Focal Skills - Background

Background

Created in 1988 by Ashley Hastings, Ph.D., the Focal Skills program design took into account research and developments in second language acquisition theory that questioned the efficacy of grammar-based language curricula and the traditional level-based program model developed when structuralist-influenced methodologies dominated the field of intensive second language teaching. In that traditional program model, placement involved determining a student’s level and then assigning the student to courses at that level in a number of skill areas (such as Level 4 Reading, Writing, Grammar and Oral Skills). In contrast, the Focal Skills program student is placed into a module of courses that all address the student’s weakest skill and focus three fourths of instruction on developing that one skill area. The remaining portion is spent in an elective class selected for that week by the student. The skill modules are sequenced as follows: first the Listening, next Reading, then Writing, and finally, Immersion—where emphasis is on oral skills development and on readying all skills for the specific language environments the student expects to encounter.

The Focal Skills program model was first implemented at the Intensive English as a Second Language Program at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and later adopted, in whole or in part, at other intensive programs, including the English Language Programme at the United Nations. Adaptations of the program model have made it workable not only for relatively large programs, such as the ones at UW–Milwaukee, the University of Dallas, and Palo Alto College (San Antonio), but also for relatively small programs, like those at the Intensive English Institute, part of the University of Maine in Orono, Kilgore College (Texas), and Vincennes University (Indiana).