"Interaction" the new Fifth Skill

[dazzle]

Please help. I am back in the industry after a 10 year break and have missed the addition of "Interaction" as the Fifth skill of the classic "4 skills". I am writing a curriculum but can't find anything on the internet to explain to me what this new "Interaction" skill is about. Could someone please guide me? Many thanks, dazzle

 

[MASM]

Please help. I am back in the industry after a 10 year break and have missed the addition of "Interaction" as the Fifth skill of the classic "4 skills". I am writing a curriculum but can't find anything on the internet to explain to me what this new "Interaction" skill is about. Could someone please guide me? Many thanks, dazzle

Interaction is added in the written and oral production parts. In writing, if the production part is narrating some experience, or expressing opinion, for example, the interaction will be answering to an e-mail, letter, a provided advert..
Orally, and what I know from exams, there are two parts, the monologue, where the student is required to give a small talk on his/her own about a particular topic and the dialogue (interaction) where two students would act out a situation, discuss a topic together, look for a solution to a problem...

I hope that helps

 

[Tdol]

Isn't interaction simply a combination of passive and active skills- listening and speaking, say. I think there's an argument to say that thinking could be a fifth skill, but interaction strikes me as an unnecessary and rather pointless addition to the list, even if it includes body language.

 

[Barb_D]

This is new to me. What are the first four, please?

 

[MASM]

Well, I don't know if this addition is actually very helpful, but interaction implies what I explained in the other post. In the frame of the communicative approach, it would be more "realistic" to teach students to be able to interact in real life contexts than ask them to write or speak about something they're not going to use in the future.

The four skills are: speaking also called oral production and interaction, reading or oral comprehension, writing or oral production and interaction and listening or oral comprehension.

xxx

 

[Tdol]

Then the communicative approach frame is simply wrong to me; interaction is not just active or productive language- if you don't listen, you're unlikely to be very good at interaction. Interaction is a combination of skills. We are interacting here - I read your post and am replying - it takes both skills for there to be any genuine interaction.

Without passive or receptive skills, interaction is limited to things like giving orders, and even then it helps to know if the other person has understood and will comply. The only way I can think to make it a legitimate fifth skill would be to look at the social and cultural aspects. Simply sticking it on the end of two of the skills a) doesn't make it a fifth skill and b) is wrong, especially from people who are trying to approach language as communication. ;-)

 

[MASM]

Then the communicative approach frame is simply wrong to me; interaction is not just active or productive language- if you don't listen, you're unlikely to be very good at interaction. Interaction is a combination of skills. We are interacting here - I read your post and am replying - it takes both skills for there to be any genuine interaction.

Without passive or receptive skills, interaction is limited to things like giving orders, and even then it helps to know if the other person has understood and will comply. The only way I can think to make it a legitimate fifth skill would be to look at the social and cultural aspects. Simply sticking it on the end of two of the skills a) doesn't make it a fifth skill and b) is wrong, especially from people who are trying to approach language as communication. ;-)

I couldn't agree more, I was just explaining the theory behind it. I guess it refers to the structure of the tests and the way lessons are planned, so that they are based on real life situations making them as meaningful as possible, knowing that it's an artificial context, of course. As for the fifth skill...I presume they had to call it somehow.

 

[Tdol]

In that case, maybe we should get to work on thinking up the sixth skill.

 

[Barb_D]

Thank you for the explanation.

 

[orangutan]

In that case, maybe we should get to work on thinking up the sixth skill.

I suppose if there is any part of language that isn't interaction, that should be the sixth skill. :-?

 

[Tdol]

You may well be the pioneer of the uncommunicative approach. :crazyeye:

 

[Raymott]

I'd agree that thinking in a language is a logical fifth skill. The problem with thinking, in a pedagogical setting, is that it can't be empirically measured (tested for). If you can't teach it or test it, you wouldn't add it to the syllabus.
Gesture/body language is also a good candidate.
Perhaps in addition to the four major skills, someone could come up with a minor four - thinking, gesture/body language ...
I don't like 'interaction' - it seems to be too derivative from the first four, not a separate skill at all, as others have said.

 

[MASM]

You may well be the pioneer of the uncommunicative approach. :crazyeye:

That would upset a lot of people in favour of the communicative approach:-D;-).

 

[MASM]

I'd agree that thinking in a language is a logical fifth skill. The problem with thinking, in a pedagogical setting, is that it can't be empirically measured (tested for). If you can't teach it or test it, you wouldn't add it to the syllabus.
Gesture/body language is also a good candidate.
Perhaps in addition to the four major skills, someone could come up with a minor four - thinking, gesture/body language ...
I don't like 'interaction' - it seems to be too derivative from the first four, not a separate skill at all, as others have said.

I don't think it is actually called a fifth skill (unless metaphorically)..to me is an addition to two of the skills; It is included in modern teaching syllabus because it can be tested and marked as the other four. (I'm trained like that in French)
The sixth or real fifth should be something that can count in an exam;-). I'll think about it:-D

 

[dazzle]

I am the original writer of the question. Here is more info: I am working on a 3-year syllabus which now must be certified by a university board in France. My company is a private sector company with a large contract in higher education for specific professional training at the post-secondary level. I originally designed my curriculum around the four skills (passive: reading/listening, active: speaking, writing --with the 3 sub areas of grammar, vocab and pronunciation) as I did for years in Tokyo in the 80s/90s as my team in a post-secondary institution followed the fashions in ESL such as the natural approach, functions-based syllabus, task-based curriculum, etc. The four skills always remained no matter what happened in ESL academia. Here in France my university auditors balked when I didn't know about the recently added and 'well known' skill of "Interaction". I can't find it anywhere on internet in English. Are my concepts so outdated or is this a French thing? In French I can find it mentioned briefly on the French ministry of education's website: "take part in a converstion." My auditors mentioned spontaneous speech. But like pronunciation, don't these interaction skills, according to what I can find so far in French, fall under the skill of speaking? I can't conceptualize it as a separate and therefore sovereign fifth skill. So anyone with access to recent ESL journals or ESL conferences-- please respond if you have any knowledge about this supposedly new fifth skill.
By the way to continue with the thread that my original question wove, fifth skill candidates could be 'critical thinking skills', 'learning strategies' and 'cross-cultural awareness'. None of these qualify because they are not specifically related to learning a language.