techniques.