This is a basic presentation about how to teach writing and speaking as productive skills. It is based on information from Harmer (2007).

1. WRITING AND
SPEAKING:
PRODUCTIVE SKILLS
IN EFL
BA IN SPANISH,
ENGLISH, AND
FRENCH
Yamith José Fandiño
yfandino@lasalle.edu.co
DIDACTICS OF ENGLISH

2. Language skills

3. INTRODUCTION

4. Teaching Writing
Reasons for teaching writing
• It provides more opportunities for language learning.
• It can be a practice tool to help students practice and work with
language they have studied.
• It develops the students’ skills as writers.

5. Teaching Writing
Writing issues
GENRE THE WRITING PROCESS THE WRITING HABIT
It is a type of writing which
members of a discourse
community recognizes for
what it is.
Decide what genres are
important and engaging for
students: ads, poems,
invitations, etc.
See how typical texts in a
genre are constructed.
Guided writing helps students
produce appropriate texts.
Involve students in the
process of writing.
Planning what they will write.
Drafting a first version.
Reviewing the content and
form.
Editing final version.
Producing or publishing.
It is not a linear process, but a
cyclical process as some steps
can be repeated.
Engage students with
activities that are easy and
enjoyable.
Writing needs to become a
normal part of classroom life.
Get students to look at
written genres and involve
themselves in the writing
process with enthusiasm.

6. Teaching Writing
Writing skills

7. Teaching Writing
Writing principles

8. Teaching Writing
Writing sequences
• Postcards
1. Work with leaving words out to save
space.
2. Circle words that can be left out.
3. Imagine being on holiday and decide
where to send a postcard from and
what to say.
4. Look at how postcards are structured:
description, exhortation, sign off, etc.

9. Teaching Writing
Writing sequences
• E-mail interviews
1. Show students an example of celebrity
interviews.
2. Work with possible questions students
can use.
3. Write a copy of their question and
exchange them with other students.
4. Students answer the questions and
send them back.
5. Write up an interview appropriately.

10. Teaching Writing
Writing sequences
• Report
1. Students analyze the report genre,
looking at language points, gathering
information, drafting and producing
a report.
2. Choose a topic.
3. Gather information from different
sources.
4. Plan the reports.
5. Write a draft and check it through.
6. Write final version.

11. Teaching Writing
More writing suggestions
Instant writing Activities where students are asked to write immediately in response to
a teacher request.
We can ask students to write two sentences about a topic ‘right now’.
We can give them three words and tell them to put them into a
sentence as quickly as possible.
Using music and
pictures
They are stimuli for both writing and speaking. For example, we can
dictate the first sentence of a story and then have the students
complete the story, based on the music we play them.
We can ask students to write descriptions of one of a group of pictures;
their classmates then must guess which one it is.
Newspapers and
magazines
The different kinds of text found in newspapers and magazines offer a
range of possibilities for genre analysis, followed by writing within that
genre.
For example, we can get students to look at a range of different articles
and ask them to analyze how headlines are constructed, and how
articles are normally arranged. They then write an article about a real
or imaginary news story that interests them.

12. Teaching Writing
More writing suggestions
Brochures and guides Get students to look at a variety of brochures (e.g. for a town,
entertainment venue, health club or leisure complex) to analyze how
they are put together.
They can then write their own brochure or town guide, using this
analysis to help them.
Poems Writing poems allows students to express themselves in a way that
other genres, perhaps, do not.
Students read different poems and then, without showing their poem
to anyone else, they must go round the class finding similarities and
differences.
Collaborative writing Students gain a lot from constructing texts together.
For example, we can have them build up a letter on the board, where
each line is written by a different student (with help from the class, the
group and/or the teacher)

13. Teaching Writing
More writing suggestions
Writing to each other Students can write emails, or any other kind of message (the teacher
can act as a postal worker) which must be answered. They can be
involved, under our supervision, in live chat sessions on the Internet,
or we can organize pen pal exchanges with students in other
classrooms, schools, cities, or countries.
Writing in other
genres
Have students write personal narratives and other stories by getting
students to complete stories that are only half told.
Have students write discursive essays in which they assemble
arguments both for and against a proposition.

14. Teaching Writing
Final issues
1. Correction
• over-correction can have a very demotivating effect.
• tell students that for a piece of work they are only going to correct
mistakes of punctuation, or only spelling or only grammar, etc.
• Agree on a list of written symbols (S = spelling, WO = word order, etc.)
so that students can self-correct.
2. Handwriting
• Encourage neatness and legibility.

15. Teaching Speaking

16. Teaching Speaking
Reasons for speaking
• Speaking activities provide rehearsal opportunities - chances to
practice real-life speaking in the safety of the classroom.
• Provide feedback for both teacher and students. Everyone can see
how well they are doing and what language problems they are
experiencing.
• The more students have opportunities to activate the various
elements of language they have stored in their brains, the more
automatic their use of these elements become.

17. Teaching Speaking
Speaking issues

18. Teaching Speaking
Speaking levels

19. Teaching Speaking
Speaking skills

20. Teaching Speaking
Speaking principles

21. Teaching Speaking
Speaking sequences
• Photographic competition
1. Students decide criteria they can use to
choose a winning picture.
2. Students see the picture sand choose
the winner using their criteria.
3. Students report back on their choices
and say exactly why they have
chosen them.

22. Teaching Speaking
Speaking sequences
• Role plays
1. The teacher presents the class with a
situation and explain the parts involved.
2. The class is divided into group and each
member is given the role-card for the
part they are to play.
3. In the groups, students discuss the role
they are going to play and questions
they are going to use.
4. Students are put in new groups and act
out the situation.

23. Teaching Speaking
Speaking sequences
• The portrait interview
1. Stage 1 - students are put into groups and
they receive a copy of painting.
2. Stage 2 - each group selects a character in
the painting. They must look at the picture
carefully and then create as many questions
for their character as possible.
3. Stage 3 - students are put in new groups
where they must take on the identity of one
of the characters and then answer the
questions that have been prepared.
4. Stage 4 - some students are chosen to play
the different characters. They come to the
front of the class and are interviewed in the
same way.

24. Teaching Speaking
More speaking suggestions
Information-gap
activities
An information gap is where two speakers have different bits of
information, and they can only complete the whole picture by
sharing that information - because they have different information,
there is a ‘gap’ between them.
One popular information-gap activity is called Describe and draw. A
variation on Describe and draw is an activity called Find the differences.
Telling stories Students need to be able to tell other people stories and anecdotes
about what happened to them and other people.
Students can work with story reconstruction or story retelling.
Favorite objects Students can tell personal stories when asked to talk about their
favorite objects.
Meeting and
greeting
Students role-play a formal/business social occasion where
they meet several people and introduce themselves.
Surveys
(Questionnaires)
Surveys can be used to get students interviewing each other. A
variation of this is a popular activity called Find someone who

25. Teaching Speaking
More speaking suggestions
Famous people Students think of five famous people. They must decide on the
perfect gift for each person. We can also get groups of students to decide on
which five famous people (living or dead) they would most like to invite for
dinner, what they would talk about and what food they would give them.
Students'
presentations
Individual students give a talk on a given topic or person. For this to work for
the individual (and for the rest of the class), time must be given for the
student to gather information and structure it accordingly.
Balloon debate a group of students are in the basket of a balloon which is losing air. Only
one person can stay in the balloon and survive (the others must jump out).
Individual students representing famous characters (Napoleon, Gandhi,
Cleopatra, etc.) or professions (teacher, doctor, lawyer, etc.) must argue why
they should be allowed to survive.
Moral dilemmas students are presented with a ‘moral dilemma’ and asked to come
to a decision about how to resolve it.

26. Teaching Speaking
Correction
• Many teachers watch and listen while speaking activities are taking place.
They note down things when students can’t make themselves understood or
make important mistakes. When the activity has finished, they then ask the
students how they think it went before giving their own feedback.
• Some teachers who have a good relationship with their students can
intervene during a speaking activity if they do it in a quiet non-obtrusive way.
This kind of gentle correction might take the form of reformulation where
the teacher repeats what the student has said, but correctly this time, and
does not ask for student repetition of the corrected form.

27. References
Harmer, J. (2007). How to teach English (New edition). USA: Pearson
Longman.