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What I have learned in this unit 12, teaching productive skills, speaking and writing is that both are used for the purpose of communicating. Writing is the most ignored skill for TEFL teachers and is often transfer to homework , which in turn is frequently not done and so the skill is never developed. Students prefer to focus in speaking skills but does not mean that writing should be ignored. Writing requires a greater degree of accuracy and speaking requires a greater degree in fluency.
When a teacher wishes to introduce a communicative activity to the students, he or she should bring in a number of the next factors. they have some communicative purpose, they want to say something, they want to listen something, they are interested in what is being said. The teacher must create a need and desire in the students, to communicate. If the student don’t see the point in doing something, they are far less likely to want to participate.
The difference between accuracy and fluency activities is that accuracy activities are concentrated on producing correct language, and fluency activities are concentrated on effectiveness and flow of the communication. Although both of them are important.
Talking about the speaking activities in the classroom, a controlled accuracy based activity could be the drilling and prompting,while guided accuracy based activity but a little more creative and productive could be the model dialogues and guide role plays. For creative communication, fluency based activities, the scenario is usually created by the teacher but the content of the language isn't. we could try free role play, discussions, information gap, etc.
The reasons why many students can seem reluctant to speak in the classroom are because of lack of confidence or fear of making mistakes,etc. Therefore, the teacher must try to overcome these hurdle and encourage student interaction. The aim should be to create a comfortable atmosphere, where students are not afraid to speak or make mistakes, and enjoy communicating with the teacher and their fellow students. As well I have learned several techniques to encourage interaction such as par-work, plenty of controlled and guided practice before fluency activities, etc.
In this unit also I have learned a typical free creative speaking activity lesson and the guidelines for a free creative speaking activity.
Written text has quite a number of differences which separates it from speaking. Not only are there differences in grammar, vocabulary, but also in spelling, handwriting, layout and punctuation. Poor handwriting may influence the reader in a negative way and so teacher should always encourage the students to improve it. In the other hand, incorrect spelling can not only create misunderstandings but can often be perceived, by the reader, to reflect a lack of education. A typical creative writing activity lesson, the learner objective would be for the students to be able to use appropriate language for completing speech bubbles in cartoons, and produce a story themselves. The required stages in the lesson are engage, study and activate.
Many games can be adapted to language teaching. There are two kinds of games: competitive games in which players or teams race to be the first to reach the goal, and co-operative games, in which players or teams work together towards a common goal.
