Integrated Approach

Excerpts from the Approaches to learning and teaching series, courtesy of Cambridge University Press and Cambridge Assessment International Education: cambridge.org/approachestolearning

What is an integrated approach in ESL? The best way to develop effective communication is to adopt an integrated approach to planning and teaching. Integrated learning can occur across skills, across stages and across curricula. Teach and practise the four skills in a coherent way, together with the grammatical and lexical ‘building blocks’ of language. Integrating the four language skills and linguistic features: enhances learners’ all-round development of communicative competence enables you to build a lesson around a theme or a topic relevant to learners motivates learners to learn by building more variety into the lesson works at the level of realistic communication, where language tasks involve more than one skill exposes learners to authentic language challenges learners to interact naturally. This integrated approach should be implemented throughout the curriculum, starting in Primary and continuing through the Secondary stages.