A Step-by-Step Guide to Teach Productive Skills

The productive skills are Speaking and Writing, They are also known as active skills. While speaking and writing are substantially different in many ways, they both are used for the same purpose to communicate. In many ways writing is the more difficult skills, requiring a greater degree of accuracy. When speaking, any misunderstandings can be cleared 'up on the spot', Whereas this is not possible in writing.

This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Gayathri D. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT.

Speaking activities in the classroom

Speaking, on the other hand, requires a greater degree of rarely have to think and plan an answer. There are a lot of speaking activities in the classroom. They are as follows:

1) Controlled activities:

Accuracy based activities. Language is controlled by the teacher, Drilling choral and individual listening to and repetition of the teachers model of pronunciation.

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2) Guided activities:

Accuracy based but a little more creative and productive. The output is still controlled by the teacher but the exact language isn't. Model dialogues and Guided role-play.

3) Creative communication:

fluency-based activities. The scenario is usually created by the teacher but the content of the language isn't. Free role plays, Debates Communication games, etc....

4) Hand Writing:

Handwriting is very much a personal issue and we don't wish to try to make students all write in exactly the same way. However, poor handwriting may influence the reader in a native way and so the teacher should always encourage the students to improve.

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5) Spelling:

A single sound in the English language may be written in many different ways. we need to draw the students' attention to the different ways of pronouncing the same letters(or combinations of letters) and have them to exercises to discover spelling rule.one of the best ways to help students with spelling is through extensive reading.

6) Encouraging students to speak:

The teacher must try to overcome these hurdles and encourage student interaction. The aim should be to create a comfortable atmosphere, where students are not afraid to speak or make mistakes, and enjoy communicating with the teacher and their fellow students. This can be for a variety of reasons including, Lack of confidence, lack of interest in the topic and fear of making mistakes, etc.

Also Read: Whole-Class Teaching vs. One-on-One

Techniques to encourage interaction:

Pair work, Group work, Plenty of controlled and guided practice before fluency activities, Careful planning, etc....

Guidelines for creative speaking activity:

1) Before the lesson:

• Decide on your aims: what you want to do and why.
• Prepare any necessary materials.
• Workout your instructions.

2) During the activity:

• Try to arouse the student's interest through relating the topic to the student's interests and experience.
• Evaluate the activity and the student's performance to give feedback.
• Wait until after the activity has finished before correcting.
• Make the activity more a 'process' rather than a 'product'.
• Make sure the students have enough time to prepare.

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3) After the activity:

• Provide feedback.
• Note down repeated mistakes and group it. Individual mistakes are corrected individually.

Writing Skills:

Writing a text has quite a number of differences which separates it from speaking. Not only one there in differences in grammar, vocabulary but also in spelling, layout, and punctuation. Despite these differences, many of these factors are as those of speaking, need to considered and incorporated.

1) Layout and Punctuation:

To help students learn different layouts of writing, they need to be exposed to and be given the chance to practice with many different styles. After completing a piece of written work, they get to check it over for grammar, vocabulary usage as well as punctuation, and spelling. As with speaking activities, students will often require planning time for written work.

Also Read: The 4 Principles of Building Good Relationship With the Students

2) Creative writing:

Creative writing should be encouraged, as it engages the students and finished work usually provides them with a sense of pride. Typical creative writing tasks may include poetry, story writing, and plays. Particularly for creative writing where the input of ideas source may be helpful if not necessary.

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