Hi Bunseng!
I would like to share with you some ideas concerning the four skills. I think the four skills are equal important and difficult. Let me ask you a few questions: why do we study English? Why do we want to be good at speaking, listening, writing, or reading English?
The essential answer would be for communication. If so, what does communication mean? In what forms does communication appear? The answer would be all of the four skills. We cannot lack any one of the four.
However, it is viewed commonly that speaking is the first priority and second is listening, or both can be the first priority for learning English because we can communicate informally through these skills. But when we have got a job writing and reading would be more important. In short, all of the four are important.
To what extent that the four skills are difficult is subjective. Some people might find writing is the most difficult one while some other people might find reading is the most difficult one. For me, I think all are equally difficult and it not difficult to be good at those skills if we work hard on them.
What do you think, Paul?
Cheer,
