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In unit 8, I learned the content of teaching productive skills: Speaking and Writing. Speaking and writing are equally important as listening and reading. As a teacher, I should understand that only input can never get to the function of language. I must balance receptive skills and productive skills for language teaching.
I understand that, no matter speaking and writing, they both share the same purpose, which is to communicate. When communicating, people have their purposes, intention to say something, intention to hear something and are interested in what is being said. This helps me reflect that, when teaching speaking and writing, we should try to arouse students interest with the topics and generate the need and desire to communicate. Also, teach them to know the audience who they are communicating with. This would help teaching productive skills effectively.
There are many types of speaking activities we can apply in a classroom. However, we must consider the stage of teaching to select the activities that work. For example, drilling such as ‘3 by 3’ would happen in the Study stage where language is controlled by the teacher; for guided activities, such as model dialogues, accuracy is required and the output is still controlled by the teacher, this could be used in either the activated and study phases. Finally, the creative activities such as debates, role-play and simulations can be used for activate phase.
When we teach speaking, we need to build our students’ confidence to speak. Therefore, we must use techniques wisely to create a safe and comfortable environment for them to learn. We can implement pair-work, group-work, change classroom dynamic, and give more time for students to think and plan before they speak.
When we teach writing, we can provide discussion in the engage stage for them to have more interest with their writing topic. We should provide enough time for them to gain ideas. Sometimes, pair work and group work is useful for them to get ideas as well. Writing is a very complex content. We need to consider handwriting, spelling, punctuation and creative writing to teach our students. Using ‘Straight Arrow’ is helpful for teaching writing.
