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Unit 12, Teaching productive skills, takes a look at the two productive skills speaking and writing. Both skills are equally important but writing is often neglected in the TEFL world being relegated to homework which in turn is frequently not done. It is the teacher's responsibility to generate student interest and to create the need and desire, in the students, to communicate. Classroom activities can be split into two broad categories: 1) Accuracy activities (often part of the study phase and concentrated in producing correct language); and 2) fluency activities (often part of the activate phase and concentrated on allowing students to be creative with language). Models for typical speaking and writing activity lessons are provided as well as a list of games useful for teaching productive skills. I thought very useful the list of reasons why students can be reluctant to speak in the classroom such as lack of confidence, fear of making mistakes and peer intimidation and the suggestions on how to overcome these hurdles (pair work, group work, creating a desire and need to communicate ...). As for teaching writing skills, I learned to consider that students whose native language uses a different alphabetical system from the English language may need special training. The part 'Games in the classroom' helped me to understand the importance of games as an integral part of the syllabus.
