Four Skills

English has become a multi-trillion dollar language and it occupies the number one position as a world language. It is the best job generating language. It is the medium of instruction in all higher education institutions. Mastering of it assures academic achievement and professional growth. After the ushering in of IT revolution, English has got a new status and it cannot be compared wit any other world languages. The growth of it is phenomenal and trade and commerce cannot be possible without the use of it.

India can think of becoming a super power only by teaching and learning of English in the proper way. Linguistic poverty rules the minds of teachers and students in the English class rooms. They have to change their mind set towards enhancing their linguistic fluency and proficiency. Experts in linguistics observe that any foreign language can be learnt within two hundred hours or six months. On the contrary our students take more than two thousand hours and more than ten years and yet find it difficult to learn to speak in English.

Indian teachers adopt wrong methods of teaching and they never teach the students self- learning and speed-learning strategies. The students don’t know how to use a good dictionary and thesaurus. For learning English the following methods are available.  

1.       Children’s method or Natural method ( Three to five years)

2.       Business man’s method   or Learning the language by mixing with the native speakers) ( Six  months to one year)

3.       Russian method or Total immersion  ( one month to three months)

4.       Army method (One month)

5.       Class room method ( no time limit) and

6.       Integration of these methods (As yearly as possible)

The last one is the best for quick results to learn English. Communication skills involve the following four sub-skills of learning.

1.       Listening

2.       Speaking

3.       Reading and

4.       Writing

Among these four skills the teachers encourage students to use only reading and writing. The other two key skills remain unused and the benefit of it is unknown to Indian students and particularly to rural students. Hence the present book emphasizes an integrated approach in learning “Spoken English”.