The productive skills are speaking and writing, because learners doing these need to produce language. They are also known as active skills. They can be compared with the receptive skills of listening and reading.

Example
Learners have already spent time practising receptive skills with a shape poem, by listening to it and reading it. They now move on to productive skills by group writing their own, based on the example.

In the classroom
Certain activities, such as working with literature and project work, seek to integrate work on both receptive and productive skills.