Teach English in Renju Zhen - Meizhou Shi

This unit deals with the teaching productive skills such as speaking and writing. I agree that in order for the lesson to be successful the teacher must create the need and desire in the students to communicate. The students need to be given some communicative purpose so that they would want to say something, to listen to something and be interested in what is being said. It is also said that accuracy and fluency carry equal importance, but accuracy is usually part of the study phase while fluency activities are concentrated on allowing the students to be creative with language during the activate phase. Speaking activities in the classroom can be different: controlled, guided (accuracy based activities) and creative communication (fluency based). Controlled activities are about drilling and prompting which can be a pre-planned question and answer. Model dialogues and guided role-play are the examples of guided activities. Creative communication can include discussions and debates, free role-play, information gap and communication games. It is important for the teacher to understand the reasons why some students may be reluctant to speak: they may lack confidence, be fearful of making mistakes and may have no interest in the topic. This must be overcome by the teacher. Some techniques may be useful for this, such as pair and group work, purposeful speaking activities, changing the classroom dynamics, etc. It is very important to teach writing skills as well, focusing on spelling and handwriting, punctuation, layout and creative writing which should be encouraged. Games in the classroom are also given some attention to. I find it very useful that this unit has a list of games that could be used during the lessons in order to make them successful and enjoyable.