As the need for digital and media literacy grows, ascertaining a link’s safety and security of access, along with identifying a text type and the purpose for reading, is a must.Want to save this article for later? Click the heart in the bottom right corner to save to your own articles box! For those short on time, a car or a metro commute read of predicting and recognising links will come in handy. At a time when attention spans are short and distractions longer, skim reading a text quickly to get a general idea of what it is about or scanning it quickly to pick out specific information is a must. Reading is one such skill that is coming into focus now as a force multiplier in reflection, analysis, vocabulary enhancement (guessing the meaning of words from the context) inference. However, they can’t be neglected at the cost of stressing upon the two productive skills of speaking and writing. It’s a no brainer that passive skills feed into the productive skills of language production. Along with this training on the understanding of intonation to convey different meaning is also a must include. All these aspects require ear training to assimilate the entire meaning, internet and force of the spoken word. Similarly, weak forms are way of speaking with less stress and time spent in the enunciation of the vowel sounds in function words, such as prepositions and articles as against the content or meaning words. In the case of the word ‘handbag’ that is pronounced as /hambag/ in connected speech. Assimilation is when one sound becomes more like a sound nearby it. For instance, Aptly becomes /aply/ in speech with ‘t’ sound missing. Elision is a way of making the text easier and quicker to say, by omitting sounds or words. Other sub skills of listening skill that need attention are listening for: specific purpose, to infer information, for text patterns and listening for language items.Ī key subskill for clear listening is a comprehension of how connected speech features, like contracted forms, (I am-I’m), of how sounds change by way of elision and assimilation and in weak forms. ‘Listening for gist’ is one such sub skill, where the listener looks out for the overall import of the text. This mandates the training on the sub-skills or the behaviours that are required to be adept in each skill of language learning. While the former is an involuntary, reception of voice akin to hearing the traffic noise when walking on a busy road, as against a conscious, concentrated listening to a text to understand, process, assimilate and act upon it. Training on listening skills should include an understanding of the difference between mere hearing as against listening. This, augmented with a proliferation of multiple social media sites, in addition to the existing ones, with audio input as the main stay to connect on grounds of common humanity globally, has made listening perhaps one of the most important survival and life skill. Our text messages have gone voiced, seminars have gone online, our books morphed audio bytes and in the 24x7 connected world our earphones have some or the other earworm being belted out- be it a podcast. The two skills have now come under sharp focus in the era of white noise of social media, fake news, pandemic outbreak mandating remote collaboration, with the emphasis on Emotional Quotient, reading between the lines and more importantly, on the key skills of analysis, deliberation, responding versus reacting and mindfulness in communication.Īt a time when technology has invaded the human space like never before, communication is not left untouched. While all four skills have a symbiotic relationship, yet the oft neglected are the passive skills, due to their nature of receiving the language, rather than producing it, making them less conspicuous. The ‘Passive’ skills of reading and listening are christened so, as there is no overt production of language in these two, unlike when one is writing or speaking. Listening, Reading, Speaking, Writing-of which, the first two are clubbed under the ‘receptive’ and the last two under the ‘productive’ skills, sets. In English language communication, we speak about the four main skills of learning the language effectively to communicate, wholly. 'Effective Communication skills' is more than corporate speak, being rightfully acknowledged as a key 21st century learning skill.
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