Towards an integrated approach to teaching: a unified perspective on teaching skills

Abstract

This article postulates that teaching English had gone a long way before it was acknowledged that teaching grammar or teaching vocabulary could not be equated to teaching English. This realisation has changed teachers’ approach to teaching and learners’ awareness of the language’s ramified structure. By integrative approach it is understood the concurring of all teaching actions which address simultaneously language components and skills to the end of developing a full control of the language in learners. Faced with shortage of time, teachers avoid dealing with writing conventions, writing tasks or listening ones, to mention just a few of the time-consuming activities, in order to gain time for other skills which seem to prevail. Integrating in one’s teaching the pronunciation and writing conventions, the skills, vocabulary and grammar would offer a more integrative perspective of the learners on what they need or want to learn. By scrupulously relating the teaching items to other elements in the language, the progress would be faster, and the language would be better understood and learnt. At the same time, the article aims at establishing connections both within language and across domains of knowledge where English, or any other foreign language, plays the role of a means facilitating learning.