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Unit 12 talks about Productive skills. Productive skills consist of: a) Speaking b) Writing. Speaking and writing both are equally important. People communicate primarily because of one or more of the following reasons namely: 1) They have a communicative purpose 2) They are interested in what is being said 3) They want to say something 4) They want to listen to something. As teachers, for teaching any skill it is very important to create a need and desire among the students. It is important to make the learning process and the activity purposeful. Accuracy and fluency are the two important aspects of speaking. Accuracy related activities are a part of the Study phase which focuses more on the ability of the students to produce correct language. Fluency related activities are a part of the Activate phase which focuses more on the effectiveness and flow of communication. It emphasizes more on the creativity of the students allowing them to experiment freely with the language. For improving accuracy, the teachers can make use of certain controlled and guided activities. Controlled activities include drilling and prompting whereas guiding activities include model dialogues and guided role-plays. Further, for improving fluency various techniques can be used such as: 1) Role-plays 2) Simulation 3) Discussions 4) Debates 5) Information Gap 6) Communication games, etc. The second productive skill .i.e. writing has four very important aspects which are handwriting, spelling, layout and punctuation and creative writing respectively. Handwriting is one of the important factors in writing. It is always advisable to have a good handwriting for the readers’ convenience. The teachers should therefore encourage the students to improve their handwriting. Spelling can be improved through extensive reading. Layout and punctuation can be taught by exposing students to different styles and layouts. Creative writing can be developed by encouraging the students and by developing a need and desire in them. The bottom line of the unit is, as teachers we must be able to develop the said productive skills in students and for doing so we should come up with techniques that would not only motivate the students but also keep them interested and enthusiastic throughout the sessions.
