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The main goal of most, students is to acquire language skills that will enable them to communicate effectively. What is communication, however, if it is merely one-sided? It is, of course, necessary to be able to understand a person speaking to you, but if you cannot respond with a succinct, understandable answer, opinion, comment or question, there is rarely a point to engaging in the interaction to begin with. Whether these interactions are verbal or written, a person unable to share their point-of-view, defend their actions, praise or thank someone will inevitably have a difficult time connecting with people and, in end effect, navigating the world. Communication takes on many forms and significance, and because successful, clear communication is the ultimate goal in the classroom, writing and speaking skills become the focus. While writing and speaking are productive skills, both require different teaching methodologies and pose different difficulties. Speaking is the means through which a good classroom will run and is most often the focus of students trying to learn the language. Speaking commands a certain level of fluency, which can only be acquired through regular practice. A variety of activities will not only keep a class active and interesting, but will also inevitably provide students with a wide-range of circumstances in which English must be used in different ways. Drilling students in the pronunciation of a certain word by first asking the class to repeat the target word three times and then calling on three separate students to try individually, 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 simultaneously ensuring them 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 anything from a debate, some sort of communication game, or a discussion.
