Phase 3, Language skills
Jacky García Solano
Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia UNAD
Faculty of Education Sciences
BA in Foreign Languages with an Emphasis in English.
Course: Didactics of English
Group: 518022_11
Bucaramanga
2021
Step 1: Individually read the documents Teaching receptive and productive language skills with the help of
techniques and Receptive and productive language skills in language teaching in Unit 2 - Language Skills -
Contents and bibliographical references found in the Language Environment. Share in the forum a written
paragraph answering the following information:
Definition of receptive and productive skills
The order of development of the skills
According to Ganesh (2015) “Being competent in a language implies having the following four basic
language skills: reading, listening, writing, and speaking. Reading and listening belong to the receptive
language skills, since the learners receive an input, while speaking and writing belong to the productive
language skills, because the students produce an output.” When we talk about skills, we refer to an ability, it
means, to be able to develop a task with accuracy and in a certain period of time. In languages, it is absolutely
necessary to build up these skills to guarantee good results in the learning process. In the first group, we have
the receptive skills: listening and reading. As it is mentioned before, the focus of them, is to get as much
information of the language as possible (input), this will increase the knowledge of the learner in areas such
vocabulary, grammar and general culture. On the other hand, we have productive skills in which the focus is on
production; it means, to be able to express in real contexts what gotten before (ideas). It is important not to
overlook any of them, because they are all essential in the communication process. There is an order that most
of the learners show as they progress in the language: normally the first skill the students start to improve is
reading; little by little, they grow in the language thorough paragraphs, texts and written sentences; Then, we
have listening, when the students start understanding commands given to them; then, it is writing, where people
start learning how to write words in a correct way and how to organize sentences as they learn grammar.
Finally, we have speaking, this is the last skill the students develop as it involves oral production,
pronunciation, and in general, the combination of all the previous skills.
Step 2: Each student must propose one virtual didactical activity per skill in order to develop effectively
the four language skills and share them in a word document in the forum. For instance, for reading, propose a
text and the activities to encourage reading skills, or for listening, share the audio and the activities. Be creative.
As a group, you will choose the best-proposed virtual didactical activities for developing the four English skills.
Skill Objective Procedure
The teacher is going to prepare an activity based on the
following story: https://www.tell-a-tale.com/panchatantra-
foolish-lion-clever-rabbit/
Note: The class will be all involved in the activity.
The teacher is going to narrate the story using the students to
act out and illustrate the happenings so that it can be
To develop reading skills while
Reading understandable. After this, T will show the Ss some
learning new vocabulary.
flashcards of pictures with the main events of the tale (the
flashcards are going to be in disorder). The idea, is that the Ss
organize the pictures in the correct order of the events. At the
end, the teacher will give them a sheet with the complete
story and all together will read it again and review new
vocabulary.
Listening To practice the past simple The students are going to listen to the following song for the
tense while developing the first time and ty to understand its main idea:
listening skill. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlJDTxahav0
After discussing the general idea together with the teacher
and the rest of the class, they will be given a sheet with the
lyrics of the song, but with some missing words. (Verbs in
past and general vocabulary are included). The students will
listen to the song several times trying to identify the missing
words.
Once the deadline has finished, they will change their sheet as
the teacher commands to review a classmate’s activity. For
this part, the teacher will show the same sheet; also, she will
have the missing words next to the presentation. The class
will listen to the song together and identify the words that fit
the best in each gap while the students give feedback to their
partners.
Writing The Ss will create a “diary” narrating their lives. The teacher
will give them a topic to prepare a creative concept of each
project e.g. vintage style, traveling, fashion etc. Ss have to
develop sort of a “magazine” narrating their biography and
exposing the most memorable happenings of their past; how
they are living nowadays, and their projects for the future.
To practice the main tenses:
They will have to prepare a creative presentation to share
present, past and future while
with their partners and teacher the project. The idea with this
practice the writing skill.
activity, is to practice the concept and structure of the main
tenses (past, present and future) as well as developing their
creativity, writing and speaking skills. During each
presentation, the teacher will take notes of the things to
improve, and at the end she will give suggestions concerning
grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation etc.
Speaking To develop speaking skills and Create a debate. The teacher will divide the class in two
encourage students to analyze groups and set the topic of the debate (in this opportunity, the
problems that affect society in topic will go around death penalty. Should countries have this
real life so that they develop practice as a penalty in the current society? Why? One group
their own critical point of view. will be on behalf of the statement and the other, won’t agree.
Before the day of the debate, the students will have to
research all the information they find interesting around the
topic, for example:
- How many countries in the world still use this practice
as a legal penalty? In which specific cases?
- For how long have this penalty been used throughout
history?
- Is there any difference between the countries that still
use this penalty and the ones that don’t? (less amounts
of crimes, prisoners etc)
- Recent reports of the application of the penalty.
Where? Who was the accused? What was his/her
crime?
The teacher will choose a student to be the “moderator” of the
activity (she / he will be in charge of managing the time, and
has to make sure that all the respect commands are being
followed during the activity). The teacher will take notes of
things to improve while the students are speaking. At the end,
T will give a general and personal feedback (grammar,
structure, vocabulary, pronunciation, intonation, stress,
fluency etc)
REFERENCES.
Ganesh, M. (2015). Teaching receptive and productive language skills with the help of techniques. Pune
Research an international journal in English, 1(2). Retrieved
from: http://puneresearch.com/media/data/issues/55fbb8b0dd37d.pdf
Ivančić, M. & Mandić, A. (2014). Receptive and productive language skills in language teaching. In
Academia.Edu. Retrieved
from: https://www.academia.edu/15220943/Receptive_and_productive_language_skills_in_language_teac
hing
