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TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i
ABSTRACT ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS iv
LIST OF CHARTS vi
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale of the study 1
2. Aims and objectives of the study 2
3. Scope of the study 2
4. Methodology of the study 2
5. Research hypothesis 2
6. Design of the study 3
PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT 4
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4
1.1. Teaching speaking 4
1.1.1. Concepts of speaking 4
1.1.2. The role of speaking in foreign language teaching 4
1.1.3. Factors affecting English speaking ability 6
1.2 Information gap activities 6
1.2.1. Concept of information gap activities 7
1.2.1.1. Concept of information gap 7
1.2.1.2. Concept of information gap activities 7
1.2.2. Benefits of information gap activities 8

3. Limitations and suggestions for further research 35
REFERENCES 36
APPENDICES
APPENDIX 1: Questionnaire 1 I
APPENDIX 2: Questionnaire 2 III
APPENDIX 3: Observation sheet 1 – Overall class motivation IV
APPENDIX 4: Data on overall class motivation V
APPENDIX 5: Samples of the tests VI

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PART I. INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
It is undeniable that English has been an essential means of communication and
more and more Vietnamese students are aware of the importance of English to their study
and their future. The ability to communicate in English clearly and efficiently contributes
to the success of the learners at school and success later in every phase of life. Speaking
plays an important role because without it, communication cannot take place directly
between people. However, speaking is generally considered the most difficult to learn
among the four skills in English language learning.
In order to teach the students English speaking so that they become more interested
in and maintain their interest in speaking learning. The English teachers should provide a
rich environment where meaningful communication can take place. Communication occurs
when there is lack of information between or among a group of people. They have to

Within a framework of a minor thesis, the study is aimed at using information gap
activities to motivate students in speaking lessons for the first-year non-English major
students at Phuong Dong University. In order to study the subject matter deeply, the writer
focuses on:
- Describing the importance of Information Gap Activities to motivate students to speak
English
- Using Information gap Activities to motivate students in speaking lessons
- Providing suggestions for English teachers to prepare English speaking lessons at Phuong
Dong University.
3. Scope of the study
Due to the limit of the thesis, the study cannot cover all the speaking activities, but
focus on information gap activities to motivate students in speaking lessons. The study was
conducted on the first-year non-English major students at Phuong Dong University.
4. Methodology of the study
The method employed in this study is an action research, with the uses of three
instruments: observations, questions and pre-tests and post-tests. All comments, remarks,
recommendations and conclusion are based on the data analysis.
The combination of different instruments used in this research would help to gain
reliable data and a close investigation into the problems that the students were having 8

5. Research hypothesis
Students lack practice in speaking English in real communicating situations is one
of the main reasons for the students’ inability to make a meaningful conversation. One
solution is using information gap activities to motivate students. The questions to be dealt
with are:
1. What are the causes of the students’ low motivation in English speaking activities?
2. What is the importance of using information gap activities in motivating students in

continue to teach speaking just as a repetition of drills or memorization of dialogues.
However, today’s world requires that the goal of teaching speaking should improve
students’ communicative skills, because only in that way, students can express themselves
and learn how to follow the social and cultural rules appropriate in each communicative
circumstance.
1.1.1 Concepts of speaking
In this section, I will consider what we mean by “speaking”. In language teaching,
we often talk about four language skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing. Speaking
can be regarded as the productive, oral skill.
Speaking consists of producing systematic verbal utterances to convey meaning.
According to Florez (1999, p.1), speaking is “an interactive process of constructing
meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information”. It is often
spontaneous, open-ended, and evolving”
In order to speak accurately and fluently, students need to improve some areas of
knowledge. As for Burnkart (1998), students need to recognize that speaking involves
three areas of knowledge including mechanics (pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary),
functions (transaction and interaction) and social and cultural rules and norms. However
there areas are quite difficult for beginning learners, and they should be taught gradually.
Speaking is making use words in an ordinary voice, uttering words, knowing and
being able to use language; expressing in words and making speech. Therefore, we can
infer that speaking is the ability to make use of words or a language to express oneself in
an ordinary voice. In short, the speaking skill is the ability to perform the linguistics
knowledge in actual communication.
1.1.2 The role of speaking in foreign language teaching
It is known that language has been divided into different skill areas based on the
purpose of analysis and instruction. In view of language teaching there are mainly four
macro-skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. It has been accepted for many years
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that communication is the proper aim for language teaching. That means we learn a


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1.1.3. Factors affecting English speaking abilities
There are many factors that influence the success or failure in learning English
speaking. However, the two most important factors are motivation, attitude (Gardner and
Lambert: 1972)
Motivation is seen as “a key consideration in determining the preparedness of
learners to communicate, (Gardner, 1985: 10) while Harmer (2001) defines motivation
simply as “some kind of internal drive which pushes someone to do things in order to
achieve something” According to Carol (1962), motivation decides the amount of time a
learner will spend on the task of language learning. She claims: “The more motivation a
learner has, the more time he or she will spend on learning an aspect of a second
language” (Carol, 1962). Motivation not only plays an important role in learning, it helps
the teacher as well. Lite (2002) confirms that “Motivation is the backbone of any
classroom. When the students are motivated, the teacher can perform his/her job the best.”
Teachers are often familiar with two basic types of motivation: extrinsic motivation and
intrinsic motivation. Harmer (2001) states that extrinsic motivation is caused by such
outside factors as the need to pass an exam, the hope of possibility for future travel, etc. In
contrast, intrinsic motivation is caused by inside factors like the enjoyment of the learning
process itself or by a desire to make them feel better.
It can be concluded that motivation is significant in foreign language learning
because when learners set the goal of learning a foreign language, motivation helps them
produce effort and have a positive attitude to obtain the goal. Therefore, in order to be
successful, language learners really need motivation to continue their learning
Attitude is the second factor which has an influence on the language learning.
Gardner and Lambert (1972) defined attitude as the persistence that a learner has to follow
an object. Language learning attitude has a relationship to motivation. Language learners
who have extrinsic or intrinsic motivation will have the more positive attitude than those
without motivation or who consider language learning a compulsory subject.

they have different information, there is a “gap” between them.
The information gap activity is a kind of structured output activities. These are like
completing a task, for example obtaining missing information, conveying telephone
message and expressing an opinion. It sets up practicing on specific items of language.
Structured output activities lead the students to practice specific features of language and
brief sentence, not in extended discourse. It can form an effective bridge between
instructor modeling and communicative output because they are partly authentic and partly
artificial. By Information gap activities, the teacher is able to improve the students’
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speaking ability because it is an interesting technique to apply in classroom. The students
become comfortable to say everything. The teacher only gives simple explanation about
the activity and reviews the vocabulary needed for the activity. The students get
opportunity to develop their communication competence more freely.
At the start of an information-gap activity, each pair of students is provided with
similar but different information, usually on handouts labeled A and B. They exchange
information by using relevant language not by looking at each other’s handouts so that by
the end of the interexchange they are both in possession of the total amount of information.
1.2.2 Benefits of information gap activities
There are a lot of benefits to using information gap activities. Firstly, information
gap activities create students opportunities to speak in target language for an extended
period of time. The students should transfer the information so that they get the complete
information. The activities create plenty communication among students. Information gap
activities allow each student to use the time effectively. They do not need to sit on their
chairs and wait until one-to-one or group-to-group presentation is finished. Moreover, the
classroom activities are fairly distributed, every student has chance to speak. Classroom
will not be dominated by talkative students.
Secondly, these activities force students to communicate in “real” English. The
material prepared to use in these activities can be motivating and fun for many students.
Thirdly, Information Gap activities are useful because they are very meaningful. An

(1) He/she is the material provider and activity initiator. The students may have difficulties
in beginning the communicative information-gap activities directly because they lack the
knowledge of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation and skills. So the teacher should be
the material provider and activity initiator, who supply structural activities such as lists of
words and phrases that may be useful in the later communicative activities, different types
of drill or question-and-answer practice. These learning activities aim to provide students
with a frequent command of the linguistic system. After that the teacher should give
activities that link between the structural and vocabulary and their potential functional
meaning.
(2) He/ She is the organizer of the classroom activities. According to J. Harmer (1991), of
all the roles it is the teacher as organizer that is the most important and difficult “The
success of many activities depend on good organization and on the students knowing
exactly what they are to do. A lot of time can be wasted if the teacher omits to give
students vital information or issues conflicting and confusing instructions. The main aims
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of the teacher when organizing an activity are to tell the students what they are to talk
about, to give clear instructions about what exactly their task is, to get the activity going,
and then organize feedback when it is over. This sounds easy, but it can be disastrous if
teachers have not thought out exactly what they are going to say beforehand.” In addition
to this, the teacher has to break the whole into pairs or groups, and decide on procedures of
pair, group or class work. When the information gap is being filled, the teacher has to walk
around the classroom and make sure the activity is going smoothly. As an organizer in
class, the teacher can be the error-corrector, or as a consultant.
(3) He/ She may be the error-corrector: When students are in the middle of a speaking
activity, over-correction may inhibit them and take the communicativeness out of the
activity. On the other hand, helpful and gentle correction may get students out of difficult
misunderstanding and hesitations.
(4) He/ She may be the consultant or adviser: The teacher walks in the classroom and helps
where necessary or when asked. The students must have questions about the language

drawing, describing and guessing, finding the differences and completing a story, etc. A
variety of Information gap activities can be used to develop speaking skills. Below are
some of common ones:
*Filling the gaps in a schedule or timetable: Partner A holds an airline timetable with
some of the arrival and departure times missing. Partner B has the same timetable but with
different blank spaces. The two partners are not permitted to see each other's timetables
and must fill in the blanks by asking each other appropriate questions. The features of
language that are practiced would include questions beginning with "when" or "at what
time." Answers would be limited mostly to time expressions like "at 8:15" or "at ten in the
evening."
*Completing the picture: Student A has an incomplete picture of a living room. He/ She
has to ask student B who has a complete picture to find out where the things in the given
box go and then draw them in the correct place. Student B answers student A’s question
about the things in the box to help him/ her complete the picture.
*Finding differences: The two students in each pair have pictures which are identical
except for some important differences. They do not look at each other’s pictures, but try to
find the differences by describing their picture.
* Talking about yourself: The students themselves are often an underused resources. We
can use their lives and feelings for any number of interpersonal exchanges. For example,
the teacher puts the students in pairs and asks them to tell each other how they feel about
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their name and what name they would choose for themselves if they had to choose one that
was different from the one they have. Or students are put in pairs at random and told to
discover find things they have in common. This encourages them to cover a number of
areas and topics including musical tastes, sports, families, etc.
* Completing a Map/ Giving Directions: Two or more sets of maps are used. Some
details are given on each of the maps, but on each student’s map certain places would be
deleted and the names of these places would be listed at the bottom. The task is to ask each
other where the places are located to complete the map.

used in this study for some reasons. Firstly, the researcher can combine two duties at the
same time - teaching and researching, because there are positive effects on both our
knowledge and our practice. Secondly, it is beneficial to both teachers and learners since it
is concerned with improving the immediate learning environment (Wallace, 2001).
Thirdly, it is a fancy way of studying what is happening and decide how to make it a better
place, and it is manageable.
2.2 Research questions
As stated earlier in the introduction, the study tries to investigate the following
questions:
1. What are the causes of the students’ low motivation in English speaking activities?
2. What is the importance of using information gap activities in motivating students in
speaking lessons?
3. What suggestions are given for teacher to apply information gap activities at Phuong
Dong University?
2.3 The informants
The study was conducted with the participation of 64 students in 2 classes 508A23
and 508A 24 – Finance and Banking Department at Phuong Dong University (30 students
from class 508A23 were in control group and 34other students from class 508A24 are in
experimental group). They were all first-year non-English major students, who were doing
the second term of the first year at Phuong Dong University. They were almost at the same
age of 19. Most of them have been learning English for 7 years, 5 of them have been
learning English for 3 years. They are required to attend General English course. Their
level of English proficiency ranges from beginning to low intermediate level. The textbook
used in their first-year General English course is New Headway Elementary (the third
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edition) by Liz and John Soars. The classes meet twice a week, each meeting lasts for three
45-minute periods.
2. 4. The action research procedure
There are several ways in which the steps of action research have been analyzed.


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This research was implemented during 12 weeks starting from week 1 of the course. Based
on the selected model, the following steps were done one after the other. The description of
the six step procedure is presented as follows:
* Step 1: Initiation (week 1 to week 2)
Observing the first three speaking lessons, the researcher realized that the students’
learning motivation and their participation in speaking activities were low. Therefore, she
decided to identify factors affecting the students’ learning motivation in speaking lessons
and the first research question formed was: "What are the causes of the students’ low
motivation in English speaking activities?"
* Step 2: Preliminary investigation (From week 3 to week 4)
Data about the learners which may be factors affecting students’ motivation in English
speaking activities were collected in week 4 in order to confirm the problem stated in step
1 and find out the causes of low motivation (using questionnaire 1, see Appendix 1).
* Step 3: Hypothesis
The analysis and discussion of the initial data led to the following hypothesis:
Using information gap activities to motivate students in speaking lessons
* Step 4: Intervention (from week 5 to week 12)
Based on the analysis of the data collected from questionnaire, the writer wrote lesson
plans and prepared for plan implementation. Speaking lesson plans for units 3, 4,5 and 6
were designed. In these speaking lessons, Information Gap was used a main technique to
motivate the students to speak.
In speaking lessons of units 3,4, 5 and 6, the newly designed lesson plans were applied
with the same group of students. During the 8 weeks of the intervention, the speaking
lessons were handled in a different way, using Information Gap activities. The lessons
were observed using Observation sheet (Appendix 3) right after every lesson to measure
students’ interest, enthusiasm, persistence with learning tasks. After the planned
implementation finished, Questionnaire 2 (Appendix 2) was conducted to gather

questionnaires to the students.

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2.5.2. Observations
Observation sheet (Adapted from Peacock (1997)) was to explore the overall level of
class motivation including the following components: learners’ interest, concentration,
enjoyment, enthusiasm, persistence with the learning task. Each item in this sheet was
scored on a scale of 1 (low) to 5 (high). The maximum possible mark by Observation sheet
1 was 40.
2.5.3. Tests
All pupils were tested at two points in form of achievement tests which cover and focus on
measuring what language the learners have learned as the results of teaching (Mcnamara:
2000) before the intervention began (pre-test), and again after all pupils had received the
program (post-test). The purposes of the pre-test and post-test were:
● Pre-test – to establish a benchmark of the subjects’ speaking which was to be used as a
covariate in the statistical analysis of post-test results;
● Post-test – to detect whether the first cohort maintained any gains or even continued to
make progress, or whether there was any tendency for their gains to wash out; also to see
whether the second cohort made gains similar to those of the experimental. The post-test
scores were then compared with the pre-test scores to identify the statistically significant
difference, if any, for the acceptance or rejection of the research hypothesis.
C. Sometimes.
14.7
D. I speak whenever I am told to.
11.8
E. I always seek for chances to speak in class.
14.7

Table1: Students’ attitude towards speaking skill
Table one presents the information about students’ attitude towards speaking skill. As can
be seen 54.6 % of the students claim that speaking skill is important to them while 20.7 %
suppose speaking skill is little important and it is not important at all for 5%. It can be seen
that the students have high attitude towards speaking skills.
However, most of them feel unwilling to speak English in class. 25 students corresponding
to 73.5 % always and usually feel unwilling to speak English in class. Among these
students, 8 students always feel unwilling, 12 students usually feel unwilling and 5
students sometimes feel unwilling. Only four of them said that they spoke whenever they
are told and five students answered that they always seek for chances to speak in class.
These figures prove that the frequency of the students’ unwillingness in speaking was high.
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It can be concluded that the majority of the students agree that English speaking skill is
really significant. However, the number of students who feel willing to speak in class is
small. So what are the reasons for this situation? The answer can be found through question
3 and question 4 in Questionnaire 1.

A. English speaking is necessary for their future job.
B. English speaking is compulsory at their school.
C. They are interested in English speaking skill.
D. They want to be able to communicate
in English.

with the atmosphere in the classroom. Other factors raised by 20 and 19 students were that
their learning goal was not to communicate in English and speaking activities were
monotonous. Only 6 students referred to being of afraid of making mistakes and being
criticized by the teacher, 3 referred to being not interested in English speaking and 3
students to the teacher’s being unenthusiastic in English speaking classes.
In summary, the findings in Questionnaire 1 revealed many useful facts related to
the students’ motivation. Firstly, most of the students learned English speaking mainly
because it is a compulsory part in school syllabus. More than half of the students were
aware of the importance of English speaking to them but the frequency of the students’
unwillingness in English speaking was high. The main causes were: learning goal is not to
communicate in English, the speaking activities used in the classroom were monotonous,
the students were afraid of making mistakes and being laughed at by other classmates and
the classroom atmosphere was not really relaxed. These findings were really important
because it would help the researcher form the hypothesis of using information gap
activities to motivate students in speaking lessons and decide on the intervention later.
3.2 Intervention
3.2.1 The aims of intervention
The intervention was planned with the aim to test the hypothesis mentioned above, then to
come to an answer to the question: What is the importance of using information gap
activities in motivating students in speaking lessons?
3.2.2 The intervention of information gap activities
Based on the information from Questionnaire 1, the researcher found that the
students had difficulty in speaking English. They felt the way to teach English was
monotonous or not interesting. There should be learning activities which create a need for
them to speak English. They feel inhibited and they like to use their native language rather
than English to express their meaning.
To overcome the problems, the researcher used information gap activity as a
solution to support the speaking lessons. The lessons plans and teaching materials were
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question about price. Procedure
Students work in pairs. In each pair, student A is a customer and has a
shopping list. Student B is a shop assistant and has a list of item in the
shop and their prices. They do not look at each other’s list. Student A tries
to buy things on his/ her list, e.g…
Time
10 minutes

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Activity 2: Exchanging personal information
Students work in pairs. Ask your partner questions about his or her daily routine.
Get up?

Breakfast?

School?

Lunch?

Evening?

Go out?

Go to sleep?