Although we are separating the four skills across the next four chapters, this isn’t necessarily how these skills exist in the real world. Two or more of the four skills are often naturally intertwined. The American Council for Teaching Foreign Languages (ACTFL) very intentionally proposed a different way of grouping the skills in order to avoid this separation.

The Three Modes of Communication

The concept of the three modes of communication was developed by ACTFL (2024) in order to categorize the four skills by communicative purpose. In other words, they’re organized by how the skills function together in many settings. The three categories are: interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational.

Interpersonal communication skills encompass our ability to negotiate meaning with others both verbally and non-verbally and make adjustments based on in-the-moment, usually spontaneous, back-and-forth communication. The main language skills in play in this case are speaking and listening in the case of verbal conversations, signing and viewing in the case of signed conversations, or reading and writing for quick online exchanges such as texts or emails. The main focus here is on the ability of participants to react and adjust to one another spontaneously.

Interpretive communication skills encompass our ability to interpret meaning as an audience member receiving one-way communication. This mode comes into play when we are the receivers of a message such as a written news article, a story on the radio, or a pre-recorded video where communication with the sender is not possible, at least not immediately. There is no room for spontaneous negotiation of meaning such as asking clarifying questions, so the interpretive mode depends strongly on our interpretive skills. The main language skills in play in this case are reading texts such as blogs, books, or social media posts, or listening to something like a speech, audiobook, or a song.

Presentational communication skills encompass our ability to communicate meaning as a presenter giving one-way communication. Once again, there isn’t any room for negotiation or clarification with your audience, so things like the audience’s prior knowledge or cultural background should be carefully considered when deciding how to communicate your information. This mode is the inverse of interpretive skills since the main language skills being used in this mode are writing (for things such as reports or essays) and speaking or signing (for things like telling a story or doing a class presentation).

These modes can occur in a sequence, such as when someone gives a presentation (presentational mode) followed by a question-and-answer session (interpersonal mode). Or when students read something for class (interpretive), then discuss it in groups (interpersonal), and write an essay response (presentational).

Context Leads the Way

It’s rare for learners to focus equally on all four skills or all three modes. Often learners have more access to, need for, or interest in some skills or modes more than others, depending on their contexts and goals. As mentioned throughout this book, language learning goals look different for each individual learner.

For example, if you are learning a language to make traveling easier and to communicate with locals, it may not be important for you to build presentational skills or even interpretive skills. Instead you might just want to build your interpersonal skills (interactive speaking and listening in this case). Similarly, if you are in  an indigenous language revitalization context or a heritage language context in which people are mostly speaking or texting to one another in the home or community, interpersonal speaking and listening may be more important to you than extended interpretive or presentational reading and writing.

On the other hand, if you wanted to obtain an academic degree in your second language, then the interpretive mode (reading articles and listening to lectures) and presentational mode (writing papers and giving class presentations) might become equally or more important for you to focus your energy on.

A Story of Integrating Skills

As a example of how the skills should not be seen as separate in practice, let’s hear from Faith to see how she leaned on one language skill to support another in her journey of learning Japanese.

Input and Output

Another way in which language skills can be grouped is in terms of input (listening/viewing and reading, the receptive skills) and output (speaking/signing and writing, the productive skills). You’ll see us use these terms at points in the book, and when we do, the focus is more on the individual mind than on communication.

Unlike ACTFL’s three modes of communication, dividing language skills in terms of input and output is not a specific model. It simply is a way to divide the four skills into two distinct groups of receptive and productive skills.

The Story of a Heritage Learner

Do you recall the term heritage learner from Chapter 3? Let’s look at a case where the categorization of input and output can help us more easily understand how a specific language learner might want to focus their attention.