Developing the skills necessary to participate in academic discussions is an important goal in many programs of English for academic purposes. However, there has been little empirical investigation into how verbal and nonverbal aspects of discussion abilities might be developed. This paper reports the results of a semester-long effect of instruction study at a Japanese university. Two methods of developing student discussions were employed: one, task-based, or derived from an analytic model of a syllabus design; the other, skill-based, from a more familiar synthetic syllabus. In addition, this paper also examines the interactions between learning discussion skills through task-based and skill-based approaches and measures of individual aptitude, anxiety, personality, and motivation. Research suggests a relationship between individual differences and success in language learning. Students learn discussion skills equally well under both task-based teaching models, incorporating focus-on-form activities, and traditional skills-based teaching in this study, with skills-based teaching having the slight advantage over the former. Three tables, "Operational Distinction between Task-Based and Skill-Based Approaches,""Sample Activities in the Task-Based and Skill-Based Approaches," and Rating Scale Used To Assess Oral Discussions," are included. (Contains 35 references.) (Author/KFT)