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Unit 12 looks at the productive skills, writing and speaking. Writing skills, the unit text states, is one of the least taught skills in ESL classes as it involves quiet time. However, writing is just as important, due to its necessity in the career world and common misconceptions, such as, lack of education that can occur with writing mistakes. Writing also presents the challenge of not being able to correct meaning on the spot and needing far more accuracy in word use and grammar than speaking requires. Speaking, however, presents its own set of challenges, such as, the need of a much more fluent vocabulary as thoughts are created in the moment, pronunciation, and barriers between speakers.
Both of these skills can be taught with activities under two categories, accuracy and fluency. Accuracy activities focus on the correctness of students' language, while fluency examines students' ability to be creative with language. Accuracy activities are usually focused on in the Study stage; examples are, gap fills or word jumbles. Fluency activities often occur in the Activate stage. Examples of these are games, such as Clue, or creating their own stories.
Games and creativity are a good way to keep students interested and a way to present a laid back safe environment for students to practice English. One of the major problems teachers may face is interest, which impacts the student's motivation to participate. The teacher can focus on topics of student's interest, engage them with film clips or conversation, or make the urge to speak or write important enough in that moment they feel they must communicate.
