Skills Or Content?

Skills allow the students to increase in their abilities to articulate their thinking. The more they increase these skills of articulation the more able they are to demonstrate a real picture of their internal knowledge, their learning connections and their own take on the ideas they are presented within their educational experience.

Systematic skills-teaching, delivered in small enough steps, can also be very effective way to allow students to see their progress. This not only builds positive self-belief, a trait commonly lacking in students with low-level literacy, but also shows the students the benefits of effort and hard work and reiterates the growth-mindset as they are encouraged to reflect on learning ‘as a journey’.

It is continuously evident that skills-teaching is a fundamental element to English classes within secondary environments, where low-levels of literacy are present. Due to its importance, skills-teaching should take a substantial portion of most English lessons, until the levels of literacy are no longer a barrier. It is an element which should remain a high priority, but it is an element nonetheless.

Rich content must also remain a key ingredient, not only to model the aforementioned, higher level of articulation, but also to give the students something to be articulate about!

If lessons offer nothing but skills-teaching then the students will never have any onus to communicate. Give the students engaging content and they have imputes and reason to show off their skills.