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Every language consists of four skills. There are the receptive skills, reading and listening, and the productive skills, speaking and writing. All four skills are important and lessons should more often than not consist of all four. A person's reasons for reading and listening can be split into two general categories. The first is for a purpose, that is, to say, to achieve a goal. The second is for entertainment, like reading a novel. Reading and listening is not just being able to see or hear words that are printed or being said. To gain a true understanding, a person must process the words as a whole using pre-existent knowledge. There are skills a person must use when reading or listening to grasp true understanding. These include predictive skills, scanning specific information, skimming for a general idea, detailed information, and deduction from context. There are many problems that can occur when teaching and learning receptive skills. For example, listening is more difficult than reading since a listener will often only hear something once, whereas a reader can re-read a sentence countless times. There are ways to mitigate difficulty when teaching a language. One way is by pre-teaching vocabulary. Another way is by carefully selecting texts to present to a class. Teachers can also choose topics that are more relevant or interesting to a class in order to better motivate the students. Similarly, a teacher can create interest, even if the students were previously uninterested, by using pictures and activities. Lastly, a teacher should use comprehension tasks to promote understanding. These tasks should be realistically achievable challenges.
