Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking

In language learning, there are four main areas of focus people tend to learn with: Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking. Over the next few weeks, I will be taking a deeper dive into each one of these topics. 

Reading and listening in language learning are considered passive skills. In these forms, someone else has already made the information and you are taking in the information. Your brain is processing the language. 

Writing and Speaking in language learning are considered active skills. In these forms, you are coming up with information. Your brain is making the language. 

All these skills should be used together in language learning. 

Reading

Reading is taking in the language through text. That could be through books, lyrics, articles, and much more. Reading is a great way to learn new vocabulary about a specific topic. For example, if you are reading an article about gardening, you will be able to learn garden vocabulary. 

Listening

Listening is learning a language through audio and sounds. This includes music, TV shows, movies, etc. Again, listening is a great way to learn vocabulary. It also helps with the pronunciation of the language. You will be able to hear all different accents of your target language. Listening will also help with speaking because in order to have a conversation, you need to listen and respond to what someone is saying. 

Writing

Writing consists of typing or hand writing things down. You might write a letter/message to a friend, a to-do list, a poem, a book, etc in your target language. Writing is a great way to try to recall what you have learned. Maybe your vocabulary focus was on learning a sport. Once you have learned the vocabulary, you can recall that and write down what just happened in the soccer game you watched. Remember, in writing you are coming up with the ideas, so you can be as creative as you want with it. 

Speaking

Speaking is communicating orally with others. Speaking is a major part of learning a language, and most people’s goal. People want to be able to travel and speak with locals, they may need to speak a language for their job, or just to converse with friends and families.  From what I have seen, many people can speak a language rather than write it. Remember, language learning is what you make it, so maybe you only really need to know how to speak, but in general, writing, reading, and listening to the language are important as well. To be able to speak a language takes time, effort, and confidence. 

This was a brief overview of reading, writing, listening, and speaking in language learning. Over the next couple of weeks I will write about the importance of each of these skills and how to use them to learn through my 3 part method.