Input session · Loop input
One shape, two skills. Speaking and writing are staged the same way: prepare ideas, get useful language, do the task, get feedback. This session runs that shape once, with both skills inside it. Do the stages first; the debrief is where it gets named.
Click to reveal
Speaking or writing.
Then watch this: probably the most universally recognisable attitude to writing there is.
If the frame stays black, watch it on YouTube; stop once he has written the first word.
What was his attitude to writing? Would anyone say the same thing about speaking? Quick discussion, a minute.
Speaking
Think of a real opinion or story you'd actually want to share about your journey into teaching.
A minute alone, then tell a partner.
Writing
Think of the last piece of writing you did that actually mattered: a job application, a difficult email, a complaint. Did you write it once, or several times?
A minute alone, then compare with a partner.
Don't write anything down yet. Notice that you had something to say before you had any language for it.
Click each to reveal. The tag says whether it belongs to both skills or just one.
Take the opinion and the piece of writing from Stage 2. Which task type would actually get a partner to hear the one, and suit teaching the other? Click each to see what it's for, then tell your partner which you'd pick and why.
Staging a productive skills lesson, and where writing goes its own way.
A productive skills lesson doesn't open with instructions. It opens by creating interest in the topic and giving learners something to think or feel before they need any language for it. Ideas and content come first, because nobody can speak or write about a topic they haven't engaged with yet.
Useful language comes next, but only if it's needed: a handful of words or phrases learners are missing to do the task, not a full presentation. Many productive skills lessons skip this stage entirely if the target language was already covered earlier in the day.
The task itself is where the teacher gets out of the way. Clear instructions, a genuine information gap or a real opinion to share, then the teacher circulates and monitors without interrupting. Every minute of teacher talk here is a minute a learner isn't producing language.
Feedback closes the lesson in two parts. First, feedback on whether the task was actually achieved: content, not language. Only after that does the teacher share language noticed while monitoring, what worked and what to fix, dealt with once the task is over rather than mid-flow.
So far this describes both skills. The difference is that writing leaves a draft behind, and a draft can be worked on. A product approach treats writing as the end result: learners study a model text, notice its features and organisation, then produce their own version closely following that model. A process approach treats writing as stages the writer moves through: generating ideas, planning, drafting, getting feedback, redrafting. Most real writing lessons blend the two: a model text supplies structure and language, then learners plan, draft and redraft rather than writing once and stopping. Speaking has no equivalent, because speech isn't recoverable, which is why delayed correction, not redrafting, is where a speaking lesson puts its accuracy work.
Look again at the text and answer these, then check with your partner.
Six things a teacher notices while monitoring: three from a speaking task, three from a writing task. The split works the same way in both. Click your answer for each.
You just moved through five stages. Click each one in the order you actually experienced it. This is a loop input: the session modelled the framework instead of only describing it, and it did it once for both skills.
0 of 5 placed. Click the one that comes first.
| Stage | Speaking | Writing |
|---|
Four rows are effectively the same sentence twice. Only feedback splits, and only because writing leaves something behind to redraft.
Sources. The session follows Connect's own Teaching productive skills input; the product and process approaches to writing follow the account in Jeremy Harmer, How to Teach Writing (Pearson, 2004).
Sound for the SpongeBob clip (it stops at 1:50, after he has written his first word). A loop input: do not name the five stages until the debrief. Nothing to print.
| Stage | What you do |
|---|---|
| Lead-in | The reveal, the clip, the question. One minute of talk, no more. |
| Preparing | Both prompts, a minute alone, then a partner. Point out afterwards that nobody was given any language first. |
| Useful language | Eight terms, click to reveal; the tag says which skill. The counter at the top tells you where they are. |
| The task types | Ten cards in two lanes. Pairs pick one for the opinion and one for the piece of writing from Stage 2, and say why. |
| Read and check | Silent read, then: were your ideas right? Where does writing go its own way? (The last paragraph.) |
| Detail, and the feedback split | Five questions, then six scenarios: task achievement or language feedback. |
| Debrief | Order the five stages. Then the table: four rows the same, one different. |
| Wrap-up | One sentence each: the difference between speaking and writing in one word. (Redraft.) |
On the page: the five detail answers, the six scenarios (task achievement; language; task achievement; task achievement; language; language, and positive), the stage order (lead-in, preparing, useful language, task, feedback).