From Theory to Practice
Integrating Skills
Faith Adler and Keli Yerian
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.
Stop and Reflect
Think about your own context for learning your second language. Now that you’ve seen how the skills work together, think of which skills or modes are going to serve your own long-term goals, and set your short-term goals and study methods based on that.
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.
Minh’s parents moved from Vietnam to the United States when he was four years old. They often spoke to him in Vietnamese growing up, though he would almost always respond in English as that’s what he spoke the rest of his day outside the home. His parents loved the life they had in Vietnam, and raised Minh similarly to how they were raised, working to incorporate Vietnamese culture into their son’s life plentifully. As a result of these factors, Minh has a strong understanding of his cultural background and can understand spoken Vietnamese almost effortlessly. He can read a few things in Vietnamese, too. On the other hand, he is less comfortable speaking and can’t write very much at all.
In this case, Minh has already had extensive exposure to input in Vietnamese throughout his childhood. His receptive skills in listening and reading are most developed, and his understanding of the day-to-day cultural elements embedded in this input are also strong. However, his output has been minimal so far. If Minh were to decide to invest some time into learning more Vietnamese, he could expand his strengths in receptive skills across different domains beyond his family life, while also using these receptive skills as a springboard to develop his productive skills in speaking (and possibly writing) as well.
Without further ado, let’s jump into the first skills chapter: Listening (or Viewing in the case of Sign Languages).
References
ACTFL. (2024). ACTFL proficiency guidelines 2024. Retrieved June 05, 2024, from https://www.actfl.org/educator-resources/actfl-proficiency-guidelines?resources=view
A process of interaction in which speakers mutually negotiate their intended meaning using strategies such as clarification questions, repetition, and rephrasing to convey a clear message
A language that is native to a region and spoken by the local community
An attempt to halt or reverse the decline in use of a language, or to revive a dormant language
Family or ancestral language
Any language learned after the first language(s). The term "second language" does not necessarily refer to the 2nd language in time that a person learns. It can be a third, fourth, or other additional language
Having the quality of receiving, taking in, or admitting. In the context of language, taking in input in the form of language
Having the power of producing; generative; creative. In the context of language, creating output in the form of language
In this context, language that we are exposed to, e.g. through hearing, viewing (if signed languages) or reading
In this context, language that we are producing, e.g. through speaking, signing or writing