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There are two productive skills: speaking and writing. Usually students focus more on improving speaking and teachers don’t dedicate too much time to writing. One difference between these two skills is that when you speak you need to be fluent and if you make a mistake you can correct it immediately, but with writing you need to be more accurate.
If you want the students to talk/write you need to create the need to communicate; if they don’t know the purpose of the activity they’re probably not going to participate in it.
There are two types of activities that you can do with the students: accuracy activities and fluency activities. The first ones are usually done in the study phase and are focused on producing correct language. The second ones are usually done in the activate phase and are focused on practicing with the language (to experiment with it and be creative with it).
Some speaking activities that can be done in the classroom are drilling, prompting, guided role-play, discussions, debates, communication games, etc.
Sometimes the students won’t be very willing to participate for a variety of reasons (lack of confidence, peer intimidation, lack of interest in the topic, etc.), so the teacher can use some techniques as pair/group work, careful planning, and controlled practice to encourage the student to participate.
As for writing, you need to have in consideration these factors:
-Handwriting: some students don’t use the same alphabetical system in their language as in English, maybe the teacher will have to help them with this and encourage them to keep improving it.
-Spelling: if the writer has spelling mistakes these can be seen as a lack of education. Also pay special attention to words like waste/waist and read/read (similar pronunciation, different spelling and vice versa).
-Punctuation: after finishing a text, make the students check it.
-Layout: make the student practice with and be exposed to different kinds of texts.
-Creative writing: allow them to write poetry, plays, stories, etc.
