Date : 28th February 2013
Day : Thursday
Topic : CALL in Language Skills LSRWG
Assalamualaikum Wbt everyone!
How are you today? Let’s say Alhamdulillah (praise be to
Allah) because we are still blessed with his love and benevolent. We still can
listen, speak, write, read, and learn! By the way, mentioning all these abilities,
they are related with what we have learnt today in Computer Application in Language
Studies subject about CALL in language learning. This lesson is a continuation
with the previous lesson that had been posted in this blog.
Well, we feel glad
today because by the end of this class, we gained a lot of beneficial information.
In CALL, there are five skills that are very important. They
are the main elements in language learning in which mastering all of them;
listening, speaking, writing, reading and grammar (LSWRG) will make learners proficient language users. When lecturer
makes use of activities that have been specially designed to incorporate these
skills simultaneously, they provide their students with situations that allow
for well-rounded development and progress in all areas of language learning.
In order to master in listening, one need to stay focus and
thus will receive a precise and understandable information that is listened to.
Hence, focus is one of the skills of listening. Another elements or skills of
listening are analogy, perception and synthesis skills.
Speaking, on the other hand, is not an easy skill - certain
aspects need to be concerned and a lot of time is needed to master all the
aspects or skills in speaking. The skills are in term of mechanics, function,
competence and also social and cultural rules and norms. Mechanically, speaking
deals with the articulation organs when students need to know how to pronounce
words correctly, apply suitable grammar in terms of tenses and choosing
appropriate and right vocabularies when speaking. Only then the function of the
speaking will be understood by the hearer or person one talks too.
Understanding the function of discourse will lead to the implication of social
rules and norms in terms of turn taking between two or more speakers, length pauses,
rate of speech between speakers and roles of participants. Therefore, this will
make the objective and purpose of discourse achieved in terms of understanding
how to take into accounts who is speaking to whom, in what circumstances, what
the discourse is all about and the reasons behind it. As a result, competency
will be achieved as the usage of the language get used to all of the elements
mentioned above and as they gained a lot of experiences in using that
particular learned language. In order to be a fluent speaker, student must enrol
in discussion using the new language as the saying goes practice makes perfect.
Apart from that, another skill is reading. Reading skill is also to be mastered. This is because for a
learner to achieve this skill, he needs to understand the meaning and be able
to skim and guess the meaning of the words used. By mastering those three
things they will understand the attitude of the speakers or the real intention
of the speakers or writers though they used different words in which they
presented their ideas by chosen words of double meaning. Gaining a lot of
vocabularies is a must in order to develop and improve this skill.
Writing is a skill that is not as tough as others as it is
the chosen skills among the researchers. This makes it as a skill that has a
lot of ways to master it. Elements in writing are vocabulary, spelling,
cohesion, coherence, register, sentence structure, genre and also organization
of the ideas, Writing can be practiced and applied through mailing manually or
electronically, word processing, chat programs and blogging. Through these
ways, writing skill will be enhanced.
Grammar is the last skill in language learning but it takes
up as the basis of reading, writing, speaking and listening. Without knowing
the functions of every tense, it will be hard for the learners to understand
the function or purpose of the discourse and also the intention of the speaker
or author. Grammar will put the ideas of speakers and authors in organized way.
All in all, from all of the skills mentioned, reading is the
most important skill as without reading, knowledge, experience and vocabularies
will never be gained. Students should realize that reading is the key to master
the language. It gives students to experience and know the sentence structures,
new vocabularies and gain new knowledge that will be beneficial and useful for
them to apply in their writing or discourse in future.
Looking at the function of reading, it gives a sense of
realization why Allah revealed to Prophet Muhammad surah Iqra’, verses 1-5 as
the first revelation. It shows the importance of reading as the “miftahul ulum”
or key to the quest of knowledge. Through reading, people will become a
civilized nation.
Last but not least, we will share the links which provide software that can be used in teaching LSRWG. So, let's check it out!
1) For listening skills
2) For speaking skills
3) For writing skills
4) For reading skills
Reading
Shape-Up - Unit 2 1.0
5) For grammar
That's all for today ^^,