February 14, 2024 • 43 mins
This week, we're going back to basics and talking about the four language skills. We’ll talk about the key differences between them, how to improve each of those skills in isolation, and why you shouldn’t practice those skills in isolation.
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Marina (00:00):
There's plenty of reading material both, you know,
physically and online.
You can find reading materialfor free very easily.
Um, whether it's at the libraryor online.
So it is a very low barrier toentry and something that you
could integrate into yourroutine a lot.
Jeremiah (00:17):
You can do it on the bus.
You can do it in the shower.
You can do it in your sleep.
Marina (00:22):
In the shower?
Jeremiah (00:24):
Yeah, you put the book in a plastic bag.
Marina (00:27):
In your sleep?
Jeremiah (00:29):
Put the book under your pillow.
Welcome back to How to Language,a podcast about language skills
for language learners.
I'm Jeremiah.
Marina (00:43):
And I'm Marina.
Jeremiah (00:45):
This week we wanted to go back to basics a little bit
and talk about the four languageskills.
We'll talk about the keydifferences between them, how to
improve each one of those skillsin isolation, and why you
shouldn't practice those skillsin isolation.
Marina (00:57):
Quick disclaimer for this episode.
By default, we do our best tomake our discussions on this
show inclusive of both spokenand signed languages.
However, because we will betalking about the four language
skills today, we want to prefaceit by saying that what we
discuss today is specific tospoken languages that also have
(01:17):
writing systems.
Pop quiz, Jeremiah.
See how much you remember fromschool.
What are the four languageskills?
Jeremiah (01:29):
The four language skills are speaking and
listening and then Reading andwriting.
And also, this obviously onlyapplies to spoken languages and
also languages with writingsystems.
Marina (01:42):
Right, exactly.
Not, this isn't as, I mean,obviously with sign languages,
there are equivalencies of likespeaking and listening.
But it's not something that canso easily be written down.
so yeah, what we're talkingabout pertains to spoken
languages that also have writingsystems.
so, in the field of languageacquisition, uh, and also
(02:04):
language teaching, you often seelanguage broken down into these
four discrete components.
Reading, writing, listening, andspeaking.
to be clear, there is a lot moreto language than these four
things, um, especially on likethe sociolinguistic level or the
pragmatic level.
Jeremiah (02:25):
Oh yeah, big time.
Really we thought it would be agood idea just to kind of get
back to basics and explore thesefour skills because they're,
they, they, they encompass a lotof the different ways that
people learn languages, thedifferent ways that people use
languages, and it's kind of alens that people use to think
about language a lot.
So we're going to talk aboutwhat their deal is, why some
(02:47):
people might struggle with oneor the other, and also what you
can do to improve in theseareas.
Marina (02:52):
Exactly.
another thing that I wanted tosay was that traditionally,
these four language skills aredivided into two categories.
Active skills and passiveskills.
So the active skills would bethose that involve the, the, the
language user actually producinglanguage.
(03:14):
So that would be speaking andwriting.
The passive skills would bewhere the language user is
receiving language.
So that would be listening andreading.
Jeremiah (03:25):
But right off the bat, I think, and maybe people will
already Kind of notice thisdividing them into active and
passive is maybe a littlesimplistic, which I mean, I
know, you know, um, but peoplemight say, well, listening can
be active.
There's a whole thing calledactive listening, um, reading.
Well, no reading.
You can be an active reader.
Like you can annotate.
So people might say, well, whyare those not active and is
(03:49):
speaking and writing alwaysactive?
Can you speak and writepassively?
Those are fair points.
And believe me, people talkabout that.
specific thing a lot whenstudying this whole issue of the
four language skills.
Again, it's like more of a lensand you shouldn't you shouldn't
take it prescriptively and youshouldn't necessarily take it at
face value, but that's the waypeople talk about it in terms of
active and passive.
(04:09):
And so it's, it's worth bringingup.
Marina (04:11):
Exactly.
And I think what that distinctor that categorization is coming
from is that when you'respeaking or writing, you're
actively producing the language.
Presumably from nothing.
You're just using a lot ofactive recall.
And so, those two skills areoften thought of as being more
difficult.
Or, a lot of people might saythat those are the skills that
(04:34):
they struggle the most with.
Especially speaking.
Um, and we'll get into that alittle later.
Jeremiah (04:40):
And actually, it's funny you mention that, because
if you talk to somebody and theyask, What languages do you
speak?
I don't know why they, peopleask that sometimes.
And they ask you that, and yousay, well, or you might hear
people say, Well, you know, I, II learned Spanish in high
school, and I can understand it,but I can't really speak it.
That's a common thing peoplesay, and that really gets at
(05:00):
this, that at least the quoteunquote active skills are
perceived as being harder, andthey can be harder for the exact
thing you mentioned, that, youknow, in a sense you are
producing something fromnothing, um, and so you're not
just taking something that'salready there and making sense
of it, so that's a fair point.
Marina (05:20):
Yep, definitely.
so, for a more interestingdiscussion today, um, we're
going to talk about the fourskills, not in terms of active
versus passive, because as wejust said, those categories
don't really mean a whole lot tous, so instead, we're going to
think about them in terms oftheir more natural pairings, so
(05:40):
that would be speaking andlistening, um, which are more
real time events, and thenreading and writing, Which are
events where you have a lot morecontrol.
Jeremiah (05:49):
That's a really good point.
And that does get back at whatwe talked about in the last
episode about orthographies.
That was really specific to howorthographies are put together,
but I think it's, it's, it'sappropriate that this is the
episode that we're doing afterthat one because people might be
wondering, well, is there moreto the difference between
writing versus spoken or signedlanguage?
(06:13):
And the answer is yes, for thisexact reason.
That There's real time language,quote unquote, that's one way to
look at it, which, yeah, iswriting, or no, yeah, right, no,
speaking and listening, and thenthere's, um, essentially
language where you have a lotmore time to think, which is
reading and writing.
Marina (06:32):
Exactly.
Alright, let's start withspeaking, because that's the one
that most people have thehardest time with, I would say.
Um, so, So, you hear that a lotfrom language learners citing
speaking as being the hardestskill to learn, to become
comfortable with.
With speaking, there's a lot ofanxiety involved because
(06:54):
speaking your target language isnot as natural to you yet.
and so that can produce a lot ofstress, a lot of fear, a lot of
social anxiety.
Jeremiah (07:07):
And if you think about it.
From both of those lenses,active versus passive, but also
real time versus static orwhatever.
Um, right.
Speaking is really the worst ofboth worlds because not only are
you using active recall, whichis hard, um, but you're also,
(07:28):
there's a serious time crunch.
If you're in, especially ifyou're in a conversation, most
situations that require speakingskills.
You have a very finite amount oftime to put your thoughts in
order and then externalize them.
And you're really just hopingthat it'll make sense and when
you're first learning a languageand for a while after that your
(07:48):
success will not depend so muchon whether you get it right the
first time but on whether you'reable to clarify what you just
said.
Because they didn't understandit the first time.
Marina (07:59):
And that's all hard enough in your L1.
It's hard enough to create acogent thought in any, in your
first language, but in adifferent language, yeah, that's
tough.
So yeah, like you said, speakingis a very dynamic skill.
You're on the spot.
You usually don't get anypreparation.
(08:19):
You know, if it's a spontaneousconversation and not a scripted
oral exam in your languageclass.
There might be anxiety aroundyour pronunciation.
You might be afraid of soundingstupid, of sounding unnatural,
etc.
There's a lot of baggage thatcomes with speaking in your
target language for a lot ofpeople.
Jeremiah (08:38):
I think It's also worth comparing The experience
of children acquiring theirfirst languages versus adults
acquiring a second languagebecause with children, when
they're acquiring their firstlanguage, if you've ever spent
any time around a child, youknow, they make mistakes all the
time.
They just don't feel shame.
Marina (08:54):
They have no shame.
Jeremiah (08:54):
Um, which is awesome for them.
Maybe part of it is, part of whythey're so successful is that
they just kind of go for it, andthey're not constantly thinking
about, Uh oh, am I going to saythis wrong?
Whereas adults, when you'relearning your second language,
you have a much higher capacityfor embarrassment.
Or adults maybe have a lot moreshame, which Obviously, we're
(09:15):
going to tell you, oh, youshouldn't, you know, you're
learning a language.
That's an amazing thing to do.
Um, you shouldn't feelembarrassed for trying to do
something hard like that, butwe're humans and we're going to
feel that way anyway.
Marina (09:29):
Yeah, definitely.
And when, when you're an adultlearning a second language, it
can feel kind of like you're akid again.
You know, when, when kids.
Are young and they're justlearning how to speak.
They're having all thesethoughts and they're having all
these feelings that they want toexpress, but they don't have the
tools yet to communicate thosethings.
(09:50):
And that can lead tofrustration, that can lead to
crying, and things like that.
And it can feel a little bitlike that when you're an adult
too, where you have all thesethings that you want to say and
all these things that you wantto be able to convey.
Because you're a smart adult,like, you can form complex
thoughts and sentences in yourfirst language.
And you want to be able to dothat with everybody that you
communicate with.
(10:11):
Um, but, when it's in yourtarget language, that can be
very frustrating, and it canimpact your confidence.
Jeremiah (10:17):
Yeah, one time I saw, I think it was just a meme, but
it was basically Just from ashow, a sitcom that I've never
seen, but I remember the gist ofit was that it was a character
and Spanish was her firstlanguage and she was speaking in
English and the other charactersaround her, the white characters
around her, were mocking her forher English not being as
(10:38):
proficient as theirs, for themas first language users, and the
funny thing was, or it's notfunny, but the thing is that the
character as far as I understandwas highly educated in Spanish.
And she said, she says, youknow, you should hear how smart
I am in Spanish.
Marina (10:56):
Oh, yeah.
I think that was Sophia Vargara.
Jeremiah (10:58):
Oh, okay.
Marina (10:59):
I don't know what that was from.
Maybe Modern Family.
Jeremiah (11:01):
Modern Family?
Never seen it.
Marina (11:02):
But I, that's something that she's in but I know with
her, I know it was her that saidthat.
Yeah.
Okay.
Mm-Hmm.
Yeah.
That's a good example.
That's that.
That's a good example of seeinghow frustrating it can be to
speak in your target language.
Jeremiah (11:14):
And other people don't always help.
Marina (11:16):
No, no, definitely not.
So, unfortunately, we've paintedquite a grim picture.
Um, but as difficult as speakingis for most people, um, that
doesn't mean that it's somethingto be avoided.
Which is Not what the news thatanybody wants to hear, but it's
true.
Jeremiah (11:35):
Also, probably not a surprise you can't you can't
just well You can not speak likefor example, especially if
you're learning a An ancientlanguage or quote unquote dead
language good news for you.
You don't have to speak it Youstill should, I think, because
it's a fun thing to do, but youdon't have to.
But, if you're learning a livinglanguage that people do speak,
(11:57):
and especially if you'relearning it to use it for
something, which most peopleare, then, bad news, but also
not, you know, not a surprise,probably.
You are going to have to speakit.
The good news is that, ingeneral, like anything, any
skill, the more you do it, theeasier it gets.
We've all heard, practice makesperfect, and as flawed of a
sentence as that is.
(12:18):
It is true in this case that,yeah, the more you do it, the
easier it will get, the betteryou will get at it, and the more
successful you will be ingetting your ideas across.
Marina (12:27):
Yeah, and if pe if, if speaking to people is too much
at the moment, or maybe you'restruggling to find people to
speak with, then there are waysto get in speaking practice
without actually having aconversation partner.
And the best way to do this isto talk to yourself, um, which
(12:49):
sounds weird, but it reallyworks.
Like, I have regularconversations with myself in
Spanish when I'm, like, taking ashower or in the car by myself.
Just imagining, like, animaginary conversation, how I
would respond, that is reallyhelpful.
Not the same as talking to areal person because when you're
(13:11):
talking to a real person youcan't predict what they're going
to say, but it is better thannothing.
Jeremiah (13:18):
Big time.
Definitely a useful thing to do,a useful exercise.
I will say the most meaningfulchange does seem to happen when
the practice itself ismeaningful, which is just
another way of saying thatYou're going to see the best
results when you're using thelanguage to solve problems.
And the kind of problems thatyou solve with language are the
problems That just means havingconversations with real people
(13:43):
to arrive at shared meanings.
That's solving social problems,and that's what language is for.
So, you should talk to peoplethat you enjoy talking to, for
one.
That can help, not just talkingto strangers or people who might
be mean to you.
Talk about topics that you careabout or are interested in.
For one thing, that'll makelearning that vocabulary more
fun, and then you'll just havemore tools, more materials to
(14:06):
string together sentences, whichwill also make you more
successful at getting your ideasacross when you're not having to
search for as many words.
And by having those successesearly on, and also just
throughout that, that's going tohelp your confidence.
And it's just a positivefeedback loop at that point.
Marina (14:26):
Increase your motivation to for sure.
Yeah.
All right, so, speaking'spartner would be listening,
which
Jeremiah (14:35):
which is a passive skill, right?
And so you don't actually haveto work, you don't have to put
in any effort when you listen tothings, right?
Marina (14:42):
I wish.
Listening is the skill that Itend to have the hardest time
with.
Really?
Yeah.
Like, like.
You know, in the past, it's the,it's the skill that I've
struggled with the most.
Jeremiah (14:55):
I think the thing that makes listening a little unfair
for the learner is that whenyou're speaking you have what
you have, right?
You have the words and you havethe chunks that you have access
to and it's really just aquestion of, you know, This is
what you got.
Good luck.
With listening, you have whatyou have.
(15:16):
But everybody else is workingwith a full, is playing with a
full deck, and you are not.
Not only that, okay, so first ofall, they are very likely to use
words and chunks and expressionsthat you just don't know.
Also, they, because they'reother human beings, who maybe
are from all over the world, arelikely, especially if it's a
(15:38):
widely spoken language likeSpanish, if they're a first
language Spanish user, or not,They are going to be speaking a
version of Spanish, a variety, adialect of Spanish, that it's
possible you just didn't learn.
It might not be the dialect thatyour teacher spoke, and it might
not be the dialect that thepeople that you're around most
who speak that language speak.
(15:58):
So for example, if you'retalking, if you learned Mexican
Spanish in school, and then youtalk to a Cuban, you know, All
the love in the world to, toCubans, but I've listened to,
I've listened to Cuban Spanishand no offense, it is hard to
understand.
Marina (16:16):
Yeah, or just anything that you're not primed to listen
to.
I imagine that if you've neverencountered Argentinian Spanish
before and you went toArgentina, it might, it might
take a little time to get usedto it.
And, you know, just like withspeaking, listening is a real
time event.
Where, you know, unless you'rewatching like a TV show where
(16:37):
you can pause and rewind andthings like that, if you're
talking to a real person, You'rejust trying to keep up, you're
trying to parse the thing thatthey said while you're listening
to what they're currentlysaying, um, especially when the
speech is at a speed that'smaybe a little bit above your
level, it can be very Verymentally taxing.
Jeremiah (16:58):
Yeah, and good luck getting a stranger to slow down.
Even if they are being nice, andthey want to help you, they are,
you know, sympathetic, theyunderstand you're trying to
learn, and you say, hey, youknow, thanks for talking to me,
but can you slow down a littlebit?
They'll be like, sure.
Yeah!
Marina (17:13):
Dude, how many times has that happened?
Yeah, it's, it's hard to know,How fast you're going in your
first language, you know, whenyou know be when being perceived
by a by a learner It's it's hardfor people to gauge how fast
they're actually speaking.
Jeremiah (17:31):
Yeah.
Also, I'm glad you mentioned TVshows we'll probably get to this
when we talk about how toimprove listening, but You know,
we can save it but That, there'syour hint.
TV shows or just any media whereyou are listening to the
language and, but you havecontrol over the speed, so
YouTube is great, uh, or at thevery least you can back it up
(17:52):
and listen to it again.
We'll get to that though.
Go ahead.
Sorry.
Marina (17:56):
Um, so yeah, listening, like speaking.
Often thought of as a passiveact because the listener isn't
actually doing anything.
They're not producing anylanguage, um, and so it's
categorized as being passive.
And it can be passive, like ifyou just have the radio on in
(18:16):
Japanese in the background whileyou're doing all your chores and
it's kind of like white noise inthe background, I would call
that passive.
Whether you understand it ornot.
but even things like Listeningto a podcast, or watching a
movie or a TV show in the targetlanguage, eavesdropping on other
people in the target language,those are great, and those are
(18:39):
useful, yes.
and your listening will probablyimprove if you, consume that
type of content.
Jeremiah (18:45):
Assuming you're actually tuned in.
If you're listening to Japaneseon the radio in the background
while you do Pilates orsomething, and you're not
actually paying attention,you're not going to get it
through osmosis, I gotta tellyou.
Marina (18:55):
Yeah.
Oh, I wish.
I wish.
But, that was an extremeexample.
Listening to a podcast activelyis better than that.
But there is a little bit moreto listening to that.
The thing that I've found hashelped me the most with
improving my listening is activelistening.
And I think active listening isreally like the secret sauce
(19:16):
here because it entails actuallyhaving conversations with
people, which adds stakes to thesituation.
It gets that adrenaline pumping.
Jeremiah (19:27):
You also have a job in a conversation.
Like, we call listening, or notwe, but people call listening a
passive skill.
And like I said, really passivelistening is just hearing.
You can hear something going onin the background and not know
what it is.
So that's passive.
I think, you know, any listeningwhere you're tuned in is active
to an extent.
(19:47):
And really conversations isthat.
Yeah.
In overdrive because yeah, thereare stakes and you have a job in
the conversation.
You're not just there to receivethe light that somebody else is
pouring into your brain byspeaking to you.
You have a responsibility tothem to reciprocate and to say,
(20:08):
Hmm, and ah, and yeah, okay.
Right.
to, to let them know that youare paying attention.
That's something that humansexpect from one another.
And, and, and usually you'rejuggling understanding what
they're saying, which is thelistening.
Not just hearing but alsoplanning how you're going to
respond and then if you get thatcombination wrong And you spend
(20:29):
too much time thinking aboutwhat you're gonna say And not
actually listening to them one.
You might not actually hear whatthey say at all which is gonna
be awkward or It might just belike if you do that in your l1
like if you talk to somebody andclearly they just want to say
What they want to say, they'renot actually listening to you.
You also don't want to be thatperson which if you are In your
(20:49):
second language, don't be toohard on yourself because that is
a hard balance to strike, butit's also worth remembering that
that's a thing.
Marina (20:59):
Yeah.
So the ideal situation herewould be to find somebody that
you can talk to.
Um, and preferably, somebody whois willing to speak at a pace
that you're comfortable with.
So this could be a tutor, thiscould be a teacher, or even just
a patient friend or familymember who speaks the target
language.
if that is not available to you,you can listen to the content
(21:23):
that I mentioned earlier, likepodcasts and TV shows and movies
in the target language.
But, I would suggest Kind offlipping a switch in your head
that goes from passive listeningto active listening.
So, listening to what the peopleare saying, almost as if you had
to respond.
So, that means that you'relistening for comprehension, and
(21:45):
you're listening to respond,which are both, um, elements of
active listening.
And so, that might add someartificial stakes to what you're
listening to.
you could even listen tosomething or watch something as
if you had to then, like, writea paragraph about what you just
(22:06):
listened to, you know, kind oflike they do in school.
We'll get into skillsintegration later, but that,
that would be a good way topractice active listening.
Um, I've, I've even seen videoswhere It's like a mock
conversation where the personwill say something in the target
language and then leave some,some empty, like, airspace.
What's the word?
Empty Air airtime?
(22:28):
Airtime.
Airtime.
Jeremiah (22:30):
That's what you have when you're on a motorcycle and
you go off a jump, I think.
Marina (22:33):
Well, they leave there's a pause in the conversation for
you to then say something inresponse.
So you have to listen to whatthey say.
And then formulate a response.
And it's almost like having aconversation.
So, that's another way to helpwith active listening.
Jeremiah (22:52):
So, those are the skills that, What would you even
call those skills?
Real time skills?
Skills where you are, You know,you're against the clock.
Mm hmm.
Whatever.
So.
We'll think of a word.
Yeah.
So those are those skills.
Then you've got the skills thatare not time sensitive.
(23:12):
Maybe if you're in an exam,they're kind of time sensitive,
but that's an artificialconstraint that's placed on you.
It's not inherent to the, the,the context in which the skill
is used.
And of course, I'm talking aboutreading and writing.
Let's, let's, let's start withreading.
Just, I guess, following off oflistening.
You can think, I guess, ofreading as the analog to
(23:35):
listening because you're takingsomething in, you're not
producing anything.
Reading and writing are bothskills where you have a lot more
control in terms of how fast youread, how fast you write.
You can take as many pauses asyou want.
You can Redo things.
If you write something and itturns out bad, you can redo it
(23:56):
and there's no consequences.
So, for people who are learninganother language, I think often,
reading and also writing canfeel really satisfying and it
can feel like you're making someserious progress.
And you are.
Don't get me wrong.
That is what's nice, I guess,about language learning apps.
For example, Duolingo, and thesetry to integrate the skills, and
(24:17):
I think they do a pretty goodjob, often.
But because they're apps on yourphone, they tend to be pretty
text based.
Mm hmm.
Whether it's reading or writing.
When you're reading, you don'thave pressure from others, most
of the time.
You can pause, you can lookthings up, you can reread.
Marina (24:34):
You're not engaging with a second person.
Reading and writing are usually,usually solitary activities.
Jeremiah (24:41):
Exactly.
Reading is great because you'rereally just taking in the
language that already exists,somebody put it down, and it's
not going anywhere.
There's also no requiredproduction, and so you don't
have a job like you do in aconversation.
There's no time sensitivity, thewriting isn't fleeting.
You also have the choice to readabout things that interest you.
(25:02):
You can't always control Whatmakes it into a conversation,
but you can decide whether youwant to pick up, you know,
Wuthering Heights or Schindler'slist.
Is that a, was that a bookfirst?
Or is that just a movie?
Marina (25:15):
I don't think it was a book.
Jeremiah (25:17):
Okay.
I don't know.
Pride and Prejudice.
War and Peace.
Yeah, yeah.
These are all great books tostart with, I think.
Yeah,
Marina (25:32):
kind of building off of that, uh, reading can be a
really great vocabulary builderbecause you're reading things
that interest you, hopefully,um, which means that you're
learning a lot of valuablevocabulary, which motivates you
to, um, retain it more.
It helps also to put languageinto context, which also happens
(25:53):
when you're listening, but atleast with when you're reading,
it's written down right in frontof you, you can, you can really
take it in, you can take yourtime to parse it and things like
that, which is really nice.
Takes the pressure off.
also with reading.
It's something that you can dovery easily and very frequently.
It doesn't require a partner togo and hunt down.
(26:17):
There's plenty of readingmaterial both, you know,
physically and online.
You can find reading materialfor free very easily.
Um, whether it's at the libraryor online.
So it is a very low barrier toentry and something that you
could integrate into yourroutine a lot.
Jeremiah (26:34):
You can do it on the bus.
You can do it in the shower.
You can do it in your sleep.
Marina (26:39):
In the shower?
Jeremiah (26:41):
Yeah, you put the book in a plastic bag.
Marina (26:44):
In your sleep?
Jeremiah (26:45):
Put the book under your pillow.
Marina (26:50):
So, also like listening, it's often thought of as a
passive act, because you're notproducing any language, but you
can make reading a more activeprocess as well.
As you're reading you can lookup vocabulary that you don't
know so, you know, there issomething to be said for just
reading for fluency and kind ofpicking up words from context
(27:14):
and And that's fine.
Um, but if you do want to sitdown and make it a little bit
more active, you can take noteof words that you don't know,
look them up, and that will makeyour reading a lot smoother as
you move forward through thebook.
you can highlight and make notesif you're able to.
you know, as long as it's not alibrary book, or something like
(27:35):
that.
that kind of focuses yourattention in certain places.
Like, oh, I highlighted thispart because I've never
encountered this conjugationbefore and I want to look more
into it.
Or I'm confused as to why theyuse this word here.
Um, you know, so I'm going toinvestigate it a little bit
more.
(27:56):
You can also write notes justrelated to the content of what
you're reading, not just thelanguage components.
So, as you would, maybe this isa little bit more advanced, but,
you can just write marginalnotes or annotations on the
things that you're reading, justabout the content, what your
thoughts are, what yourreflections are, as if it was in
(28:17):
your first language.
another thing you can do,similar to listening is to read
for comprehension and then keepyourself accountable for that
comprehension by maybe talkingto other people about what you
read.
That can be in person with, youknow, the people around you.
You could join a book club inyour target language.
(28:37):
You could You know, for anonline version, you could read
things and respond to things inonline forums in your target
language, Discord, Reddit,things like that.
Um, those are good ways to doactive reading, while also
keeping yourself accountable forthat active reading.
Jeremiah (28:59):
The Last skill we want to talk about in isolation is
writing.
Writing is probably my favorite.
I like the combination ofproducing, but also not being
under a time crunch.
It's a great way to produce thelanguage without the anxiety of
speaking.
It looks cool, especially ifthere's a different orthography,
(29:22):
which now we can talk about.
It looks super cool.
If you're writing in, you know,the dragon language from Skyrim,
that just looks cool.
It's just cool to look at.
You also have control, right?
You can take your time to rereadwhat you write.
You can, you can edit.
Even if you're in conversationwith someone through, through
texting or email, you, you havecontrol.
(29:43):
You, what you put down in thefirst instance isn't what you're
stuck with.
Unlike speaking, you can alsochoose what to write about,
especially in private writing.
You know, if you're journalingand You can intentionally
practice certain things, like,for example, vocabulary, if
you're working through avocabulary set, you can write to
(30:06):
practice a new grammar concept,or you can even write in a
different register, which is tosay that you can write more
formally, you can write lessformally to practice, because
maybe you don't get a lot ofopportunities to produce in that
register, and you might bethinking, wow, this sounds
great, I'll just write all thetime, and obviously, we don't
have to tell you that.
While, as fun as writing is,again, speaking is usually
(30:29):
something you're going to haveto do, too.
But, writing is a good place toget your feet wet with new
things before you take them outinto the world and get
embarrassed because you'rehaving a hard time putting them
into words for people.
Marina (30:43):
Exactly.
Also, if you regularly write inyour target language, that's a
really fun way to track yourprogress in a really concrete
way.
Like, if you keep a journal,whether it's Um, physical or
digital.
You can look back to the earlierpages and see like, wow, like,
I've really come a long way.
It's a great, uh, confidencebuilder.
Jeremiah (31:03):
Big time.
And obviously it's worth notingthat reading and writing are
more of a challenge when thelanguage that you're learning
has a different orthography, adifferent writing system than
the writing system of your firstlanguage.
So if you are a first languageSpanish speaker and you are
learning Russian.
That is going to be a littletougher in the reading and
(31:25):
writing department.
In those cases, first of all,it's just more important.
I mean, it's already important,but it's even more important to
make time for reading andwriting.
And I'll also say this, thatthat's one of the advantages of
reading and writing, is thatWhen you're speaking and you're
(31:46):
listening, if the language hasanother orthography, then
speaking and listening, you'rejust not getting that.
You're not getting thatpractice.
You're totally, you know, on theother side of the tracks.
so if the language you'relearning does have another
orthography, that's just all themore reason to practice reading
and writing.
Because this is an actual thingthat you still have to learn and
(32:09):
gain mastery of.
So we've addressed each of theseskills in isolation, which is
funny because early on we hintedthat that's maybe not the best
thing to do.
But it's necessary to at leasttalk about them in isolation
first so that we have a clearidea of what they are and how
you can improve on them.
(32:30):
However, it is important to saythat while it's helpful to
understand how each of theseskills works in isolation, they
are not by any means isolatedfrom each other in practice, in
real life.
These are just categories we useto help ourselves think about
things.
And we We have to stay close tothe reality of language, which
is that these four things, tothe extent that they even are
(32:53):
four separate things, areconstantly, constantly
interacting with each other, andyou really can't have one
without the other.
There's no writing withoutreading.
There's no speaking withoutlistening.
Having only one or the other isan incomplete sense of what the
language even is.
That's not as true for Speakingand listening versus reading and
(33:17):
writing, because of course youdon't have to have a writing
system in a language, and so theidea of the four language skills
is, like we said in thebeginning, something that is
particular to languages withwriting systems, which it's
important to note isn't thedefault, but Or necessarily even
the norm for languages in theworld.
(33:39):
And as a matter of fact,language has been around a lot
longer than written language.
But, presumably, there's a goodchance that if you're learning
another language, it is alanguage with a writing system.
Which is why we are talkingabout these four skills as if
they are four immutablecategories.
But again, The, the, in reallife, these, these skills are
combined.
And so, for the rest of theepisode, we're going to talk
(34:01):
about Combining them in yourpractice and in your learning.
Marina (34:06):
And this whole thing about the four skills being
combined.
isn't, some woo woo stuff thatwe're just making up.
Like, this is actually supportedby literature.
Uh, do you rememberKumaravadivelu?
Jeremiah (34:18):
Do I remember Kumaravadivelu?
I do remember Kumaravadivelu,let me tell you.
Marina (34:24):
Um, well, in his book, Beyond Methods, oh,
Kumaravadivelu is a veryprominent scholar in the field
of second language acquisitionand specifically language
teaching and learning.
so he's kind of, he's kind of abig deal, he's kind of a big
deal in our field.
Um, and no one knows his firstname, like when, in all of his
(34:47):
stuff, it always, Just saysKumaravadivelu, and maybe it'll
have, like, his first initial,which is B.
B.
Kumaravadivelu.
Yeah, but, like, I don't knowwhat the B stands for.
Jeremiah (34:58):
I searched once and I couldn't, or maybe I did find
it.
I don't remember.
Maybe it's Brian.
Marina (35:05):
I hope it is.
I hope it is.
Um, so yeah, he's kind of just,he's kind of like Beyonce in
that way, where he just has, youknow, the one name.
Maybe his first name is Beyoncé!
Jeremiah (35:19):
Have you ever seen Beyoncé and Kumaravadivelu in
the same room?
Marina (35:22):
I haven't.
Jeremiah (35:24):
There you go.
Marina (35:26):
Okay.
So, uh, in his book, BeyondMethods, Macro Strategies for
Language Teaching,Kumaravadivelu argues that the
four language skills alwaysinevitably overlap.
Uh, there's a really great quoteon the first page of the chapter
where he talks about this, wherehe says, Rare indeed is the day
(35:48):
when we only listen, or onlyspeak, or only read, or only
write.
That's just a nice way ofputting it.
And it's true, right?
There's very rarely when we'reusing language are we only doing
one skill at a time.
Or rather, One skill completelyin isolation for any extended
(36:09):
period of time.
Despite that, he points out thatschools and, you know, language
curricula in general often dotheir absolute best to separate
these skills out.
So, you might see, like, coursesin advanced English writing or
(36:32):
intermediate listening.
Um, in Spanish or something, youknow, like,
Jeremiah (36:36):
I'm an intermediate listener.
Marina (36:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jeremiah (36:39):
Somebody is like, I need somebody to talk to.
Are you a good listener?
Oh, intermediate.
Marina (36:44):
And you know, it's not like if you, if you really did
take a listening class, forexample, it is not like you are
just going to be listening tothe target language for an hour
straight.
Like that's just not how thatwould work.
Um, so they're, they'reartificially, you know, cordoned
off.
Yeah.
Yeah.
into these four separatecategories.
(37:06):
Now, this is changing, um,because, you know,
Kumaravadivelu's, uh, ideas arebecoming more mainstream.
but that is what you havegenerally seen in the past.
Jeremiah (37:18):
Imagine if you went to driving school and day one was
just accelerating.
And then, like, six weeks later,they're like, Alright, time to
learn braking.
Marina (37:29):
That doesn't work.
It doesn't work.
Um, the reason that they werekind of separated for a long
time was the thinking thattargeted practice in one skill
at a time helps to improve thatskill, like you're, you're
channeling energy into onespecific skill for A set amount
of time, and that was supposedto help.
(37:52):
Um, especially if you weretrying to help a student who's
weaker in one skill overanother.
So maybe they're a really strongreader, but they're not so good
at speaking.
that would have been an argumentto put them in a speaking class.
but, what Kumaravadivelu arguesfor is something called language
skills integration.
(38:13):
And this is where learnersengage in all four language
skills regularly in theclassroom.
At the same, you know, in thesame classroom.
Uh, or whatever learningsituation they're in.
Not necessarily a classroomsetting.
Because this is a naturalreflection of how language
exists in the real world.
Jeremiah (38:34):
Yeah, like you could have, you could have a language
class.
And the teacher will, and thisis something that probably
people are familiar with becausea lot of this gets done
nowadays, I think.
So the teacher opens the classand tells the class, you know,
what she did over the weekend.
And the class is listening toBut then the teacher asks
(38:56):
students to share what they didover the weekend.
And so now the students havelistened and maybe have gotten a
little refresher on weekendvocabulary.
And now it's their turn toproduce and they're going to
speak.
And then they read a passage inthe target language, which is
reading.
And while they're reading,they're asked to take notes,
which is writing.
(39:17):
And then they break out intosmall groups and talk about
their findings, which isspeaking and listening.
And so the goal of that class isto It's integrate those four
language skills towards the sameends, and it really is
replicating what you do in reallife by speaking while you
listen and writing while youread or vice versa.
Marina (39:35):
Now, that would be a traditional classroom
environment example, but let'ssay that you're not actually in
a language class.
Language skills integration isstill really important and
something that you can still do.
So, for example, you might startyour day by listening to a
podcast in your target language,so that's listening practice.
And then on your way to work,maybe on the bus or something,
(39:58):
you read a book in your targetlanguage, and there's reading.
You maybe are trying to do someartificial immersion, so when
you're at work you write your todo list in the target language,
so that's some writing practice.
And talk through each task toyourself, which gets in a little
bit of speaking practice.
When you get home, you watch amovie in the target language
(40:20):
with subtitles, so that'sreading and listening.
Or maybe you have a virtualtutoring session, um, that which
would, hopefully if they're agood tutor, would hit all four
skills, speaking, listening, butalso maybe a little reading and
writing.
Jeremiah (40:37):
I have an analogy for you.
It's, I don't know if you, well,you do work out.
I've been, we've been workingout together a little bit.
Marina (40:44):
I do, thank you very much.
Jeremiah (40:44):
Yeah, good job.
So, it's like, if you're doingworkouts, or, you know, if, if
you, if you get into fitness andyou're, you're researching,
okay, how do I make the most ofmy time in the gym?
When people think about the gym,they're probably thinking like,
Oh, I'm going to do some bicepcurls, get my biceps looking
tall, which is great.
(41:04):
You know, good on you.
If you're out here, if you're abodybuilder, that's cool.
But if you're just getting intofitness advice, you'll probably
get from most people is to focuson compound exercises.
You know, which basically justmeans instead of focusing on one
specific muscle, which just tobe clear, you have a bunch of
muscles in your body, and if youwere to focus on them one at a
time, you'd be in the gym allday.
(41:26):
So, they tell you to do acompound exercise, and that's
where you work multiple muscles,multiple muscle groups at the
same time.
first of all it's just moreefficient, but also you're going
to develop a lot more evenly, ifthat makes sense.
Marina (41:40):
Yeah, that's a perfect analogy here.
Because, as Kumaravadiveluargues, the skills are going to
overlap anyway.
Like, no matter what, basically.
They're going to overlap.
They're going to integrate.
Much like, uh, you use yourentire body every day, right?
Very rarely do you Like, onlyuse your legs.
Jeremiah (42:00):
Only use your biceps.
Marina (42:01):
Yeah, exactly.
Jeremiah (42:02):
Maybe if, if you, uh, go to the grocery store, and you
got a bunch of groceries, andyou pick them up, there's your
biceps, but now you gotta putthem down.
Okay, well I guess that's not,that doesn't make, doesn't make
sense because you're still usingthem.
Anyway, you're right.
It made more sense when you saidit.
Marina (42:20):
Yeah.
So, you know, the question iswhy artificially isolate them?
When we're talking aboutlanguage, there's, there's
nothing wrong with targetedpractice, but I think with the,
with the understanding that theywill integrate is important, and
you know, it's just moreefficient.
It's just like a compoundworkout.
It's just more efficient.
So why not do it that way?
(42:42):
at the, at the, KumaravadaVelu's chapter on four skills
integration, he includes thisreally nice quote.
That I think sums it up reallywell.
Language, it's like dividingwater.
It flows back together again.
Jeremiah (42:59):
That's beautiful.
Marina (43:00):
Yeah.
Jeremiah (43:04):
Thank you for listening to this episode of How
to Language.
We hope you have some moreinsight into how to balance the
four language skills in your ownlearning routine.
If you like what we do, you canleave a review wherever you
listen to this show, and you canfollow us on Instagram and X at
HowToLang.
See you next time!
Marina (43:22):
Bye!
There's plenty of reading material both, you know,
physically and online.
You can find reading materialfor free very easily.
Um, whether it's at the libraryor online.
So it is a very low barrier toentry and something that you
could integrate into yourroutine a lot.
Jeremiah (00:17):
You can do it on the bus.
You can do it in the shower.
You can do it in your sleep.
Marina (00:22):
In the shower?
Jeremiah (00:24):
Yeah, you put the book in a plastic bag.
Marina (00:27):
In your sleep?
Jeremiah (00:29):
Put the book under your pillow.
Welcome back to How to Language,a podcast about language skills
for language learners.
I'm Jeremiah.
Marina (00:43):
And I'm Marina.
Jeremiah (00:45):
This week we wanted to go back to basics a little bit
and talk about the four languageskills.
We'll talk about the keydifferences between them, how to
improve each one of those skillsin isolation, and why you
shouldn't practice those skillsin isolation.
Marina (00:57):
Quick disclaimer for this episode.
By default, we do our best tomake our discussions on this
show inclusive of both spokenand signed languages.
However, because we will betalking about the four language
skills today, we want to prefaceit by saying that what we
discuss today is specific tospoken languages that also have
(01:17):
writing systems.
Pop quiz, Jeremiah.
See how much you remember fromschool.
What are the four languageskills?
Jeremiah (01:29):
The four language skills are speaking and
listening and then Reading andwriting.
And also, this obviously onlyapplies to spoken languages and
also languages with writingsystems.
Marina (01:42):
Right, exactly.
Not, this isn't as, I mean,obviously with sign languages,
there are equivalencies of likespeaking and listening.
But it's not something that canso easily be written down.
so yeah, what we're talkingabout pertains to spoken
languages that also have writingsystems.
so, in the field of languageacquisition, uh, and also
(02:04):
language teaching, you often seelanguage broken down into these
four discrete components.
Reading, writing, listening, andspeaking.
to be clear, there is a lot moreto language than these four
things, um, especially on likethe sociolinguistic level or the
pragmatic level.
Jeremiah (02:25):
Oh yeah, big time.
Really we thought it would be agood idea just to kind of get
back to basics and explore thesefour skills because they're,
they, they, they encompass a lotof the different ways that
people learn languages, thedifferent ways that people use
languages, and it's kind of alens that people use to think
about language a lot.
So we're going to talk aboutwhat their deal is, why some
(02:47):
people might struggle with oneor the other, and also what you
can do to improve in theseareas.
Marina (02:52):
Exactly.
another thing that I wanted tosay was that traditionally,
these four language skills aredivided into two categories.
Active skills and passiveskills.
So the active skills would bethose that involve the, the, the
language user actually producinglanguage.
(03:14):
So that would be speaking andwriting.
The passive skills would bewhere the language user is
receiving language.
So that would be listening andreading.
Jeremiah (03:25):
But right off the bat, I think, and maybe people will
already Kind of notice thisdividing them into active and
passive is maybe a littlesimplistic, which I mean, I
know, you know, um, but peoplemight say, well, listening can
be active.
There's a whole thing calledactive listening, um, reading.
Well, no reading.
You can be an active reader.
Like you can annotate.
So people might say, well, whyare those not active and is
(03:49):
speaking and writing alwaysactive?
Can you speak and writepassively?
Those are fair points.
And believe me, people talkabout that.
specific thing a lot whenstudying this whole issue of the
four language skills.
Again, it's like more of a lensand you shouldn't you shouldn't
take it prescriptively and youshouldn't necessarily take it at
face value, but that's the waypeople talk about it in terms of
active and passive.
(04:09):
And so it's, it's worth bringingup.
Marina (04:11):
Exactly.
And I think what that distinctor that categorization is coming
from is that when you'respeaking or writing, you're
actively producing the language.
Presumably from nothing.
You're just using a lot ofactive recall.
And so, those two skills areoften thought of as being more
difficult.
Or, a lot of people might saythat those are the skills that
(04:34):
they struggle the most with.
Especially speaking.
Um, and we'll get into that alittle later.
Jeremiah (04:40):
And actually, it's funny you mention that, because
if you talk to somebody and theyask, What languages do you
speak?
I don't know why they, peopleask that sometimes.
And they ask you that, and yousay, well, or you might hear
people say, Well, you know, I, II learned Spanish in high
school, and I can understand it,but I can't really speak it.
That's a common thing peoplesay, and that really gets at
(05:00):
this, that at least the quoteunquote active skills are
perceived as being harder, andthey can be harder for the exact
thing you mentioned, that, youknow, in a sense you are
producing something fromnothing, um, and so you're not
just taking something that'salready there and making sense
of it, so that's a fair point.
Marina (05:20):
Yep, definitely.
so, for a more interestingdiscussion today, um, we're
going to talk about the fourskills, not in terms of active
versus passive, because as wejust said, those categories
don't really mean a whole lot tous, so instead, we're going to
think about them in terms oftheir more natural pairings, so
(05:40):
that would be speaking andlistening, um, which are more
real time events, and thenreading and writing, Which are
events where you have a lot morecontrol.
Jeremiah (05:49):
That's a really good point.
And that does get back at whatwe talked about in the last
episode about orthographies.
That was really specific to howorthographies are put together,
but I think it's, it's, it'sappropriate that this is the
episode that we're doing afterthat one because people might be
wondering, well, is there moreto the difference between
writing versus spoken or signedlanguage?
(06:13):
And the answer is yes, for thisexact reason.
That There's real time language,quote unquote, that's one way to
look at it, which, yeah, iswriting, or no, yeah, right, no,
speaking and listening, and thenthere's, um, essentially
language where you have a lotmore time to think, which is
reading and writing.
Marina (06:32):
Exactly.
Alright, let's start withspeaking, because that's the one
that most people have thehardest time with, I would say.
Um, so, So, you hear that a lotfrom language learners citing
speaking as being the hardestskill to learn, to become
comfortable with.
With speaking, there's a lot ofanxiety involved because
(06:54):
speaking your target language isnot as natural to you yet.
and so that can produce a lot ofstress, a lot of fear, a lot of
social anxiety.
Jeremiah (07:07):
And if you think about it.
From both of those lenses,active versus passive, but also
real time versus static orwhatever.
Um, right.
Speaking is really the worst ofboth worlds because not only are
you using active recall, whichis hard, um, but you're also,
(07:28):
there's a serious time crunch.
If you're in, especially ifyou're in a conversation, most
situations that require speakingskills.
You have a very finite amount oftime to put your thoughts in
order and then externalize them.
And you're really just hopingthat it'll make sense and when
you're first learning a languageand for a while after that your
(07:48):
success will not depend so muchon whether you get it right the
first time but on whether you'reable to clarify what you just
said.
Because they didn't understandit the first time.
Marina (07:59):
And that's all hard enough in your L1.
It's hard enough to create acogent thought in any, in your
first language, but in adifferent language, yeah, that's
tough.
So yeah, like you said, speakingis a very dynamic skill.
You're on the spot.
You usually don't get anypreparation.
(08:19):
You know, if it's a spontaneousconversation and not a scripted
oral exam in your languageclass.
There might be anxiety aroundyour pronunciation.
You might be afraid of soundingstupid, of sounding unnatural,
etc.
There's a lot of baggage thatcomes with speaking in your
target language for a lot ofpeople.
Jeremiah (08:38):
I think It's also worth comparing The experience
of children acquiring theirfirst languages versus adults
acquiring a second languagebecause with children, when
they're acquiring their firstlanguage, if you've ever spent
any time around a child, youknow, they make mistakes all the
time.
They just don't feel shame.
Marina (08:54):
They have no shame.
Jeremiah (08:54):
Um, which is awesome for them.
Maybe part of it is, part of whythey're so successful is that
they just kind of go for it, andthey're not constantly thinking
about, Uh oh, am I going to saythis wrong?
Whereas adults, when you'relearning your second language,
you have a much higher capacityfor embarrassment.
Or adults maybe have a lot moreshame, which Obviously, we're
(09:15):
going to tell you, oh, youshouldn't, you know, you're
learning a language.
That's an amazing thing to do.
Um, you shouldn't feelembarrassed for trying to do
something hard like that, butwe're humans and we're going to
feel that way anyway.
Marina (09:29):
Yeah, definitely.
And when, when you're an adultlearning a second language, it
can feel kind of like you're akid again.
You know, when, when kids.
Are young and they're justlearning how to speak.
They're having all thesethoughts and they're having all
these feelings that they want toexpress, but they don't have the
tools yet to communicate thosethings.
(09:50):
And that can lead tofrustration, that can lead to
crying, and things like that.
And it can feel a little bitlike that when you're an adult
too, where you have all thesethings that you want to say and
all these things that you wantto be able to convey.
Because you're a smart adult,like, you can form complex
thoughts and sentences in yourfirst language.
And you want to be able to dothat with everybody that you
communicate with.
(10:11):
Um, but, when it's in yourtarget language, that can be
very frustrating, and it canimpact your confidence.
Jeremiah (10:17):
Yeah, one time I saw, I think it was just a meme, but
it was basically Just from ashow, a sitcom that I've never
seen, but I remember the gist ofit was that it was a character
and Spanish was her firstlanguage and she was speaking in
English and the other charactersaround her, the white characters
around her, were mocking her forher English not being as
(10:38):
proficient as theirs, for themas first language users, and the
funny thing was, or it's notfunny, but the thing is that the
character as far as I understandwas highly educated in Spanish.
And she said, she says, youknow, you should hear how smart
I am in Spanish.
Marina (10:56):
Oh, yeah.
I think that was Sophia Vargara.
Jeremiah (10:58):
Oh, okay.
Marina (10:59):
I don't know what that was from.
Maybe Modern Family.
Jeremiah (11:01):
Modern Family?
Never seen it.
Marina (11:02):
But I, that's something that she's in but I know with
her, I know it was her that saidthat.
Yeah.
Okay.
Mm-Hmm.
Yeah.
That's a good example.
That's that.
That's a good example of seeinghow frustrating it can be to
speak in your target language.
Jeremiah (11:14):
And other people don't always help.
Marina (11:16):
No, no, definitely not.
So, unfortunately, we've paintedquite a grim picture.
Um, but as difficult as speakingis for most people, um, that
doesn't mean that it's somethingto be avoided.
Which is Not what the news thatanybody wants to hear, but it's
true.
Jeremiah (11:35):
Also, probably not a surprise you can't you can't
just well You can not speak likefor example, especially if
you're learning a An ancientlanguage or quote unquote dead
language good news for you.
You don't have to speak it Youstill should, I think, because
it's a fun thing to do, but youdon't have to.
But, if you're learning a livinglanguage that people do speak,
(11:57):
and especially if you'relearning it to use it for
something, which most peopleare, then, bad news, but also
not, you know, not a surprise,probably.
You are going to have to speakit.
The good news is that, ingeneral, like anything, any
skill, the more you do it, theeasier it gets.
We've all heard, practice makesperfect, and as flawed of a
sentence as that is.
(12:18):
It is true in this case that,yeah, the more you do it, the
easier it will get, the betteryou will get at it, and the more
successful you will be ingetting your ideas across.
Marina (12:27):
Yeah, and if pe if, if speaking to people is too much
at the moment, or maybe you'restruggling to find people to
speak with, then there are waysto get in speaking practice
without actually having aconversation partner.
And the best way to do this isto talk to yourself, um, which
(12:49):
sounds weird, but it reallyworks.
Like, I have regularconversations with myself in
Spanish when I'm, like, taking ashower or in the car by myself.
Just imagining, like, animaginary conversation, how I
would respond, that is reallyhelpful.
Not the same as talking to areal person because when you're
(13:11):
talking to a real person youcan't predict what they're going
to say, but it is better thannothing.
Jeremiah (13:18):
Big time.
Definitely a useful thing to do,a useful exercise.
I will say the most meaningfulchange does seem to happen when
the practice itself ismeaningful, which is just
another way of saying thatYou're going to see the best
results when you're using thelanguage to solve problems.
And the kind of problems thatyou solve with language are the
problems That just means havingconversations with real people
(13:43):
to arrive at shared meanings.
That's solving social problems,and that's what language is for.
So, you should talk to peoplethat you enjoy talking to, for
one.
That can help, not just talkingto strangers or people who might
be mean to you.
Talk about topics that you careabout or are interested in.
For one thing, that'll makelearning that vocabulary more
fun, and then you'll just havemore tools, more materials to
(14:06):
string together sentences, whichwill also make you more
successful at getting your ideasacross when you're not having to
search for as many words.
And by having those successesearly on, and also just
throughout that, that's going tohelp your confidence.
And it's just a positivefeedback loop at that point.
Marina (14:26):
Increase your motivation to for sure.
Yeah.
All right, so, speaking'spartner would be listening,
which
Jeremiah (14:35):
which is a passive skill, right?
And so you don't actually haveto work, you don't have to put
in any effort when you listen tothings, right?
Marina (14:42):
I wish.
Listening is the skill that Itend to have the hardest time
with.
Really?
Yeah.
Like, like.
You know, in the past, it's the,it's the skill that I've
struggled with the most.
Jeremiah (14:55):
I think the thing that makes listening a little unfair
for the learner is that whenyou're speaking you have what
you have, right?
You have the words and you havethe chunks that you have access
to and it's really just aquestion of, you know, This is
what you got.
Good luck.
With listening, you have whatyou have.
(15:16):
But everybody else is workingwith a full, is playing with a
full deck, and you are not.
Not only that, okay, so first ofall, they are very likely to use
words and chunks and expressionsthat you just don't know.
Also, they, because they'reother human beings, who maybe
are from all over the world, arelikely, especially if it's a
(15:38):
widely spoken language likeSpanish, if they're a first
language Spanish user, or not,They are going to be speaking a
version of Spanish, a variety, adialect of Spanish, that it's
possible you just didn't learn.
It might not be the dialect thatyour teacher spoke, and it might
not be the dialect that thepeople that you're around most
who speak that language speak.
(15:58):
So for example, if you'retalking, if you learned Mexican
Spanish in school, and then youtalk to a Cuban, you know, All
the love in the world to, toCubans, but I've listened to,
I've listened to Cuban Spanishand no offense, it is hard to
understand.
Marina (16:16):
Yeah, or just anything that you're not primed to listen
to.
I imagine that if you've neverencountered Argentinian Spanish
before and you went toArgentina, it might, it might
take a little time to get usedto it.
And, you know, just like withspeaking, listening is a real
time event.
Where, you know, unless you'rewatching like a TV show where
(16:37):
you can pause and rewind andthings like that, if you're
talking to a real person, You'rejust trying to keep up, you're
trying to parse the thing thatthey said while you're listening
to what they're currentlysaying, um, especially when the
speech is at a speed that'smaybe a little bit above your
level, it can be very Verymentally taxing.
Jeremiah (16:58):
Yeah, and good luck getting a stranger to slow down.
Even if they are being nice, andthey want to help you, they are,
you know, sympathetic, theyunderstand you're trying to
learn, and you say, hey, youknow, thanks for talking to me,
but can you slow down a littlebit?
They'll be like, sure.
Yeah!
Marina (17:13):
Dude, how many times has that happened?
Yeah, it's, it's hard to know,How fast you're going in your
first language, you know, whenyou know be when being perceived
by a by a learner It's it's hardfor people to gauge how fast
they're actually speaking.
Jeremiah (17:31):
Yeah.
Also, I'm glad you mentioned TVshows we'll probably get to this
when we talk about how toimprove listening, but You know,
we can save it but That, there'syour hint.
TV shows or just any media whereyou are listening to the
language and, but you havecontrol over the speed, so
YouTube is great, uh, or at thevery least you can back it up
(17:52):
and listen to it again.
We'll get to that though.
Go ahead.
Sorry.
Marina (17:56):
Um, so yeah, listening, like speaking.
Often thought of as a passiveact because the listener isn't
actually doing anything.
They're not producing anylanguage, um, and so it's
categorized as being passive.
And it can be passive, like ifyou just have the radio on in
(18:16):
Japanese in the background whileyou're doing all your chores and
it's kind of like white noise inthe background, I would call
that passive.
Whether you understand it ornot.
but even things like Listeningto a podcast, or watching a
movie or a TV show in the targetlanguage, eavesdropping on other
people in the target language,those are great, and those are
(18:39):
useful, yes.
and your listening will probablyimprove if you, consume that
type of content.
Jeremiah (18:45):
Assuming you're actually tuned in.
If you're listening to Japaneseon the radio in the background
while you do Pilates orsomething, and you're not
actually paying attention,you're not going to get it
through osmosis, I gotta tellyou.
Marina (18:55):
Yeah.
Oh, I wish.
I wish.
But, that was an extremeexample.
Listening to a podcast activelyis better than that.
But there is a little bit moreto listening to that.
The thing that I've found hashelped me the most with
improving my listening is activelistening.
And I think active listening isreally like the secret sauce
(19:16):
here because it entails actuallyhaving conversations with
people, which adds stakes to thesituation.
It gets that adrenaline pumping.
Jeremiah (19:27):
You also have a job in a conversation.
Like, we call listening, or notwe, but people call listening a
passive skill.
And like I said, really passivelistening is just hearing.
You can hear something going onin the background and not know
what it is.
So that's passive.
I think, you know, any listeningwhere you're tuned in is active
to an extent.
(19:47):
And really conversations isthat.
Yeah.
In overdrive because yeah, thereare stakes and you have a job in
the conversation.
You're not just there to receivethe light that somebody else is
pouring into your brain byspeaking to you.
You have a responsibility tothem to reciprocate and to say,
(20:08):
Hmm, and ah, and yeah, okay.
Right.
to, to let them know that youare paying attention.
That's something that humansexpect from one another.
And, and, and usually you'rejuggling understanding what
they're saying, which is thelistening.
Not just hearing but alsoplanning how you're going to
respond and then if you get thatcombination wrong And you spend
(20:29):
too much time thinking aboutwhat you're gonna say And not
actually listening to them one.
You might not actually hear whatthey say at all which is gonna
be awkward or It might just belike if you do that in your l1
like if you talk to somebody andclearly they just want to say
What they want to say, they'renot actually listening to you.
You also don't want to be thatperson which if you are In your
(20:49):
second language, don't be toohard on yourself because that is
a hard balance to strike, butit's also worth remembering that
that's a thing.
Marina (20:59):
Yeah.
So the ideal situation herewould be to find somebody that
you can talk to.
Um, and preferably, somebody whois willing to speak at a pace
that you're comfortable with.
So this could be a tutor, thiscould be a teacher, or even just
a patient friend or familymember who speaks the target
language.
if that is not available to you,you can listen to the content
(21:23):
that I mentioned earlier, likepodcasts and TV shows and movies
in the target language.
But, I would suggest Kind offlipping a switch in your head
that goes from passive listeningto active listening.
So, listening to what the peopleare saying, almost as if you had
to respond.
So, that means that you'relistening for comprehension, and
(21:45):
you're listening to respond,which are both, um, elements of
active listening.
And so, that might add someartificial stakes to what you're
listening to.
you could even listen tosomething or watch something as
if you had to then, like, writea paragraph about what you just
(22:06):
listened to, you know, kind oflike they do in school.
We'll get into skillsintegration later, but that,
that would be a good way topractice active listening.
Um, I've, I've even seen videoswhere It's like a mock
conversation where the personwill say something in the target
language and then leave some,some empty, like, airspace.
What's the word?
Empty Air airtime?
(22:28):
Airtime.
Airtime.
Jeremiah (22:30):
That's what you have when you're on a motorcycle and
you go off a jump, I think.
Marina (22:33):
Well, they leave there's a pause in the conversation for
you to then say something inresponse.
So you have to listen to whatthey say.
And then formulate a response.
And it's almost like having aconversation.
So, that's another way to helpwith active listening.
Jeremiah (22:52):
So, those are the skills that, What would you even
call those skills?
Real time skills?
Skills where you are, You know,you're against the clock.
Mm hmm.
Whatever.
So.
We'll think of a word.
Yeah.
So those are those skills.
Then you've got the skills thatare not time sensitive.
(23:12):
Maybe if you're in an exam,they're kind of time sensitive,
but that's an artificialconstraint that's placed on you.
It's not inherent to the, the,the context in which the skill
is used.
And of course, I'm talking aboutreading and writing.
Let's, let's, let's start withreading.
Just, I guess, following off oflistening.
You can think, I guess, ofreading as the analog to
(23:35):
listening because you're takingsomething in, you're not
producing anything.
Reading and writing are bothskills where you have a lot more
control in terms of how fast youread, how fast you write.
You can take as many pauses asyou want.
You can Redo things.
If you write something and itturns out bad, you can redo it
(23:56):
and there's no consequences.
So, for people who are learninganother language, I think often,
reading and also writing canfeel really satisfying and it
can feel like you're making someserious progress.
And you are.
Don't get me wrong.
That is what's nice, I guess,about language learning apps.
For example, Duolingo, and thesetry to integrate the skills, and
(24:17):
I think they do a pretty goodjob, often.
But because they're apps on yourphone, they tend to be pretty
text based.
Mm hmm.
Whether it's reading or writing.
When you're reading, you don'thave pressure from others, most
of the time.
You can pause, you can lookthings up, you can reread.
Marina (24:34):
You're not engaging with a second person.
Reading and writing are usually,usually solitary activities.
Jeremiah (24:41):
Exactly.
Reading is great because you'rereally just taking in the
language that already exists,somebody put it down, and it's
not going anywhere.
There's also no requiredproduction, and so you don't
have a job like you do in aconversation.
There's no time sensitivity, thewriting isn't fleeting.
You also have the choice to readabout things that interest you.
(25:02):
You can't always control Whatmakes it into a conversation,
but you can decide whether youwant to pick up, you know,
Wuthering Heights or Schindler'slist.
Is that a, was that a bookfirst?
Or is that just a movie?
Marina (25:15):
I don't think it was a book.
Jeremiah (25:17):
Okay.
I don't know.
Pride and Prejudice.
War and Peace.
Yeah, yeah.
These are all great books tostart with, I think.
Yeah,
Marina (25:32):
kind of building off of that, uh, reading can be a
really great vocabulary builderbecause you're reading things
that interest you, hopefully,um, which means that you're
learning a lot of valuablevocabulary, which motivates you
to, um, retain it more.
It helps also to put languageinto context, which also happens
(25:53):
when you're listening, but atleast with when you're reading,
it's written down right in frontof you, you can, you can really
take it in, you can take yourtime to parse it and things like
that, which is really nice.
Takes the pressure off.
also with reading.
It's something that you can dovery easily and very frequently.
It doesn't require a partner togo and hunt down.
(26:17):
There's plenty of readingmaterial both, you know,
physically and online.
You can find reading materialfor free very easily.
Um, whether it's at the libraryor online.
So it is a very low barrier toentry and something that you
could integrate into yourroutine a lot.
Jeremiah (26:34):
You can do it on the bus.
You can do it in the shower.
You can do it in your sleep.
Marina (26:39):
In the shower?
Jeremiah (26:41):
Yeah, you put the book in a plastic bag.
Marina (26:44):
In your sleep?
Jeremiah (26:45):
Put the book under your pillow.
Marina (26:50):
So, also like listening, it's often thought of as a
passive act, because you're notproducing any language, but you
can make reading a more activeprocess as well.
As you're reading you can lookup vocabulary that you don't
know so, you know, there issomething to be said for just
reading for fluency and kind ofpicking up words from context
(27:14):
and And that's fine.
Um, but if you do want to sitdown and make it a little bit
more active, you can take noteof words that you don't know,
look them up, and that will makeyour reading a lot smoother as
you move forward through thebook.
you can highlight and make notesif you're able to.
you know, as long as it's not alibrary book, or something like
(27:35):
that.
that kind of focuses yourattention in certain places.
Like, oh, I highlighted thispart because I've never
encountered this conjugationbefore and I want to look more
into it.
Or I'm confused as to why theyuse this word here.
Um, you know, so I'm going toinvestigate it a little bit
more.
(27:56):
You can also write notes justrelated to the content of what
you're reading, not just thelanguage components.
So, as you would, maybe this isa little bit more advanced, but,
you can just write marginalnotes or annotations on the
things that you're reading, justabout the content, what your
thoughts are, what yourreflections are, as if it was in
(28:17):
your first language.
another thing you can do,similar to listening is to read
for comprehension and then keepyourself accountable for that
comprehension by maybe talkingto other people about what you
read.
That can be in person with, youknow, the people around you.
You could join a book club inyour target language.
(28:37):
You could You know, for anonline version, you could read
things and respond to things inonline forums in your target
language, Discord, Reddit,things like that.
Um, those are good ways to doactive reading, while also
keeping yourself accountable forthat active reading.
Jeremiah (28:59):
The Last skill we want to talk about in isolation is
writing.
Writing is probably my favorite.
I like the combination ofproducing, but also not being
under a time crunch.
It's a great way to produce thelanguage without the anxiety of
speaking.
It looks cool, especially ifthere's a different orthography,
(29:22):
which now we can talk about.
It looks super cool.
If you're writing in, you know,the dragon language from Skyrim,
that just looks cool.
It's just cool to look at.
You also have control, right?
You can take your time to rereadwhat you write.
You can, you can edit.
Even if you're in conversationwith someone through, through
texting or email, you, you havecontrol.
(29:43):
You, what you put down in thefirst instance isn't what you're
stuck with.
Unlike speaking, you can alsochoose what to write about,
especially in private writing.
You know, if you're journalingand You can intentionally
practice certain things, like,for example, vocabulary, if
you're working through avocabulary set, you can write to
(30:06):
practice a new grammar concept,or you can even write in a
different register, which is tosay that you can write more
formally, you can write lessformally to practice, because
maybe you don't get a lot ofopportunities to produce in that
register, and you might bethinking, wow, this sounds
great, I'll just write all thetime, and obviously, we don't
have to tell you that.
While, as fun as writing is,again, speaking is usually
(30:29):
something you're going to haveto do, too.
But, writing is a good place toget your feet wet with new
things before you take them outinto the world and get
embarrassed because you'rehaving a hard time putting them
into words for people.
Marina (30:43):
Exactly.
Also, if you regularly write inyour target language, that's a
really fun way to track yourprogress in a really concrete
way.
Like, if you keep a journal,whether it's Um, physical or
digital.
You can look back to the earlierpages and see like, wow, like,
I've really come a long way.
It's a great, uh, confidencebuilder.
Jeremiah (31:03):
Big time.
And obviously it's worth notingthat reading and writing are
more of a challenge when thelanguage that you're learning
has a different orthography, adifferent writing system than
the writing system of your firstlanguage.
So if you are a first languageSpanish speaker and you are
learning Russian.
That is going to be a littletougher in the reading and
(31:25):
writing department.
In those cases, first of all,it's just more important.
I mean, it's already important,but it's even more important to
make time for reading andwriting.
And I'll also say this, thatthat's one of the advantages of
reading and writing, is thatWhen you're speaking and you're
(31:46):
listening, if the language hasanother orthography, then
speaking and listening, you'rejust not getting that.
You're not getting thatpractice.
You're totally, you know, on theother side of the tracks.
so if the language you'relearning does have another
orthography, that's just all themore reason to practice reading
and writing.
Because this is an actual thingthat you still have to learn and
(32:09):
gain mastery of.
So we've addressed each of theseskills in isolation, which is
funny because early on we hintedthat that's maybe not the best
thing to do.
But it's necessary to at leasttalk about them in isolation
first so that we have a clearidea of what they are and how
you can improve on them.
(32:30):
However, it is important to saythat while it's helpful to
understand how each of theseskills works in isolation, they
are not by any means isolatedfrom each other in practice, in
real life.
These are just categories we useto help ourselves think about
things.
And we We have to stay close tothe reality of language, which
is that these four things, tothe extent that they even are
(32:53):
four separate things, areconstantly, constantly
interacting with each other, andyou really can't have one
without the other.
There's no writing withoutreading.
There's no speaking withoutlistening.
Having only one or the other isan incomplete sense of what the
language even is.
That's not as true for Speakingand listening versus reading and
(33:17):
writing, because of course youdon't have to have a writing
system in a language, and so theidea of the four language skills
is, like we said in thebeginning, something that is
particular to languages withwriting systems, which it's
important to note isn't thedefault, but Or necessarily even
the norm for languages in theworld.
(33:39):
And as a matter of fact,language has been around a lot
longer than written language.
But, presumably, there's a goodchance that if you're learning
another language, it is alanguage with a writing system.
Which is why we are talkingabout these four skills as if
they are four immutablecategories.
But again, The, the, in reallife, these, these skills are
combined.
And so, for the rest of theepisode, we're going to talk
(34:01):
about Combining them in yourpractice and in your learning.
Marina (34:06):
And this whole thing about the four skills being
combined.
isn't, some woo woo stuff thatwe're just making up.
Like, this is actually supportedby literature.
Uh, do you rememberKumaravadivelu?
Jeremiah (34:18):
Do I remember Kumaravadivelu?
I do remember Kumaravadivelu,let me tell you.
Marina (34:24):
Um, well, in his book, Beyond Methods, oh,
Kumaravadivelu is a veryprominent scholar in the field
of second language acquisitionand specifically language
teaching and learning.
so he's kind of, he's kind of abig deal, he's kind of a big
deal in our field.
Um, and no one knows his firstname, like when, in all of his
(34:47):
stuff, it always, Just saysKumaravadivelu, and maybe it'll
have, like, his first initial,which is B.
B.
Kumaravadivelu.
Yeah, but, like, I don't knowwhat the B stands for.
Jeremiah (34:58):
I searched once and I couldn't, or maybe I did find
it.
I don't remember.
Maybe it's Brian.
Marina (35:05):
I hope it is.
I hope it is.
Um, so yeah, he's kind of just,he's kind of like Beyonce in
that way, where he just has, youknow, the one name.
Maybe his first name is Beyoncé!
Jeremiah (35:19):
Have you ever seen Beyoncé and Kumaravadivelu in
the same room?
Marina (35:22):
I haven't.
Jeremiah (35:24):
There you go.
Marina (35:26):
Okay.
So, uh, in his book, BeyondMethods, Macro Strategies for
Language Teaching,Kumaravadivelu argues that the
four language skills alwaysinevitably overlap.
Uh, there's a really great quoteon the first page of the chapter
where he talks about this, wherehe says, Rare indeed is the day
(35:48):
when we only listen, or onlyspeak, or only read, or only
write.
That's just a nice way ofputting it.
And it's true, right?
There's very rarely when we'reusing language are we only doing
one skill at a time.
Or rather, One skill completelyin isolation for any extended
(36:09):
period of time.
Despite that, he points out thatschools and, you know, language
curricula in general often dotheir absolute best to separate
these skills out.
So, you might see, like, coursesin advanced English writing or
(36:32):
intermediate listening.
Um, in Spanish or something, youknow, like,
Jeremiah (36:36):
I'm an intermediate listener.
Marina (36:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jeremiah (36:39):
Somebody is like, I need somebody to talk to.
Are you a good listener?
Oh, intermediate.
Marina (36:44):
And you know, it's not like if you, if you really did
take a listening class, forexample, it is not like you are
just going to be listening tothe target language for an hour
straight.
Like that's just not how thatwould work.
Um, so they're, they'reartificially, you know, cordoned
off.
Yeah.
Yeah.
into these four separatecategories.
(37:06):
Now, this is changing, um,because, you know,
Kumaravadivelu's, uh, ideas arebecoming more mainstream.
but that is what you havegenerally seen in the past.
Jeremiah (37:18):
Imagine if you went to driving school and day one was
just accelerating.
And then, like, six weeks later,they're like, Alright, time to
learn braking.
Marina (37:29):
That doesn't work.
It doesn't work.
Um, the reason that they werekind of separated for a long
time was the thinking thattargeted practice in one skill
at a time helps to improve thatskill, like you're, you're
channeling energy into onespecific skill for A set amount
of time, and that was supposedto help.
(37:52):
Um, especially if you weretrying to help a student who's
weaker in one skill overanother.
So maybe they're a really strongreader, but they're not so good
at speaking.
that would have been an argumentto put them in a speaking class.
but, what Kumaravadivelu arguesfor is something called language
skills integration.
(38:13):
And this is where learnersengage in all four language
skills regularly in theclassroom.
At the same, you know, in thesame classroom.
Uh, or whatever learningsituation they're in.
Not necessarily a classroomsetting.
Because this is a naturalreflection of how language
exists in the real world.
Jeremiah (38:34):
Yeah, like you could have, you could have a language
class.
And the teacher will, and thisis something that probably
people are familiar with becausea lot of this gets done
nowadays, I think.
So the teacher opens the classand tells the class, you know,
what she did over the weekend.
And the class is listening toBut then the teacher asks
(38:56):
students to share what they didover the weekend.
And so now the students havelistened and maybe have gotten a
little refresher on weekendvocabulary.
And now it's their turn toproduce and they're going to
speak.
And then they read a passage inthe target language, which is
reading.
And while they're reading,they're asked to take notes,
which is writing.
(39:17):
And then they break out intosmall groups and talk about
their findings, which isspeaking and listening.
And so the goal of that class isto It's integrate those four
language skills towards the sameends, and it really is
replicating what you do in reallife by speaking while you
listen and writing while youread or vice versa.
Marina (39:35):
Now, that would be a traditional classroom
environment example, but let'ssay that you're not actually in
a language class.
Language skills integration isstill really important and
something that you can still do.
So, for example, you might startyour day by listening to a
podcast in your target language,so that's listening practice.
And then on your way to work,maybe on the bus or something,
(39:58):
you read a book in your targetlanguage, and there's reading.
You maybe are trying to do someartificial immersion, so when
you're at work you write your todo list in the target language,
so that's some writing practice.
And talk through each task toyourself, which gets in a little
bit of speaking practice.
When you get home, you watch amovie in the target language
(40:20):
with subtitles, so that'sreading and listening.
Or maybe you have a virtualtutoring session, um, that which
would, hopefully if they're agood tutor, would hit all four
skills, speaking, listening, butalso maybe a little reading and
writing.
Jeremiah (40:37):
I have an analogy for you.
It's, I don't know if you, well,you do work out.
I've been, we've been workingout together a little bit.
Marina (40:44):
I do, thank you very much.
Jeremiah (40:44):
Yeah, good job.
So, it's like, if you're doingworkouts, or, you know, if, if
you, if you get into fitness andyou're, you're researching,
okay, how do I make the most ofmy time in the gym?
When people think about the gym,they're probably thinking like,
Oh, I'm going to do some bicepcurls, get my biceps looking
tall, which is great.
(41:04):
You know, good on you.
If you're out here, if you're abodybuilder, that's cool.
But if you're just getting intofitness advice, you'll probably
get from most people is to focuson compound exercises.
You know, which basically justmeans instead of focusing on one
specific muscle, which just tobe clear, you have a bunch of
muscles in your body, and if youwere to focus on them one at a
time, you'd be in the gym allday.
(41:26):
So, they tell you to do acompound exercise, and that's
where you work multiple muscles,multiple muscle groups at the
same time.
first of all it's just moreefficient, but also you're going
to develop a lot more evenly, ifthat makes sense.
Marina (41:40):
Yeah, that's a perfect analogy here.
Because, as Kumaravadiveluargues, the skills are going to
overlap anyway.
Like, no matter what, basically.
They're going to overlap.
They're going to integrate.
Much like, uh, you use yourentire body every day, right?
Very rarely do you Like, onlyuse your legs.
Jeremiah (42:00):
Only use your biceps.
Marina (42:01):
Yeah, exactly.
Jeremiah (42:02):
Maybe if, if you, uh, go to the grocery store, and you
got a bunch of groceries, andyou pick them up, there's your
biceps, but now you gotta putthem down.
Okay, well I guess that's not,that doesn't make, doesn't make
sense because you're still usingthem.
Anyway, you're right.
It made more sense when you saidit.
Marina (42:20):
Yeah.
So, you know, the question iswhy artificially isolate them?
When we're talking aboutlanguage, there's, there's
nothing wrong with targetedpractice, but I think with the,
with the understanding that theywill integrate is important, and
you know, it's just moreefficient.
It's just like a compoundworkout.
It's just more efficient.
So why not do it that way?
(42:42):
at the, at the, KumaravadaVelu's chapter on four skills
integration, he includes thisreally nice quote.
That I think sums it up reallywell.
Language, it's like dividingwater.
It flows back together again.
Jeremiah (42:59):
That's beautiful.
Marina (43:00):
Yeah.
Jeremiah (43:04):
Thank you for listening to this episode of How
to Language.
We hope you have some moreinsight into how to balance the
four language skills in your ownlearning routine.
If you like what we do, you canleave a review wherever you
listen to this show, and you canfollow us on Instagram and X at
HowToLang.
See you next time!
Marina (43:22):
Bye!
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