Writing and reading skills

 Writing and reading skills were also given priority under the traditional technique to the
detriment of the aural and oral ones. Consequently, the overall communicative ability of the
students was wholly inadequate. Consider this: After a number of years of learning, let’s
say, Spanish, were you able to follow a movie or a television program in that language? Did
you feel happy speaking Spanish? Or did you panic at the idea of having to travel and engage
with native speakers? This is what having poor communicative ability means, and it is
characteristic of traditionally taught students.
More recently if you have joined a language class you probably discovered a totally
different approach: You spent hours and hours repeating sentences after the teacher, without
even knowing how they were spelled or what each word meant. You were told that this was not essential.