“thinking” and “understanding (“which, we believe, are no less important ones in
any learning, including foreign languages), and not for nothing these skills are all
intentionally subordinated to one prime purpose – speaking (communication by
means of language).
The role and importance of the four integrated skills permanently shadowed
by or even blended in with “thinking” and “understanding” (because they are such
interdependent and interlinked skills that you can’t imagine one without the other,
Tilshunoslikdagi zamonaviy yo
‘
nalishlar: muammo va yechimlar
339
so then we can blend them into such a skill as ”thunderstanding
1
” for short and
hereinafter referred to as such), are great here because trainees feel highly motivated
in learning a certain topic not only, for example, by speaking, but also by careful and
purposeful integration of it with reading, listening and even writing about something
related to the topic under study, permanently thinking of, meditating over,
scrutinizing, understanding and concluding what, why, when, where and what for
these four traditional skills are being taught.
When integrated, the five skills (speaking, reading, listening, writing,
thunderstanding) really do wonders, as various activities are masterfully combined
and blended as to the purpose and the requirements of the interactive methods of
teaching foreign languages, creating an atmosphere of mutual understanding,
cooperating (interacting in pairs, groups, teams), exchanging ideas and opinions,
discussing, criticizing one other, prompting one another, peerlearning and giving
joint answers and taking joint decisions on the tasks and errands they are entrusted
with in auditorium, even assessing the results of their own activities.
Of course, we have more or less practice and experience of teaching the four
traditional skills in language learning, there have been offered certain methodologies
of teaching them, but how about ”thunderstanding”? This problem seems to have
slipped out of the minds of psycholinguists and methodologists, for there are, we
guess, almost no researches on these two very significant skills, their importance and
role in learning and teaching, to say nothing of procedures, methods and
methodology of forming and developing such habits and skills.
We consider that it is advisable and necessary to teach thunderstanding along
with the other four skills. So, thunderstanding is such an activity and ability which
is no less important than the others in any learning (including languages) and it
should have its own procedures, methods and methodology of teaching, as well as
its own time budget allotted for forming and developing thunderstanding habits and
skills in classroom, in order that teachers should have certain systematic activities in
classroom or outside it and regularly and consciously form and develop these habits
and skills with trainees.
We think that along with the traditional four skills thunderstanding as a skill
should also be taught to trainees by systematically carrying out such useful activities
as skimping, skimming, scanning, meditating, concluding and understanding.
Let’s shortly characterize them.
So, skimping [skɪmpɪŋ] is an activity and ability of performing (working, etc.)
carelessly, hastily, or with inadequate materials or dealing with or treating (a subject)
briefly or superficially.
1
Compare:"smoke" + "fog" = "smog" as a good example of blending. hence is “thunderstanding” as the blending of
“thinking” and “understanding”.
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