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‘Receptive Skills’ (also known as ‘Passive Skills’, or reading and listening) are often contrasted with productive skills (speaking and writing). When learning a new language learners tend to develop their receptive skills first and then acquire productive capability. It’s a complex relationship between the two as they all play a supporting role with developing other skills. For example, reading skills can be a supporting factor to the development of writing, whereas listening can improve speaking fluency.
Developing receptive skills can be particularly challenging especially when communicating with a fluent or native speaker. Although starting a conversation may be done with relative ease, maintaining one poses greater challenges. Most likely learners may not recognize features of connected speech or idiomatic language which may lead to an unsuccessful interaction.
Similarly with reading, if the language or grammar is too complicated it makes the text unintelligible. The key difference between listening and reading is that when learners listen to information, they have much less support than when they are working with the written word on the page. Listening requires ‘real-time’ processing of language, and once the message has finished, there is no easy way to go back and check for meaning, as there is during reading.
The best way to improve receptive skills is from exposure whether from an enjoyable authentic text or a quality ESL text book. For example, television, music, books and magazines are great ways to build vocabulary while incidentally promoting learner autonomy. Coursebooks can provide a basic scaffold and are adapted for an ESL learner, whereas authentic materials provide exposure to real language use.
However, authentic materials can demotivate learners if the materials aren’t appropriately graded or applicable to their interests. It’s an important consideration to choose material which isn’t too difficult or easy, and also which relates culturally, so adaptation is an important consideration for teachers. Equally important are effectively staging a reading or listening lesson to maximize output. The below staging is an effective way to teach either a listening or reading lesson.
