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LECTURE FIVE

SKILLS AND SKILL ACQUISITION

By Alec

1. Language teaching, a skill

The teaching of English differs from the teaching of many of the other subjects in the school curriculum. English, at least in its early stages, does not consist, as subjects like history or chemistry do, of a body of information to be imparted by the teacher to the students. There is information to be acquired. Of course, whole libraries of it, information on grammar, on phonology, on semantics, on syntax, and so on, but certainly not at the stage we are at here. Remember that you are teaching English, not about English. A student can know all about English and yet be unable to follow an ordinary conversation between English people or speak half a dozen sentences as English people would say them. The people who only learn/teach about English make the mistake of regarding English as a subject (just like geography or physics), which is certainly not, instead of as a skill or an ability like swimming or tennis, which it is. You learn to swim by getting into the water and swimming; you learn football by going and kicking a ball. And you learn to speak English by speaking it and not by being told about it.