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The two productive skills are speaking and writing. Each one has an important role in language use, to communicate. Therefore there are a variety of ways to teach these skills and help students become more comfortable with them through practicing different activities.
When it comes to speaking skills there are accuracy activities, which focus on correct language use. Accuracy activities usually fall under the study phase of the lesson, the scenario and the language output are controlled by the teacher. Fluency activities allow students to be more creative with the language they use because these activities focus on the effectiveness and flow of communication. Students control the language output of fluency activities, which usually fall under the activate stage. During these activities the teacher can monitor language use and possible mistakes that students might make. Considering how common the mistakes are among the whole group or individuals, the teacher can use the information to provide a learning experience for the whole class or let an individual know about something they personally need to work on. Allowing students to work in groups and have ample time to prepare themselves are ways to help students feel more comfortable before they have to speak in fron't of the class.
Writing skills come with a different set of challenges than speaking. Writing tends to be more formal in nature and mistakes that are made in writing can be less forgivable than in speaking. Mistakes that are made when speaking can be cleared up on the spot, while mistakes made in writing might indicate lack of education to the reader. One of the major writing skills is spelling, which goes hand in hand with pronunciation. Spelling can be challenging, as there are words that sound the same but are spelled differently, or words that are spelled similar but sound different when spoken. It's important for students to get practice recognizing common and uncommon spelling patterns. Reading is one of the best ways to improve spelling. Punctuation is also an important writing skill. Punctuation can mean the difference between a succinct and clear piece of writing or an awkward one that does not flow. Different styles of writing involve different uses of punctuation so it is important for students to get exposure to many layouts of writing.
Handwriting is a personal writing skill that may be extra challenging for speakers of languages that do not use the same alphabet as English. Students should be encouraged to have neat handwriting and consider if they need extra practice with it.
Creative writing is a good skill to have and might help the students feel more open and comfortable about writing if it feels more flexible.
Playing games in the classroom is a fun way to include goal oriented activities in the classroom. It allows students to use team work or be competitive to reach their goal. Games can have communicative or linguistic goals which can give students good practice while being engaging and encouraging.
