Teaching Productive Skills to the Students: a secondary Level Scenario

a. 
Using minimal respond: In every group, and especially in mixed-ability 
classes, there are some students who do not feel confident to speak and they rather 
stay silent and just listen. To encourage these students to speak is to help them to build 
up a certain amount of minimal responses they can use in different types of exchanges. 
Such responses are often idiomatic phrases to indicate understanding, doubt, 
agreement or other responses. It was found 
that: “Having a stock of such responses 
enables a learner to focus on what the other participant is saying, without having to 
simultaneously plan a response.” (“Teaching Speaking: Goals and Techniques for 
Teaching Speaking”) 
b. 
Recognizing scripts: 
Invitations, 
greetings, 
compliments 
and 
other 
functions follow patterns of scripts as they are influenced by social and cultural norm. 
Teachers should make learners aware of the scripts in different situations, so the 
learners can predict what they will hear and what they will need to say in response. 
c. 
Using language to talk about language: 
Sometimes the learners come 
across the situation when they are misunderstood by their conversation partner. They 
often feel embarrassed or shy and they refuse to continue in speaking. Therefore the 
teacher should help the learners to overcome this situation by assuring them that 
misunderstanding can occur in any type of interaction and the teachers should give 
students strategies and phrases to use for comprehensible check. 
Finally we can state, that by using these strategies the teacher can create 
authentic practice environment and students will get more confidence to manage 
various communication situations. 
 
 

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