This paper proposes an integrative approach for teaching English as a second language to students in Hong Kong to develop their listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in English to meet the challenge of an English curriculum. The integrative approach provides an authentic language environment for learners to develop language skills in a meaningful context by building on learners' prior knowledge on interesting and relevant topics. The approach introduces grammar rules through topical discourse, introducing different language functions (e.g., persuasive discourse, cause-and-effect sentence structure, verb tense). The "authentic" learning environment is characterized by the communicative nature of teacher-student and student-student interactions. Specific language skills are taught by engaging language learners in meaning-making strategies such as cooperative work, brainstorming, hands-on experience, problem-solving tasks, and display of visual objects, using only the target language. This approach is in contrast to Hong Kong's conventional language teaching method, in which focus is on memorization and routine practice. The teacher is crucial in creating an authentic learning environment, modeling language use rather than correcting errors, and avoiding Chinese for classroom translation. The language teaching-learning cycle has four stages: building topical knowledge; modeling the genre under focus; joint construction of the genre; and independent construction of the genre. Contains 11 references. (MSE)