SPEAK, WRITE, LISTEN, AND READ

 

Speak, Write, Listen, and Read

I emphasize the importance of the practice of speaking and writing over listening and reading in a language-learning. 

There are many grounds for it. 

However, one of the main reasons for it is that speaking and writing are a foundation for the transformation of yourself to learn a language. 

They are a language output practice, which transforms you into a new person who can speak, write, listen, and read. 

Moreover, they are a genuine indicator to assess your language ability. 

Why? We listen and read(input) first. 

Subsequently, we speak and write(output) derived from what we listened and read previously. 

If listening and reading are incorrect, you are likely to speak and write incorrectly.

In addition, listening and reading capacities are hard to measure intuitively on the spot.  

On the other hand, speaking and writing are intuitively assessable. 

It is a practical parameter to see your skills. 

You need to monitor constantly 

how your language skills are improved by yourself to get better 

and address the gap between how good your language skills were yesterday and how good your language skills are today.

If you hear someone speaking a foreign language, you can measure his or her capacity to speak immediately if you are a native language speaker. 

Writing is very similar, too. 

For example, you buy written books and audio books. 

They are products generated by writing and speaking. 

They are the outputs that represent who those authors are. 

Speaking and writing are difficult to cheat! 

Once you speak and write, your capacity is likely to appear! 

You cannot cheat on the outputs that you made since it is your products especially in writing.

This is the main reason why people are afraid of speaking publicly in front of people in a language class since your products are exposed and demonstrated once you speak and write and they are subject to being judged.

What about listening and reading? 

How do you see how good their listening and readings are. 

It is more complex to measure intuitively than speaking and writing since they are an input activity. 

I asked students many times whether they understand a paragraph that we have previously read. 

They normally respond: 

“I understood it more or less” 

or “by and large”. 

It is hard for me to assess specifically how much you understand it or not.

Subsequently, yes, you can cheat it on reading and listening on the spot!

Thanks for reading,

Hilano Aquihisa