an empirical look at the integration and separation of skills in elt

7/28/2019 An Empirical Look at the Integration and Separation of Skills in ELT

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An empirical look at theintegration and separation ofskills in ELTLarry Selinker and RussellS.Tom/inBy considering a particular problem area in ELT research the integration/separation of the four skills'we argue that an increased concern forempirical m ethodology will necessarily bring ELT theory into closer con-junction with teaching practice. In this article we report five case studieswhich all aim to show that an empirically grounded and insightful ELTtheory is indeed possible. In so doing, we uncover several hypotheseswhich control pedagogical decision-making, bu t which do not appear to beexplicitly stated, and for which substantial evidence is lacking. One unfortu-nate resu lt is that other potentially useful strategies for teaching remainignored.We argue that increasing the rigour of observations ofskill integra-tion/separation opens the way for more s ystematic exploration of the prin-ciples which underlie the m aterial presented in these case studies.Finally,we note that in these studies, important decisions affecting stu-dents' time and learning are not grounded in fact or in principles thatpedagogical decision makers consciously consider. Nor apparently is theraising of such questions even contemplated. We note the three types ofnon-empirical rationale for current decision-making in the area of skill

integration/separation. We contend that the best pedagogical decisions fo rstudents can be mad e only by taking into serious account systematicobservations of student performance in specific learning situations inwhich differing integration/separation schem es are used.Introduction Our general motivation in writing this article stemsfromour concern withtwo fundamental q uestions within English language teaching (ELT) w hichseem to invite a great deal of discussion among practitioners:

1 Wha t is the relation to be between pedagogical principles in ELT theoryand the activities occurring within daily teaching?2 What is the nature of the research and evidence needed to develop anempirically-grounded and practice-directed set of pedagogical principlesfor ELT?These questions are important because we see in the literature, atprofessional meetings, and in informal discussion, continued divisionbetween the concerns of so-called 'th eorist s' (whose pedagogical prescrip-tions are regularly criticized as being divorced from the imm ediate needs ofpractising ELT teachers) and the concerns of ELT teachers (whoseELT Journal Volumt 4013 July 1986 Oxford University Press 1986 227


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Soma prmilmlnmryforth*hypottfalm

Case One:The skills organizationof a particularcurriculum at anintensive institute

pedagogical prescriptions are regularly criticized as unfounded and dep en-dent on anecodotal evidence). We feel that this division is mainly due toimplicit and differing sets of assumptions about the nature of theory andevidence in research, and their relation to ELT practice.In this article we are interested in 'ELT theory'. W hat we mean by this isa theory of ELT practice. We are especially interested in trying to beexplicit abou t the principled bases for pedagogical decision m aking. In thispaper, wefirstreport on some case studies in ELT. Ou r intention is to showthat an empirically grounded ELT theory is possible, i.e. a theory thatcomes from practice and adds to our understanding of practice. We con-sider some concrete and practical cases in ELT of one traditional andimportant theoretical hypothesis, an hypothesis upon which countlesspedagogical decisions have been based: the 'four-skills hypothesis'. Thishas two parts:

a that there exist four skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking;b that these skills should be separated in teaching practice.Part (b) as stated is a particularly strong form of the hypothesis.In this section, we consider some descriptive data on the integration andseparation of the four 'basic' language skills. Clearly, these four tra-ditionally recognized skills have been used as the fundamental organizingprinciple for many ELT syllabuses and curricula. We wish to ask: underwhat circumstances and to what extent is it useful for the four traditionallanguage skills to be separated, and under what circumstances and towhatextent is it useful for such skills to be integrated? While it is perhapspremature to begin experimental studies of skill integration/separation,this should not deter us from conducting careful empirical studies whichwill permit us to build an ob servational base for ELT theory. Much of thedata which we describe in this section is drawn from two of the graduatestudent studies (by Hargreaves et al. and Johnston et at.) on this topic whichwe jointly supervised at the University of Oregon in the Spring of 1982.Table 1, takenfromJohnston etal. (1982), shows the relation between ESLlevel and skill separation at one particular ELT institute. This table wasderived from conversation between the investigators and two adminis-trator s at the institute . W hat can be seen from it is that the lower the level,the m ore likely it is that skills will be integrated; and the higher the level, themore likely it is that they will be separated. But un til this was expressed inthe form of a diagra m, the teachers did not seem to realize that this was thecase.Tahiti

123456

Oral bateGrammar/writingGrammar/writingGrammar/writingGrammar/writingGrammar/writing

Reading/vocabularyReading/vocabulary

ReadingReadingReading

Word tudyWord itudy

OralOralOralOralOral

TOEFLTOEFL

American cultureAmerican culture

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After seeing Table 1, there was some conflict among the teachers overwhether the diagram actually reflected what went on at the institute at thetime. We are willing to grant that it may not reflect it, since the empiricalresult we are interested in is based on the opinions, and the un derlying beliefsystems, of the two administrators as described in conversation. We feelthat this is a good starting point for exploring the situation.This raises the further question of how decisions of the sort reflected inTable 1 are m ade, quite apa rt from whether or not they seem to be goodones. In this case, importa nt decisions seem to have been m ade on the basisof a curriculum plan that was not clearly articulated: the issue of skillseparation versus skill integration was never actually faced.Examination of the curriculum plan in Table 1 suggests several hypoth -eses about integration-separation ofskills in ELT. First, it suggests (at leastfor practitioners in this ESL context) that skill integration is more impor-tant to learning at earlier stages than at later ones. Second, it implies thatskill separation becomes more useful or important at later stages of learn-ing, especially where stud ents a re preparin g for academic work (as they arein this particular institute).

There is not, of course, any evidence available to us that will address suchhypotheses. But our main points then become dearer :1 ELT pedagogical decisions do entail adoption of some hypotheses orpoints of view ab out skill integration and skill separation, whe ther they areexplicidy stated or not.2 The lack of substa ntial evidence to underpin such pedagogical decisionsmakes them seem unprincipled.S Studies such as Johnsto n et al. (1982), inwhich pedagogical decisions areinvestigated by considering the beliefs of the decision makers, begin tomake explicit the underlying hypotheses and pu tative principles, renderin gthem available for more explicit investigation later.

Cose Two: We present below an extract from an interview with an Institute director'Focus'an informal and a curriculum developer, reported by Johnston etal. (1982). In thetechnical term course of the interview they used the term 'focus' to describe their attem ptsto integrate skills in a separated curriculum. (I = Investigator; D = Direc-tor; C = Curriculum Developer.)I : . . . Do you help teachers integrate the four skills?D : To suggest that one could allow teachers to integrate one skill area withanother is looking at it sort of backwards. Language itself is not[separate]; it's hard to separate it. You realize it's virtually impossibleto really separate i t . . . so you don't allow teachers to integrate things.Language is integrated among all these skill areas. It's like dividingwater it flows back together again. You have these separate littleislands for the sake of convenience, but w e're not separa ting. We focus,

you might say. That's a catchword this term. It allows us to concen-trate on one area. But you can 't separate: it's impossible. You do n't gointo a listening classroom and only listen; you can't go into an oralconversation classroom and only speak; you can't go into a readingclassroom and only rea d; th at's im possible. You can't pull one piece ofwater here and one piece of water there; it flowsback together again.But we can focus on different areas in different classrooms. I find itTh i integration an d separation of skills 229


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funny to talk about the four skills anyway, because it's a convenienceand a way of categorizingbut certainly nobody believes they areactually ever separated.C: Yeah, and I think there 's kind of a historical develop men t there,

because, when I was in graduate school in the late 1960s, I think youcould honestly say that the four skill areas were [divided]at least,there was an attempt to completely divide them; in the sense that youwent into a l istening comprehension class and you only listened. Youdid exercises to tapes, you filled out little things, and you honestly onlylistened.D: But you had to listen to something.C: W hat I 'm saying was that at that t ime there was more of an attem pt todeliberately com partm entalize these things, to split the jello. And Idon 't thinkwell, of course, I 'm speaking locallym y guess would bethat that has changed a great deal throughout the country. I don'tknow about language schools overseas, whether i t has changed asmuc h there as i t has here. But I would say tha t in this country surely it

has changed a good deal.1A point worth noting here involves the two metaphors used by theadm inistrato rs in this conversation: 'dividing water' versus 'split the jello'.These metapho rs , used here as arguments , but wi thout empirical ground-ing, are indicative of the strong view that absolute separation of skills is apedagogical artifact. The curriculum developer notes the historical truththat in the 1960s 'there was an attempt to completely divide them'. Thisspeaker correctly observes that the separation of skills in the 1960s wasmore than a slogan: i t was a belief about the way language is organized.Here, that belief is explicitly denied, with important consequences for thecurriculum involved. A key theoretical term, 'focus' is introduced toexplain the administrators ' decisions, but i t is left undefined, paving theway for misunderstandings in the daily teaching situation.It is apparent that these two administrators have wrestled with a rathertricky pedagogical prob lem. O n the one hand, they seem not to believe thatskills are in principle separable (lines 35). On the other hand, they seemalso to believe that their curriculum demands compartmentalization ofsome sort (presumably for administrative reasons, though this is not speltout).The term 'focus' is created, therefore, to provide a reasonable explana-tion to resolve the implicit conflict caused by the clash between two largelyunexplored areas. It may be that the idea of 'focus' in skill separation orskill integr ation, is a valu able on e, but it needs careful definition andevaluation in settings such as this one if it is to be more than a plausiblerationale for resolving administrative/pedagogical conflict .

Case three: Figure 1 shows the activities that a typical stude nt engaged in each dayTime gaps in lecture while attending a course. Each evening students would read material incomprehension anticipation of a lecture. The following day they would atten d the lecture,and that evening review and revise dieir notes.Th is raises the issue of the 't ime ga ps', as Joh nst on et al. call them,between the various activities. Unlike many ELT classroom activities, theregular academic efforts of these students were distributed over two days,with many hours intervening between reading, l istening, and writing. On

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R

L - Interpreting - W

Before class: reading chapter

During classAfter class: re-reading for misseddetails, filling missed notes

Key: R= reading ; L= listening; 1= interpreting; W=wr itingFigm 1

the surface, then, this gives the appearance that these language skills areseparated, for surely they are not used simultaneously here. On the otherhand, consider thii set of activities:a reading the evening paper;b watching a science programme on television the next morning;c writing a personal letter in the evening.The students' 'time gaps' seem quite different from these. Unlike thisrandom set of activities, the students use different skills to solve a singlecomm unication problem: u nderstanding a lecture in a particular course ona given day. We would define this as 'integration', and, because the skilluses are consecutive, it is 'serial integration'. This is important because itprovides a way of distinguishing this sort of situation from more randomseries of language-using behaviours.This case also raises the issue of skill definition. Johnston et al. (1982:5)also consider skill integration at each stage in the two days of academicactivities. During class, students write as they listen; after class, they writeas they read. The authors contend that listening and writing are moreintimately integrated in such cases than are reading and writing. This isbecause listening and writing are carried out almost simultaneously underthe 'communicative stress' of lecture comprehension. This sort of caseforces one to co nsider m ore carefully w hat the skill of writing en tails, for thewriting of notes in each setting appears to be a vasdy different kind ofinteraction.

Case Four: Hargreavcs et al. (1982) present a de tailed discussion of the U3e of one set ofSkill integration In ESL materials in a particular class of migrant workers. The students weremate rials use required to answer the following question:

What day of the wee k dots Mrs Nelson usually go to the supermarket? What day didshe go to the supermarket last ivtek? What day will she goto the supermarket nextw e e k?

Hargreaves first presents a fragment of talk to illustrate the ideal flow ofconversation, based on die coursebook in use in the classroom:The integration and separation of skills 231


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Teacher(Boundary exchange)Aha, good. Pedro, do number 3.

(Boundary exchange)Very good. Viviano, try number

Student

(Reads question from text)What day does Mrs Nelson go to thesupermarket?(Answers question from text)Mrs Nelson goes to the super-market on Tuesday.4.Th is is contrasted with afragmentof an actual comm unicative transa ction.

TeacherOK ... Oscar, why don't youread the first question, number 1.And use, use, your name, usesomebody else's name, likeViviano.

A h.

OK, wait a minuteJus t, just the first sen .. . thefirst question, mm ..., can youanswer that question ... What dayof the we ek doe s Viviano go to thesupermarket?

Ah, answer the question ... canyou answer it?

Just, just make something up.

Student

Le leo? (Should I read it?)

What day of the wee k does Mr Vioianousually go to the supermarket?What day did she go to the supe rmarketlast week?What day will...

What day of the week does M r Viviano goto the supermarket?

La sigo leyendo? Le digo la con-testaci6n? (Should I keep on read-ing? Should I tell you the answer?)Yes.Whatever you want to say . ..Like, ... OK, OK, I'll do thefirst one for example. For Jexample you say, What day of the

week does Viviano usually go to thesupermarket? And then you say,Viviano usually goes to thesupermarket on Friday. OK, soyou just make up an answer, any-thing you want to say. There is nocorrect answer. So, let's see,t r y . . .There is clearly a big difference between what we believe the materials232 Larry Selinktr and RusstU Tomlin


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writer intended as ideal classroom performance when constructing theseexercises, and what actually happened in this ESL classroom. Thematerials writer had in mind an idealized interaction, suggested in theintroduction to the textbook, in which the student will read each individualquestion and then give an appropriate but complete oral answer to thatquestion. This would represent an instance of 'serial integration': thestudent engages first in a reading activity and then shifts his or her attentionto oral production.

However, when transcripts of a recording of a particular class using thesematerials are examined, one sees activity that is much more complicated interms of skill integration than the materials writer intended. (SeeHargreaves et al. 1982: Appendix for additional fragments.) The classroomconversation is very much alive, and contains talk about the particularsituation being imagined, and rich 'meta-discussion', sometimes inSpanish, of the learning activity itself. In all of this, listening and speakingskills are in parallel integration, with reading taking a distinctly secondaryrole. Hargreaves etal. contend that learning for these students seems tooccur more in this discussion, which is not based on the materials, than inresponse to the exercise itself. They conclude this not so much fromempirical observation of the learning that has occurred, as from the premisethat better communicative activity offers better learning opportunities. Theintegration question perhaps provides some support for that premise, forperhaps parallel integration in conversation is the best example of the kindof communication that students require for learning. The crucial point isthat if we increase the rigour of observation of skill separation and integra-tion, we will open the way for more systematic exploration of the principleswhich underlie the judgements of Hargreaves etal. concerning thesematerials.

Case Five: The following is another fragment from the interview with the instituteResolving conflict director and curriculum planner reported in Johnston etal. (1982). In thisabout skill separation! instance, the curriculum planner considers direcdy die investigator's ques-integration don about how skills are integrated in the institute's curriculum.And also one thing we've run intothere's always debate among teach-ers as to how these should be divided. Should it be reading and writing,should it be grammar and writing, should it be grammar all by itself,should it be grammar with oral skills? So there's always conflict amongthe teachers, and we have taken the position, no matter what die conflictis, that we are not going to isolate anything completely . . .

There are two fundamental points to be made here. First, the pedagogicaldecision about how to integrate or separate certain skills in this curriculumwas made without any apparent recourse to empirical observation. That is,important decisions affecting students' time and learning potential are notbased on facts and principles which these administrators consciously con-sider. Nor is the raising of such questions apparendy even contemplated.Second, while diere appears to be no principled resolution to this prob-lem, there is none die less a resolution. It is to take a middle-of-die-roadposition, accommodating the various opinions of individual teachers in anadhocmanner.This has the positive effect of promoting temporary harmonyamong staff, but it does not ensure that die best pedagogical decision hasbeen made for die students. We contend diat die best pedagogical decisionsfor diese students can be made only by taking into serious account dieThe integration an d separation ofskills 233


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systematic observation of student performance in specific learning contextsin which differing integration/separation schemes are used.

Conclutlona Widdowson argues convincingly (1978, 1983) that there is no coherenttheory which governs pedagogical decision-making in ELT. But he alsoargues that ELT decisions are inherently highly theoretical, in that 'teach-ing techniques and materials must ultimately be related to underlyingprinciples' (1978:163). This holds true even when one adopts an eclecticperspective, for the principles underlying choices made in an eclecticapproach must also be made explicit (cf. Widdowson 1984:89). One shouldattempt to make explicit the principles which underlie all pedagogicaldecisions and decision-making, for ultimately the learner, too, has onlylimited time and resources to devote to language learning, and must makemost efficient use of those resources.

In beginning empirical investigation of skills and how and when theyshould be separated or integrated, we find ourselves agreeing fully withWiddowson. But we believe more is needed. In our own experience, butmore importantly in empirical evidence such as that provided above, wefind that pedagogical decisions about skill integration or separation in ELTare currendy grounded in diree types of rationale. First, they are groundedin the practical extension of dieoretical prescriptions based on rationalisticpremises about the nature of language and language learning. Second, tiieyare grounded in historical tradition, where die decisions of die past arepromulgated in die present. And, diird, tiiey are grounded in practicalconstraints, wherein die immediate pressures of time and resources forcedecisions based on expedience.

To conclude, twofinalpoints. First, in our view, die ELT discipline has atits disposal so littie carefully collected data about practice diat it is hard tobe certain about anydiing. We feel diat we must work out researchmediodologies and argumentation to help us gadier relevant data forstudying practical, daily ELT situations.

Second, our approach to ELT dieory, while intended to augment dieapproach of Widdowson, still remains different. Widdowson's approachcan be fairly characterized as providing a rationalistic description of whatappears to happen naturally in idealized native-speaker interactions, andconclusions from diis are applied to pedagogical decision making. While webelieve diis kind of approach to be of great value to die profession, we areaware diat, widiout empirical grounding, die move from such idealizeddescriptions to specific pedagogical recommendations may require realleaps of faitii. Our recommendation is die careful collection of evidencefrom bodi native-speaker and native/non-native speaker discourse inactual ELT contexts.

The diree rationales discussed abovedieoretical prescriptions, tra-dition, and practical constraintshave tiieir uses in making pedagogicaldecisions. But die development of an ELT dieory widiin a serious profes-sional discipline must require an increased effort to create a genuinediscipline. This, we feel, requires diat we take an increasingly data-orien-tated, empirical point of view on crucial pedagogical decisions. However,we are notcalling for more laboratory experimentation, from which general-izations to ELT learning situations may be unclear. We are interested in a'dieory of practice', and the primary relevant domain of inquiry is die rangeof practical situations diat we as teachers find ourselves in. By considering careful descriptions of what actually happens in two settingsdie ped-

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agogical setting in which ELT teachers work, and die specific settings inwhich die learners are going to use their growing linguistic abilities inEnglishwe believe die principles underlying pedagogical decision-mak-ing will be strengthened. Received July 1935

1 The conditions under which this conversation wasrecorded a re described in Johnston et al. (1982).Hargreaves, D., M. Lamon, V. Ramsay, and D.Shane. 1982. 'Looking at One ESL Lesson in anHE P Progra m.' De partment of Linguistics, Univer-sity of Oregon: unpublished manu script.Huclrin, T. and L. Olaen. 1984. 'On the u se for infor-mants: LSP discourse analysis' in Pugh and Ulijen(eds): R eadingforProfessional Purposts: Studits inNatioeand Foreign Languages. London: Heinemann.Johnston, G., C Kobayathi, and M. Ohno. 1982.'An Investigation of the Four-Skills HypothesisUsingjapanese and American Informants.' Depart-ment of Linguistics, University of Oregon:unpublished manuscript.Selinker, L. 1979. 'On the use of informants in dis-course analysis and "language for specialized pur-poses".' 1RAL XXVII:189-215.

W iddow son , H . G . 1978. Teaching Languagt as Com-munication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.W iddow son , H .G. 1983. Learning Purpose and LanguagtUsi. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Widdowwm, H. G. 1984. 'The incentive value oftheory in teacher education.' ELT Journal 38/3:86-90.

Thm muthor*Larry Selinker is Professor of Linguistics and formerDirector of the English Language In stitute a t the Un i-versity of Michigan. His research interests are in E LTtheory, language for specific purposes, discourseanalysis, and second-language acquisition.Russell Tomlin is Associate Professor of Linguisticsand D irector of the American English Institute at theUniversity of Oregon. His research interests are indiscourse analysis, second-language acquisition andELT theory.

The integration an d separation of skills 235

an empirical look at the integration and separation of skills in elt

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