What are the modes of human activites involving language learning?

Modes of Human Activities Involving Language

     There are eight modes of human activities involving language learning. They are-- 

1. Listening
2. Speaking
3. Reading 
4. Writing
5. Viewing 
6. Shaping
7. Watching
8. Moving

• Listening: The language art of listening begins developing at birth and provides the basis for development of speaking, reading and writing skills. Listening can be defined as the interpretation of sounds that are heard. When a baby is first born, he immediately begins to receive sensory impressions, including hearing sound.
  

                   Young children learn much language by listening to those around them. They listen not only to spoken words but also to the rhythms and intonation pattern of the language that they hear. They take the language they hear and make generalizations based on it.
                   Listening is a skill that allows a person to receive oral information from others. It is therefore sometimes referred to as a receptive skill and as an oral language skill.
   
   
• Speaking: Speaking is making use of vocal sounds to communicate with others. The new born baby comes into the world making a variety of sounds. These sounds however, are not produced in an effort on the part of the child to convey meaning in his early days. Except, in the case of crying and whimpering, the child is simply producing random sounds of which his vocal mechanism is capable of.  Meaningful speech develops as children learn the effects of particular sounds on the people around them.
                   Speaking is often referred to as an expressive skill and an oral language skill. The speaker encodes a thought into an oral message and transmit this message to a listener, who must decode the oral symbols in order to understand the message.
   
   
• Reading: Reading is the interpretation of written symbols. It involves visual perception of the symbols, sometimes translation of the visual symbols into auditory ones and the connection of meaning with these symbols.
                 Initial stages of learning to read generally follow those of learning to listen and learning to speak. Understanding oral language forms the basis for understanding the ideas found in print.
                 Reading is a way of taking information that has been recorded in print by another person. Thus it is classified as a receptive skill and a written language skill.
                 Reading serves many functions for the reader. It provides information or entertainment. It offers challenges or relaxation. Each reading activity may be for a slightly different purpose.
   
   
• Writing: Writing involves communicating with others through the printed word or recording ideas of oneself. It is classified as an expressive skill and a written language skill. The writer encodes a message, which is decoded and interpreted by the reader.
                Writing allows a person to record and preserve information or facts which can be read by the successive generations. This ability to span time offers many possibilities to writers with varying purposes-- Transmission of instruction for performing tasks, preservation of the folklore and customs of a people, entertainment of the reader and persuasion of a reader to adopt a point of view, among many possibilities.
   
   
• Viewing: Viewing refers to interpreting visual media. These media include photographs, illustrations, graphs, maps and diagrams found in books as well as video presentations found on television, internet sites, CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs. It can even include live performances in theatre or classrooms. Students today are updated with visual media that are attempting to covey information to them, persuade them to do or believe something or simply entertain them. The messages received from these media must be comprehended using the same thinking skills needed for comprehending print materials(i.e. read).