The teaching of any skill can be difficult , though some skills are more difficult than others to teach.From the communicative skills I think that
speaking can be the most difficult of them to teach. Teaching a student how to read entails that the student memorizes letter and sound combinations; which can be difficult at first . With sufficient time and practice , I think this can be done easily .
Writing entails that the student memorize the letters of a word and the upper and lower case form of the letters.Based on my experiences in learning to read another language it has not been difficult. I learned to pronounce a word and learned how to spell and practice writing it as well. After learning letters an sound combinations , reading and writing becomes a matter of practice.
Listening skills may not be so easily attained as with reading and writing . Like the other skills , its acquisition take time and practice . Some students have very short attention spans . A student can be taught listening skills by having the student listen to audios and dictations and have them listen for specific information. This skill can help students in their speaking as well.
They can listen to the speech of others who speak the language better , this can help with the students with their own pronunciation.
I had assumed that once I was able to read and understand ,that speaking would become easy, but for my self and some of my companions,I found that this was not the case. Speaking entails knowing how to place a word in a sentence correctly , that is in correct grammatical order.
Though I have found this easy to do in my writing, it is difficult when one has to speak on the spot . This difficulty may arise for different reasons , such as the students confidence in his own ability to speak. A student can be taught grammar rules , word structure and conjugation,
but learning how to speak comes from listening to people and lots of practice with people of the same language. Speech develops over time , as the student discovers new words and sounds that may be he or she didn't learn in the classroom.
Since the target language is not the native language of the student , it can be difficult for the student to speak confidently.Some students are reluctant to speak in front of others , especially in front of native speakers; because they have no confidence in their own ability to speak the language.
I think that all of the communicative skills pose some difficulty for the teacher at some point of teaching.But I also think that all of them can be acquired successfully in the classroom and can be learned in a shorter time span , all except speaking. A native speaker can speak without
giving any thought to the sentence structure or grammar. This however, is not the case for one learning to speak a new language. The student has to give thought to word conjugations and grammar. As a student of a second language , I have found great difficulty in speaking on the spot .I always find myself conjugating a word in my mind and trying to structure a sentence while having a conversation. Though speaking can be learned over time and practice ,
in my opinion it requires a whole lot more time and effort than listening , reading and writing.
