The
Thematically Integrated Teaching and Learning of English Language Skills
I Made Markus
This chapter is to show why and how the four
language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) and the three
language elements (pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar) can be naturally
integrated into interesting and challenging units of communicative and
interactive lessons for different levels of language mastery throughout the
present existing thematically competence-based curricula from primary and
secondary schools to the first year of the English departments of higher
education in Indonesia. The rationale for this integrated approach to the
teaching and learning of English as a second or foreign language and its
material development is mainly due to the fact that it represents the real use
of language in everyday real life communication. It always starts with a topic
to get across in a particular situation for a particular purpose with a
particular participant in a particular mode of communication (spoken, written)
and it moves forward naturally in line with the sociolinguistic factors
affecting the process of real communication. Despite its integrated nature,
this approach needs to provide enough practice of the basic elements of
language, particularly its grammatical structure, in relevant listening,
speaking, reading and writing exercises. This chapter is hopefully useful for
both teachers and textbook writers in their efforts to implement the existing
curricula more appropriately.
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Markus, I M. (2004). The thematically integrated teaching and learning of
English language skills. In B. Y. Cahyono
& U. Widiati (Eds.), The
tapestry of English language teaching and learning in
Website: www.geocities.com/eltindonesia
Email: eltindonesia@yahoo.com