Teaching a language implies the developing of reading, listening, speaking and writing skills, which should be integrated when dealing with a certain topic in class. The integration of skills contributes to effective learning and makes it easier for students to fully apprehend what is being taught.
In one of my latest classes with intermediate-level students, I had to introduce the topic "extreme sports". In the lead-in stage, I used the pictures that appeared in the coursebook to present and elicit the new vocabulary so the students were able to speak about these sports. For the students to remember the new vocabulary, we created a
mind-map. Then the students were supposed to do a listening task in their coursebooks. They listened to a conversation about extreme sports and completed a chart. After that, they carried out surveys and interviewed their partners. When they finished, they had to express the results of their surveys to the whole group.
To encourage a freer application of the vocabulary, students participated in a problem-solving task through interaction. They exchanged views and ideas to solve a problem: the possible dangers of these activities. For this task, students had to use functional language to agree and disagree and they had to respect turn-taking.
As a follow-up, I´ve uploaded
an article about extreme sports in their class blog, which they were supposed to read at home. I've also created a
Wallwisher for them to express their views on the topic.
In brief, it was a multi-skill practice of the language: students talked to each other, in small groups and to the whole class; they listened to each other and to the recording; they read an article and they wrote about their opinion in the wallwisher.
