Many of the schools I have visited and the teachers I have observed seemed to think that teaching of English is an exam oriented mission that can be successfully achieved by reading aloud lessons from the textbook and asking questions. The questions they asked treated English as a content subject and very few of them understood the difference between a content subject and skill subject. 

For example, when we draw a map of india we cannot extend the boundary into neighbouring countries, we cannot change the year of when the first world war began, we cannot change a Chemistry formula and we cannot add two and two to make five. This is what happens with a content subject.

Let us compare it with an English lesson...

In an English textbook there is a story about Ashok and his son Sunil. The story is given in the text book to provide exposure to the students through a story. We as language teachers are supposed to help the students interact with the story, interact with us as well as the other students in class, relate the story to real life experience and express their opinions and ideas using the target language.

If the lesson starts with who was Ashok, who was Sunil, how they were related, what happened to them and ends with a writing activity where the answers to these questions are printed in the homework notebook to be memorised and recalled at the time of examination....

are we teaching English as a skill subject?

Try out some of the teaching activities at http://www.quickquiz.info and submit your activities.