Teaching Productive Skills to the Students: a secondary Level Scenario

 
Controlled oral work: 
Among controlled oral work the authors include the 
dialogue. The advantage of dialogue is that it can be used for controlled, guided or free 
work. It is also possible to use the dialogue for each level, starting with elementary level. 
The students prepare mini-dialogue in pairs even in the first lesson. Controlled oral work 
can be supported by drills (similar 
to R.S Brown‟s and Nation‟s opinion), especially 
substitution drills which are widely used. The advantage of drills is that the error is 

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almost eliminated and the students feel more comfortable to speak, which is a very 
important point mainly at lower levels. G. Broughton says that substitution drills: 
“demonstrate much more clearly to the class that this is not simply mechanical drill but 
language practice with a visually demonstrated communicative function in a real life 
situation in which the student can 
find himself.” (Broughton 81) 
 
Guided oral work:
The aim of the guided oral work is to give students a 
limited freedom and to practice what they have learnt. In this phase, making mistakes in 
learning is taken as a natural part. Among guided oral work the authors include role-
plays. Here the students can learn some practical phrases used in everyday life (e.g. 
shopping in the supermarket). However, not only a role-play but also setting up a role-
play situation is another way how to practice speaking skills in a guided way. 
 
Free oral work: 
It is the last phase in which the students should be able to 
produce such an amount of language that they will be able to express themselves. This 
phase is typical for advanced students. The aim of the teacher in this phase is to create 
such situation and stimuli that all students will be actively involved in a communicative 
way. By the stimuli the authors mean: visual stimuli 
– pictures, maps, cartoon, films or 
photographs that are motivating for discussion starters. Another stimulus is written 
words 
– magazines, newspapers (excellent for developing skill of reporting), leaflets, 
book according to the level etc. and aural stimuli 
– sound on CDs or cassettes. Also 
games or puzzles play an important role in teaching speaking skills. Further, the 
authors suggest group work as a good tool of free oral production activities. Most of the 
techniques are prepared in groups at the beginning and then they are brought back to 
the class, of course, there is automatically less teacher control and more pupil-
centeredness. (Broughton 83) 
As we can see, there are various activities that can be used for teaching speaking skill. 
More or less the authors follow the same pattern: to start with drills in lower levels, so 
the students become familiar with useful phrases or expressions, to such activities that 

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challenge the learners to express themselves and to produce as much language as 
possible.