Teaching Productive Skills

Speaking and writing

(TEFL- Worksheet)

Task 1 - What are the two productive skills?

The two productive skills are:

i- Speaking
ii- Writing

Task 2 - Give a brief description of the differences between accuracy and

fluency activities:

Accuracy Activities
- Accuracy activities are usually part of the study phase.
- Accuracy activities are concentrated on producing correct language.
- These activities are controlled in order to ensure accurate reproduction of
language.

Fluency Activities
- Fluency activities are usually part of the activate phase.
- Fluency activities are concentrated on allowing the students to experiment
and be creative with language.
- Here we are less concerned with accuracy, but more concerned with the
effectiveness and flow of the communication.

Task 3 - List 5 different speaking activities, giving an example activity of

your own for each:

i- Drilling
This is accuracy based activity. The teacher says a phrase or sentence several
times and then asks the learners to repeat. Some learners can be called on to
repeat individually, and then the class may repeat together. Because it is
helpful to give learners quite a lot of repetition practice in beginning level
courses, the teacher needs to find ways of varying repetition activities to
keep the learners interested. As an example, use the sentence "Where is the
train station?"
The teacher can vary the content of the sentence. For example:
Where is
the station?
the post office?
your house?
the bank?

ii- Model dialogue

This is accuracy based but a little creative and productive. The teacher can
ask the students to deliver a dialogue as a customer and a hotel receptionist.
The customer wanted to book a room in the hotel. The customer also wanted
to know information regarding the service and facilities available in the hotel
from the receptionist.

ii- Information Gap Activities

This is flunecy based activity. Filling the gaps in a schedule or timetable:
Partner A holds an airline timetable with some of the arrival and departure
times missing. Partner B has the same timetable but with different blank
spaces. The two partners are not permitted to see each other's timetables and
must fill in the blanks by asking each other appropriate questions.
iv- Interviews
Students are divided into pairs and are given a series of questions to ask their
partner. The best interviews focus on interesting events in the students' own
lives. Example:
When you were a child, did you have a nickname? What games did you
play? Did you ever have any serious illness or accident? Who was your
favorite relative?
v- Discussion
This is also a fluency based activity. The teacher may divide the students
into pairs. The teacher may give a topic or ask the students to choose a topic
for discussion.
For example:
Students discuss what makes them cry and attitudes towards crying. They
then “tell” each other a
short article about crying. The emphasis is on fluency.
The students Discuss these questions with their partners.
Why do people cry?
Do you think women cry more than men?
If you feel like crying, do you let yourself cry or do you try to contain the
tears?
When was the last time you cried?
Which of the thingsor situations would make you cry?

Task 4 - Give examples of ways that the teacher can encourage students to
speak and interact during a lesson:

Ways to encourage students to speak and interact during a lesson:

i- Make speaking activities purposeful i.e. to create desire and need to

speak.
ii- Lot of controlled and guided speaking practice before fleuncy activities.
iii- With certain activities the teacher can allow students to think what they
want to say.
iv- Group-work- The teacher can make groups of students for speaking
activities. In small groups students are more comfortable talking to each
other as compared to talking directly with the teacher.
v- Careful Planning- The teacher should plan every speaking activity
carefully. The main purpose behind such activities should be to provide
maximum speaking opportunity for students.
vi- Pair-work- The teacher can also make pairs of students for certain
activities. Such sort activities done in pairs also provide students to
communicate with each other. The pair work provide students freedom to
speak with each other.

Task 5 - List five ways, with short explanations, that a teacher can generate
interest in a topic. Come up with ideas of your own:

i- When students like the subjects, they are more motivated to learn.
Teaching methods which arouse students?interest such as providing more
learning activities and making use of multi-media learning and teaching
resources should be employed in the English classroom.
ii- Providing students with opportunities to explore both the spoken and
written English language through appropriate and effective teaching
strategies (such as the task-based approach) as well as learning activities
which are designed to engage students in the authentic, practical and
functional use of language for meaningful purposes.
iii- Using the classrooms, display boards, walls, etc. in the class to display
students work, language learning resources, and information related to
language learning activities.
iv- Setting up an English corner or room with resource materials such as
multi-media learning materials, educational CD-ROMs, story books, audio
tapes, videos to create a comfortable and language-rich environment for self-
access learning, providing activities that make explicit links to classroom
learning.
v- Organizing co-curricular and extra-curricular activities using English, e.g.
visits to museums with exhibitions presented in English, talks given in
English by guest speakers from different professions, dramas or shows
performed in English, English club, English day/week, English drama
competitions and English camps.

Task 6 - Give an example of an effective free-speaking activity and how it

would fit into an ESA lesson plan, with as much detail as possible:

The learners objective would be for the students to be able to use the
language related to house and present their dream house.

Engage- The teacher may ask questions to students related to houses.

For example:
- In what type of house you like to live?
- Where you prefer your house should be i.e. in city or countryside?
- What sort of rooms you would like to have in your house?
- What sort of items you would like to have in your house?
The teacher can also show the photographs of different houses with different
housing related items
For example:
- Exterior view of houses
- Gardens attached with houses
- fully furnished bedrooms
- living rooms
- kitchen and bathrooms

Study- Elicit housing related vocabulary and complete various matching and
gap-fill exercises.

For example:

Housing related vocabulary

- Living room - Lamps
- Dining room - Carpet
- Bedroom - Window
- Kitchen - Door
- Wash room - Wall
- Toilet - Garden
- Sofas - Stove
- Tables and chairs - Floor tiles

Gap-fill exercise

Choose the words from the list below:

- garden - living room - bedroom - kitchen - sofas

- My mother is cooking food in the __________.

- He is sleeping in his ____________.
- Children are watching TV in _____________.
- There are beautiful rose flowers in my __________.
- I bought new _________ for my living room.

Matching Exercise

Match the words in list A with the words in List B

List A List B

- Curtain - Bath room

- Carpet - Garden
- Flower - Window
- Shower - Table
- Chair - Floor
Activate- In this phase students in pairs work on the preparation of their
dream house. The students have to draw plan of their dream house and
present their plan infront of the whole class. The best dream house will be
selected by the whole class.

Task 7 - What additional issues does the teacher have to consider for a
writing activity?

The teacher should consider the following issues for a writing activity:

- The grammar in writing is different than speaking e.g. usage of contracted

forms in speaking are often not applied in writing.
- Vocabulary is usually more formal in written english.
- Poor hand writing may influence the reader in a negative sense, therefore
the teacher should encourage the students to improve it.
- Incorrect spelling can not only create misunderstandings but can also be
perceived by the reader to reflect a lack of education. The teacher should
work on the spellings of students. One of the best ways to help students with
spelling is through extensive reading.
- Layout and punctuation can present students with major problems if the
rules of their first language are significantly different different from those of
english. To help students to learn different types of layouts of writing ( e.g.
business letter differ from that of e-mails), they need to be exposed and be
given the chance to practice with many different styles. The techer should
also show the students the correct usage of punctuation for effective writing.
- Creative writing should be encouraged among the students because it
engages the students and finished work usually provide them with a sense of
pride. Teacher can also put students in groups or pairs because the input of
ideas from different sources is helpful or sometimes even necessary.

Task 8 - Think of five traditional games that could be adapted for the
classroom and details of how you would use them (these games should not
include any of those mentioned in the course unit):

i- Alphabet Word Game

- Divide class into groups of 2-4 students
 - Each group assigns a writer
- The writer makes a chart with headings such as 'Boy's name', 'Girl's
name', 'Place', 'Animal', etc.
- The teacher says a letter
- Each group has 1-3 minutes to write a word in each category that starts
with the letter
- Using the example above: Bill, Betty, Brooklyn, Bedroom, Bat
- Teacher asks each group for answers 1 category at a time
- Groups get 10 points for each answer
- If two groups have the same answer, they gey 5 points each
- The team with the most points wins

ii- Typhoon

- Draw a 6x6 bingo grid on the board

- Randomly write points in the squares
- In some squares, write 'Typhoon' instead of a number
- Stick words cards on top of the squares and cover the number/typhoon
- One team chooses a word card and must make a sentence with the word
- If they make an incorrect sentence, move on to the next team
- If they make a correct sentence, they get the number of points under the
card
- Typhoons allow you to erase all the points from another team
- The team with the most points at the end wins

iii- I went to the market

- Divide class into groups and select one group to help demonstrate rules
 - Teacher starts by saying, "I went to the market and I bought an apple."
- Student next to the teacher follows by saying, "I went to the market and
I bought an apple and some eggs."
- The next student continues by saying, "I went to the market and I
bought an apple, some eggs, and a potato."
- Play continues with each student repeating what previous members said
and adding one item to the shopping list

iv- Country dash

- Prepare 5 flashcard - Africa, Asia, North America, South America, and

Europe
- Clear desks to side of room or go outside if possible
- Select 5 students to hold up flashcards
- Teacher calls out a country and students move to the continent where
they think the country is
- Students who go to the wrong continent sit down
- Last student left wins
- Rotate flashcard-holders and play again

V- Clap/don't clap

- Choose a category, such as animals, sports, etc.

- Call out a vocabulary word that fits the theme (ie 'cat' for animals)
- Students clap if you call out a word that fits the category
- Once they are in a comfortable rhythm, say a word that is not in the
category
- Share a laugh when someone claps in the wrong place