There are four major skills in learning language: 1.listening 2.speaking 3.reading 4.

writing

Listening skills
Listening skill is a receptive skill in the oral mode.Real listening is an active process and when we speak of listening we should also mention understanding what we hear. Listening has three basic steps: -Hearing-Hearing just means catching what the speaker is saying. -Understanding-This step happens when we take what we have heard and understand it. Listeners should think of a word and its meaning. -Judging-After hearing what the speaker has said listeners are judging if it makes sense. One of the main reasons for getting students to listen to spoken English is to let them hear different varieties of English.Within British English,for instance,there are many different dialects and accents.But if students only hear occasional varieties which are different from teachers, it will give them a chance to get the English language better. The second major reason for listening is because it helps students to acquire language subconsciously even when teacher does not draw attention to it. The most important method of exposing students to listen to spoken English is through the use of taped material which can contain varieties of topics such as poetry reading, songs, conversations and many others. Listening, as a skill, demands listener engagement too. Long tapes on subjects which are not interested for students will not only be demotivating but students could find it bored and once they do that it becomes difficult to involve them again. In that way comprehension is lost and listening is of no value. The kind of listening should depend on language level. If, for example, we speak about advanced level students where listening demands detailed understanding. What is really important to say is that the listening is the same for everybody. The tape is At the same speed and it continues no matter is the individual lost or not.

Principles behind the teaching of listening: 1. The tape recorder is just important as the tape Listening will be completely useless if the recorders speaker is poor or the tape goes slower or faster. Teacher must be sure that the tape is heard all round the classroom in order to listen properly. 2. Preparation is vital Teacher need to listen to the tape before they take it into a class. In that way, they can judge whether students will be able to cope with the material and particular task. Students also need to be prepared for listening by looking at pictures, reading headlines or reading the questions before listening. 3. Once will not be enough Students need to listen to the tape more than once in order to pick up the things that they missed the first time. The first listening is used just to give the general idea of what is listening material about. 4. Good teachers exploit listening texts to the full Listening makes sense when both, teachers and students, invest time and energy in listening task. Then listening becomes an important event in teaching not just one more exercise. Here are some of the listening tasks which can be done in the class: -cloze listening-can also be used for listening if it is not difficult. Teacher reads a material; deleting content words and students must be able to suggest the words appropriated for the gaps. -dictation-a good way to get students listen carefully. The aim is to get class listening as well as showing comprehension. -jigsaw listening-listening to the paragraph four or five sentences long whioch is out of sequence.Students write down the order in which they think sentence should be spoken.

Speaking skills
Speaking is different from the other three skills.The other three we can do alone but we need somebody to speak to.During this activity,students are using all the language at their comand to perform some kind of oral task. Speaking is productive skill in the oral mode.It is more complicated than it seems and involves more than just pronouncing words. The teacher's main task is to encourage students to speak as much as possible. There are three basic reasons why to give students speaking task: -Rehearsal:getting students to have a free discussion gives them a chance to rehearse having discussion when they are not in school.

-Feedback:tasks in which students try to use all language they know provides feedback for teachers as well as students.That way, teacher can see what language problems students have and on which level is the class.On the other hand , students can see what they need to do to improve. -Engagement:Speaking will be satisfied if all the students are participating fully and if teacher set up the activity properly.There are many speaking tasks that are enjoyable in themselves.

The important thing which is also worth mentioning is correcting mistakes during speaking. It is important for teachers to correct the mistakes. The general principle of watching and listening so that feedback can be given after the task has finished is much more appropriate than constant repetition from the teacher during the task. While the students are speaking teacher should note down things that seemed well and times when students made important mistakes. As with any kind of correction,teacher need to say which mistake is made by which student. Teachers can also be involved in speaking provided they don't start to dominate.If , for example, someone in a role-play cant think of what to say teacher will decide if the activity should be stopped. That is the point in which teacher have to get involved.

Here are some of the speaking suggestions: -students in pairs have similar pictures but with differences and they are looking for them through talking to each other; -students are talking on a given topic; -students think of five famous people and have to decide the perfect gift for each pearson; -students work in groups,looking at five different photographs and have to decide which one should win a photographic prize.Then the groups have to agree with each other to come to a final decision. Students can also be asked to make a short presentation on prepared projects or topics.After their performance they are questioned by their colleagues.

Writing skills
Writing is the productive skill in the written mode.It is also more complicated than it seems and is often found as the hardest of the skills,even for native speaker.It is hard because it involves not just graphic presentation of speech but also presentation of thoughts in a structured way. There are many reasons for teaching writing and some of the most important are: reinforcement,language development,learning style and writing as a skill,which is the most important.

Reinforcement:Stutents often find it useful to write sentences using new language shortly after they have studied it. It seems that the writing process helps us to learn as we go along rather than speaking process. There are,of course , some learners that find it difficult to pick up the language.Writing is the best skill for such learners.There is no rush during the task and bother of face-to-face communication. Writing as a skill is just important as speaking, listening and reading. Students need to know how to write letters, how to reply to advertisements, how to put written reports together. Just as they need to know how to pronounce spoken English appropriately they need to know some of the writings special conventions.

When we speak about writing we have to mention the kind of writing that students should do. The type of writing we get students to do will depend on their age, interest and level. It all about the language the students have at their command and what can be achieved with that level. When we, for example, set the task for elementary students, we need to be sure that the students have enough language to complete the task. Another crucial factor of writing is students interest. The best way to get students write is letting them choose what they are interested in. On the other hand, there is no limit to the kinds of text we ask students to write. Our decisions will be based on how much language students know and what will not be just useful for them but also motivated as well. As far as correction is concerned, the teacher has to achieve a balance between accuracy and treating students sensitively. Talking to students about mistakes they made is the only way to correct their work appropriately. This happens when the teacher is not able to read students work and when it is difficult to know what the mistake is because it is unclear what the student is trying to say. Teachers have to ensure that the students understand the problem and then rewrite the passage correctly.

There are some writing suggestions: -students write letters to a newspaper article in response to a controversial article -student write their own menus -students design posters for party -students write a radio news bulletin -students write a letter of application for job -students send e-mail message to a friend -students write invitations of various kind -students write the description of their room or classroom

Reading skills

Reading is a skill which can be developed independently of listening and speaking skills. Reading can help build vocabulary that helps listening comprehension at the higher levels. Reading in the foreign language demands attention. The aim of reading is to develop students reading competence. There are three styles of reading which we use in different situations: -scanning -skimming -detailed reading Scanning:This skill means that the students do not have to read every word and line. For example,looking up a name in the phone book.We move our eyes quicklyover the page just to find the phone number we seek. Skimming:This technique is used to get the main points and skip over the details. It is useful to skim: -to preview a passage before reading in detail -to refresh the understanding of a passage after reading in detail Whether students scan or skim depends on what kind of text they are reading about and what they want to get out of it.For example,skimming can be used when we are trying to decide if a book in the library is good for us. One of the main teachers function when training students to read is not only to persuade them to use skimming or scanning but also to make them see that the way they read is important too. Here are the principles behind the teaching of reading: -Reading is not a passive skill. To do the reading successfully we have to understand the meaning of the words,understand the arguments and work out if we agree with them. -Students need to be engaged with what they are reading. Students who are not interested in what they are reading are less likely to benefit from it. -Prediction is a major factor in reading. Teachers shouldgive their students hints so that they could predict what is going to happen. It will make them more interested in the text. -Match the task to the topic. Choosing a good reading task demands the right kind of questions.This means thar the most exciting topic can be boring if the questions we ask are inappropriate.

Conclusion
In this work I tried to show the importance of using language skills. Using all four skills will add a variety to the lesson and help students to improve their language.It is not matter which one is used the most as long as it is used properly and involves as many students in order to help them deal with their difficulities.