LANGUAGE SKILLS DEVELOPMENT
Language skills development is a continuous and dynamic process that involves enhancing various aspects of language proficiency, including listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Whether you are learning a new language or aiming to improve your proficiency in your native language.
READING-WRITING SKILL LEARNING
NCF emphasize these skills more for Mother tongue and all for second and third language learning. For better and best English learning wholistic situations are suggested. They strongly advocate integrated approach i.e. all or more than one skills learning within one situation. For example (NCF 2005) taking notes while listening to somebody on the phone, several skills may need to be used together. We really wish children to read and write with understanding. Language as a constellation of skills, thought encoders and markers of identity—cuts across school subjects and disciplines.
RESPONSIBILITY OF ALL
NCF said that language teaching is not only responsibility of language teachers. Integrated language learning demand efforts of all teachers. According to NCF 2005- This is why it is important to view language education as everybody ‘s concern at school, and not as a responsibility of the language teacher alone.
CLASSROOM TALKING AS RESOURCE
The very important focus of NCF for language learning skills is classroom talking by students. Largely Teachers and Principal consider this talk as pain, wrong, irritated or indiscipline. But NCF suggest to this tendency of talk to develop language skills. According to NCF 2005 — There is a vast body of knowledge available on how talk can be used as a resource, and pre- and in-service teacher education programmes must introduce teachers to this.
ACTIVITIES TO DEVELOP SKILLS
NCF suggest a number of activities for developing language skills. For example small group talk among children, and undertaking activities that nurture the abilities to compare and contrast, to wonder and remember, to guess and challenge, to judge and evaluate.
LISTENING SKILLS
For listening skill development similar activities such as small group talk among children, and undertaking activities that nurture the abilities to compare and contrast, to wonder and remember, to guess and challenge, to judge and evaluate are suggested and asked to cooperate in text book and teachers manuals. NCF ask to focus more on the ability to pay attention, to value the other person’s point of view, to stay in touch with the unfolding utterance, and to make flexible hypotheses about the meaning of what is being said.
Listening, thus, forms as complex a web of skills and values as talking does. Locally available resources include folklore and storytelling, community singing and theatre. Storytelling is appropriate not only for pre-school education, but continues to be significant even later. Fantasy and mystery play an important role in child development. As a sector of language learning, listening also needs to be enriched with the help of music, which includes folk, classical and popular compositions.
READING FOR READING SAKE
NCF suggest some part of reading for reading rather than for syllabus. NCF give importance to fiction reading. According to them it is not wastage of time. They suggest to develop and supplying supplementary reading material. This material should be given to all school subjects and to all classes. School or teachers can purchase such good reading material from market.
WRITING DEVELOPMENT
NCF indicates teacher error for developing writing skills. Actually school and teachers highly focus on correctness and perfections in writing. Here, originality and creativity is killed. According to NCF 2005 — Teachers insist that children write in a correct way. Whether they express their own thoughts and feelings through writing is not considered too important. The demand for writing in mechanically correct ways blocks the urge to use writing to express or to convey one’s ideas. Hence teachers should developed artistic expression and not like office skill.
STAGE-WISE WRITING
During the primary years, writing abilities should be developed holistically in conjunction with the sensibilities associated with talking, listening, and reading. At middle and senior levels of schooling, note making should receive attention as a skill-development training exercise. This will go a long way in discouraging mechanical copying from the blackboard, textbooks and guides. It is also necessary to break the routinisation of tasks like letter and essay writing, so that imagination and originality are allowed to play a more prominent role in education.
