Teach English in Sihai Zhen - Beijing

Teaching productive skillsThe two productive skills speaking and writing, although very different, are similar in that they are both used for communicating. Teachers and students are often more focused and concerned about the speaking side of productive skills, this together with the fact that speaking is a naturally acquired skill and writing isn?t leaves the skill of writing lagging far behind the skill of speaking. Even though the role of writing in everyday life has increases dramatically over recent years due to the popularity of email, web forums, Internet messenger, text messages, this type of written communication is often abbreviated and has evolved its own shorthand, mainly due to the need to write fast using limited wording. Despite this modern type of communication it is still equally important for students to be taught the skill of writing. Most writing activities/tasks are given to the students to do as homework as this is mainly an individual activity. However students still need to be actively encouraged and helped to understand the preparatory steps before they produce the final piece of writing and the teacher can do this by helping them choose a topic, discussing the topic both as a group and individually, encouraging the students to take notes in class, do practice exercises and study sample texts similar to what they want to write about, and encouraging students to read through their writing, checking it reads clearly and the language is correct. It is always important to select the task that is most suited to their needs, such as if they are writing letters the teacher should discuss with the student who they would need to write to and what about, for example other schools to apply for a course, friends who have moved away, local newspapers regarding a recent article, actually posting the letters and getting replies would make this more interesting to the students. Other writing activities could be writing about a personal experience such as a holiday, hobby, their family, where they live, as they have the information already the student will be focussed as what they are writing as it means something to them personally. Constructive feedback is vital when teaching the productive skill of writing, without sufficient feedback students will not improve their writing skills. There are many important factors to consider when teaching the productive skill of speaking the main aim is that the student becomes more fluent and confident. In order to do this the students need to be involved and talking in class as much as possible, they need to be interested in the subject so they feel motivated to talk about it, lessons will be more interesting if the students are voluntarily getting involved in the conversation as they feel they have something they really want to say. It is therefore essential to choose the topic of the lesson very carefully, taking into consideration the age of the group, different cultures and interests, the topic has to be of interest to all the class. It is important to plan the activity stage of the lesson to ensure the maximum speaking opportunity for the student, ensuring all students get a chance to talk, to prevent it becoming boring, with the teacher only occasionally adding to the discussion itself to keep it interesting but keeping teacher participation reduced in order to encourage the students to talk. Genre is also important as the learner of a language needs to learn not just words, grammar and pronunciation but also how to speak in different situations, successful speaking involves not only fluent communication but an appropriate way.