Barry, Texas TESOL Online & Teaching English Jobs

In this lesson I learned about the two productive skills: speaking and writing. These two skills are used to communicate. Writing is one of the more neglected TEFL skills because it is a quiet, less interactive activity. Speaking tends to be more of a focal point, but also poses challenges because of the ever-changing and adaptive nature of communicating in live time. To create successful productive skill activities, the teacher needs to create a need and desire to communicate. There are two main types of productive skill activities: accuracy activities and fluency activities. Accuracy activities typically take place in the study phase of an ESA lesson and focus on correct use of language. Fluency activities, which typically take place in the activate phase of an ESA lesson, focus instead on experimentation and creative use of language and flow of communication. Both kinds of activities are equally important. It is important to foster an environment where students feel comfortable testing out their language skills and speaking. There may be more or less willingness on the part of students to speak given confidence, fear or making mistakes, and other factors. Creating pair or group activities can help ease students into speaking more. Writing poses its own challenges, whether its handwriting or tricky English spellings. Punctuation and the layout of writing may also be different from the students' mother tongue. Creative writing, including in groups, is posited as a good way to get students engaged in written communication. The lesson also gives suggestions for both cooperative and competitive games that are not only fun but have great teaching value.