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Speaking and writing are the two productive skills. Students may be reluctant to speak for various reasons, including a lack of confidence and a lack of interest in the topic. To encourage students to speak, teachers should vary the dynamics of the classroom, let students work in pairs or in groups, give students enough practice with language before expecting them to speak freely, and make sure students have enough time to think and plan before asking them to talk. Teachers should monitor students while they are speaking. This allows the teacher to take note of recurring errors that need to be addressed to the whole class as well as determine whether the lesson needs to be modified going forward in order to make it more effective. When it comes to writing, students may experience trouble with the alphabet, spelling, or with the standard layout of English.
The most interesting thing to me in this section was reading that many language learners prefer speaking to writing. In Japan, I fear it is very much the opposite. The focus in English education has long been on writing, especially on correctness of grammar, length of sentences (to some, longer is better), and translation. It can be a real struggle to get students to speak because they are so used to writing everything down and saying nothing except when reading the textbook aloud. Students are not generally encouraged to think for or express themselves, so many students are afraid of voicing their opinions in English or don't know how. Japanese students fear mistakes so much that some will write down a question for me and point at it instead of trying to ask it aloud. Carrying on any sort of conversation beyond meeting someone and introducing oneself is difficult to impossible for many English learners here. In my classes, I have to gradually build up throughout the year towards fluency activities that don't rely on writing everything down. For many, they have never been asked to speak without planning it all out first so they have little confidence in their speaking abilities. Often, they can spell very complicated words but would never attempt to actually say them!
