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Unit 12 focuses on teaching productive skills: reading and writing. We use reading and writing as a means to communicate and this more complex and difficult when two or more people are involved. There are various reasons as to why people generally communicate. These reasons include: because they have a purpose, because they want to listen to something, say something or are interested in what is being said. These factors should be used when a teacher wants to introduce a communicative activity to the students. Teachers should remember to create the need and desire for students to communicate. Activities which are more accurate based are mostly used during the engage phase and are usually controlled by the teacher to ensure accurate reproduction. On the other hand, fluency activities are used during the activate stage, which allow students to experiment and be creative with the new language that they have learned. In the fluency stage the teacher is more concerned with effectiveness and flow of the communication. Speaking activities in the classroom can either be controlled, guided or creative to prompt communication. As earlier said accuracy based activities are mostly controlled by the teacher (ex: drilling, prompting, model dialogues, guided role play etc.). Creative communication is fluency based activity which is usually created by the teacher but the content is created by the students (ex: free role play, discussions, debates etc.) Teachers must try to encourage students to talk and participate in class. this can be done by creating a comfortable atmosphere. Some students may feel reluctant to speak in the classroom as a result of lack of confidence, cultural reasons, peer intimidation, fear of making mistakes tec. Some techniques which can be used to solve this problem is by pairing or grouping students, changing the classroom dynamics, careful planning, making speaking activities purposeful etc. There are also guidelines which can be used to create a free or creative speaking activity. Before the lesson teachers should try decide on the aim of the activity (what you want to do and why), prepare any necessary material, work out how long the activity will take and tailor it to the time available etc. During the activity teachers should arouse the students interests through visuals, newspaper headlines etc. Teacher should try and relate it to the students interests. Furthermore, teachers should make sure that that the students have enough time to prepare in pairs or in groups before asking them too tackle the main activity. Also set up the activity so that the students know the aim of the activity and what they are to do. Lastly, after the activity, the teacher should give feedback indicating how well the class has performed (comment on the fluency, group arguments etc.), note down obvious errors in grammar and pronunciation and use of vocabulary. The activity can be recoded on video or audio, which can be played back to discuss improvements. It should also be noted that there is a difference between the way we wright and talk. When talk or converse we tend to sound more informal, while when we are writing, we are more formal. For non-English speaking natives, forming English letters may be a challenge. Students may require special training. It is true that not all students can write exactly the same way, but it is important to encourage students to write well. Poor handwriting can give readers a negative impression. Also, teachers should always try to incorporate spelling activities in their students lessons. This is because poor spelling can create misunderstanding and can also be perceived as lack of education. Teaching spelling is not an easy task as there are some words that have the same pronunciation but spelled differently (ex: waste-waist). Teachers therefore need to teach the students different ways of pronouncing the same letters and have them do exercises and read books that will help them to discover the rules of spelling. writing in English involves being able to use the right layout and punctuations when writing. However, this task maybe difficult to some non-native English speakers, as some native languages use little or no punctuations, use no space and even write from right to left. To help students learn the different layouts, they need to be exposed and given exercises to practice (business layouts, job application layouts, e-mails etc.). after students have completed an exercise, it should be checked for spelling, grammar, punctuation and style of writing (is it formal or informal?). creative writing should equally be encouraged. It engages the students and finishing something which they had to use their initiative and creativity gives them a sense of pride and accomplishment. Teachers should creating writing activities which involve group or paired work to make it more fun. Examples of creative writing activities are poetry, stories and plays. Fun filled games can make teachers both interesting and fun for both students and teachers. It can either be conventional or unconventional games, either way, games can be adapted for language teaching. We have competitive games which have non-linguistic goals, while co-operative games in which the group or team have a common goal to achieve. Examples of games include: Jeopardy, Crosswords, Pictionary, Tongue-twisters, snakes and ladders etc.