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This unit focuses about the receptive skills in teaching and learning English. The receptive skills are speaking and writing. I believe that speaking is one of the most important skills to acquire, even if usually all four language skills are given equal attention. The main goal of most English learners is to acquire language skills that will enable them to communicate effectively. In order to do that, they must be able to not only understand a person speaking to them, but also to respond with a clear, understandable answer, opinion, comment or question. In order to be able to connect with other people and enjoy communicating with them, they must be able to to share their point-of-view, defend their actions, praise or thank someone etc. Writing and speaking require different teaching methodologies and pose different pedagogical difficulties. Speaking requires a certain level of fluency, which can only be acquired through regular practice. In addition, a speaker will often need to think ?on the spot? and be ready to respond to some unpredictable circumstances. This unit introduces three different kinds of speaking activities; controlled activities (based on accuracy), guided activities (also based on accuracy, but a little ore creative) and free/creative activities (based on fluency). Pronunciation drills of a certain word is an example of a controlled activity, developed to build students? confidence and to give them abundant practice before moving on to an activity that requires more free-thinking production. A guided activity might include a role-play complete with relevant vocabulary and appropriate phrases needed to enact a scene. This allows students to experiment with the language, while also letting them know that they are on the right track, producing understandable, applicable language. Finally a creative activity allows students to choose freely from all the English they already know to produce something more likely to mirror a real-life situation. This type of activity could be a debate, a communication game, or a discussion. Students? writing, like their speaking, can only benefit from exposure to a wide-range of situations which require specific skills and language. It is important to encourage students to write as much as possible. As a conclusion, we cans say that the only way to improve students? speaking and writing skills is to put them to use. Although writing and reading differ with regard to their vocabulary, grammar and punctuation applications, it is possible and necessary to incorporate a variety of these skills into every lesson.
