HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF ENGLISH
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CODE: 19

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GRADUATION THESIS
B.A DEGREE IN ENGLISH STUDIES
Using Information Gap Activities To Enhance
Speaking Skill For The First Year Students At
Faculty Of English – Hanoi Open University

Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Mai Hương,M.A
Name of student: Lê Hồng Ngọc
Date of birth: 23-06-1993
Class: K18A1 (2011-201)

HÀ NỘI – 2015


Graduation paper

DECLARATION

Title: Using Information Gap Activities To Enhance

Speaking Skill For The First Year Students At Faculty Of
English – Hanoi Open University


inspiration have greatly contributed to the fulfillment of the thesis.

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Graduation paper

ABSTRACT

This graduation paper studies the real situation of using information gap activities to
enhance speaking skill for the first year students at Faculty of English, Hanoi Open
University. All needed data was collected through a series of survey questionnaires,
interviews and classroom observations. The results show that information gap activities
have been exploited widely and gained some certain achievements at Faculty of
English, Hanoi Open University. However, there still remain the following problems
facing both the teachers and students. As for the teachers, the matters recognized are of
adapting activities, limited time and the way to organize crowded classes or to involve
all students. To students, the lack of confidence when speaking English, the discomfort
when working in pairs or groups, and the poor language practice are their major
difficulties. Carefully considering these existing problems, a list of suggestions to
improve the method is offered. Recommended sample activities of guessing games,
information gap exercises and exchanging personal information activities are also
introduced with a view to helping the first year students at Faculty of English, Hanoi
Open University develop their speaking skill.

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3.3 Suggestions for further study ......................................................60
REFERENCES ......................................................................................62

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PART A : INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
In the modern time of internationalization and globalization, English is considered
as a means of communication all over the world. In Vietnam, since the
development of market economy, having a good command of English has become
not only a great interest but also an increasing demand for most people. English
now is therefore a compulsory school subject in many schools and universities and
of all the four skills, speaking obviously plays the most vital part in
communication. However, most Vietnamese learners find it hard to be able to use
English in the real life. The reasons may stem from the fact that traditional
language teaching method like the Grammar- Translation one which has been
applied to teaching English in our country for ages. Hence, current teachers “need
to actively engage students in speaking activities that are enjoyable and are based
on a more communicative approach” (Raptou, 2002). Exploiting information-gap
activities may be a good solution.
In many classes in Vietnam, there is still an unrealistic use of language when
teachers often spend a large of proposition of class time asking “display” questions
for which they and their students already know the answers. In contrast, by using
information gap activities, the teacher will motivate students to speak English and
will create like-real situations where one of them has some information and other
does not; thus, there is a need to communicate In other words, information gap
activities give students opportunities to manipulate English appropriately not only

exercises are assumed to have been exploited here long enough to examine its
effectiveness. Second, it would be convenient and manageable for the researcher
who is the last year student of this university to administer the questionnaires and
carry out some necessary interviews and classroom observations serving the
research purpose.

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4. Research questions
In the light of the goals of the study, the following research questions are posed:
(a)

In what ways have information gap activities been used to develop speaking

skill for the first year students in Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University?
(b)

What are the benefits of using information gap activities as perceived by the

teachers?
(c)

What are the benefits of using information gap activities as perceived by the

students?
(d) What are the problems of using information gap activities as perceived by the
teachers?


background for the following chapters.
Chapter 2 : Results and Discussion is designed to present some crucial
findings based on the analysis and synthesis of the data collected.
Chapter 3 : Implication for better use of information gap activities and
applicable information gap activities designed are also important parts in this
chapter.
Part C : Conclusion summarizes briefly the main content of the study,
indicates summary of findings, some limitations of the study and gives out
suggestions for further research.

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PART B : DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1 : LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Speaking Skills
1.1.1. Definition of Speaking skills
There is a common knowledge that speaking is the most effective and easiest
means of communication to help people to understand each other. Different linguists
have different definitions of speaking as follows.
According to Byrne (1976, p.8), speaking is “a two-way process between
speaker and listener, involving the productive skill of speaking and the receptive skill
of understanding”. Both listener and speaker have a positive function to perform: the
speaker plays the role of encoding the message to be conveyed in appropriate
language, while the listener has to decode the message. The message, itself, in
normal speech, usually contains more information than the listener needs. At the
same time, the listener is helped by other features of the speaker such as stress,

1.1.2.

Learning and teaching speaking skill in Communicative Language

Teaching (CLT)
Generally speaking, for most language teachers and learners, speaking seems
the most important to be developed. People who know a language are referred to as
“speakers” of that language (Ur, 1996, p.120). Therefore, classroom activities that
develop learners’ ability to express themselves through speech would be an essential
component of a language course. This is also affirmed by David Nunan (1991) when
he states that, “To most people, mastering the art of speaking is the single most
important aspect of learning a second or foreign language”. In the past when teaching
speaking was not given a crucial role, speaking activities were only the practice and
repetition of examples of a single structure, words or sentences. Up to now, teaching

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speaking skill has been approached by a new view-communicative one. Therefore,
this research just focuses on teaching speaking skill in the light of communicative
approach.
There have been considerable debates on appropriate ways of defining CLT,
and no single model of CLT is universally accepted as authoritative (McGroarty,
1984; Markee, 1997). However, Scott (1981) provides a clearer and closer view by
distinguishing the communicative approach to speaking with the traditional structural
approach which is concerned with the production of grammatically accurate
sentences. No adequate attention is paid to who is speaking and there is no clear
reason for the dialogue to have conducted. The dialogues lack communicative intent

right activities are given in the right way, speaking in class can be a lot of fun, raising
learners’ motivation and can make a dynamic English language classroom.

• Speaking releases students’ inhibitions
The more students have chances to express themselves, the more confident
they will be. Talking with other students in a small group and presenting a topic in
front of the class enable students to get rid of their timidity and shyness. Therefore,
the students will be gradually accustomed to the pressure of talking to a large
audience later. As a result, they will be more eager and confident to take part in the
speaking activities.

• Speaking helps to improve other language skills.
It is undoubted that speaking and listening are the two inter-dependent macro
skills. A student who is good at speaking is more likely to be good at listening than
the others do and vice versa. A student who speaks English well also has a higher
chance of reading and writing English better than the others (Richards, 1943, as cited
by Nation, 1990, p.21).

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• Speaking is fundamental to human communication
In our daily life most of us speak more than we write, yet many English school
teachers still spend the majority of class time on reading and writing. They almost
ignore speaking and listening skills. This is not a good balance. If the goals of the
language course are truly to enable the students to communicate in English, speaking
skill should be taught and practiced in a language classroom.


limited period of time and also lowers the inhibitions of learners who are unwilling to
speak in front of the full class.
Base the activity on easy language: In general, the level of language needed
for a discussion should be lower than that used in intensive language-learning
activities in the same class; it should be easily recalled and produced by the
participants, so that they can speak fluently with the minimum of hesitation. It is a
good idea to teach or review essential vocabulary before the activity starts.
Make a careful choice of topic and task to stimulate interest: On the whole,
the clearer the purpose of the discussion the more motivated participants will be.
Give some instructions or training in discussion skills: If the task is based on
group discussion then include instructions about participation when introducing it.
Keep students speaking the target language: You might appoint one of the
groups as monitor, whose job it is to remind participants to use the target language,
and perhaps report later to the teacher how well the group managed to keep to it.
However, when all is said and done, the best way to keep students speaking the target

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language is that the teacher should be there as much as possible, reminding them and
modeling the language use and there is no substitute for nagging.
In short, teachers should take mentioned ways into consideration and base on
certain situations of each group to find out their own method to enhance speaking
skill for their students.

1.2. Information Gap Activities
1.2.1. Definition of information gap activities
In all real conversations, people are genuinely exchanging information. The

The two following examples offered by Brown and Yule (1983) will
distinguish information gap activity with other ones.
Activity 1: The teacher gives the student an object to describe.
Activity 2: The student A is provided with a simple drawing of a line, a
square and a triangle with a pen and a sheet of blank paper. The student A’s task is to
instruct the student B to produce, as accurately as possible, the drawing which the
student A can see but the student B cannot.
In activity 1, the student has to create, for himself, an artificial information
gap between his knowledge and the teacher’s. He has to behave as if the teacher does
not know what the object looks like. This behavior is regarded as being additional
and highly artificial. There is no information gap because both the teacher and the
student can see the object clearly and then this is not genuinely communicative.
Differently, activity 2 is more interesting partly because it creates a reasonable
purpose for the students to perform the task. In other words, one person has the
information that the other does not know, so there is a need to communicate.

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It can be seen that different authors have different ways to give a definition of
what an information gap activity is. However, they all agree that an information gap
activity is an activity in which “one person has a piece of information that another
does not have, so there is a need to communicate” (Doff, p.211).

1.2.2. Types of information gap activities
Different methodologists offer different ways to classify information gap
activities. They are as follows:
Norman and Levihln (1986, p.100) divides information gap

applied for those students whose English is comparatively limited, since it is based
on the simple types of utterances: simple questions or statements, brief phrases,
single words. There are always two sides, called the “knower” and the “guesser”. For
example, one student draws a picture of a fruit or object and turns it over on the desk;
the partner guesses what the item is by asking, “Is it a…?” until the correct answer is
found.
Concerning about the same issue, Doff (1988, p.212) points out that such kinds
of guessing games “could be used either as fairly free activities (perhaps for general
revision of vocabulary or grammatical structure), or as an interesting way to practice
controlled structures. Guessing games, in Doff’s view, consist of the following
popular types:

a. Guess the picture
The teacher has a set of flashcards with simple pictures (e.g. clothes, food,
places, and actions). He or she chooses one card, but does not show it to the class.
Other students must guess what it is by asking questions.
For example:
T:

Guess how I went to X

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Ss: Did you go by car?
Did you go by bus?
Did you walk?


e. “What’s my line?”
One student chooses a job, and mimes a typical activity that it involves. The
other try to guess the job by asking questions either about the activity or the job.
Possible questions might me “Were you reading something?”, “Were you digging?”
or “Do you work outside?”

f. What and where:
The teacher sends two students out of the room. At the same time, the other
students hide an object. The two students come back and guess what the object is and
where it is hidden, by asking questions like “ Is it made of wood?”, “Is it a pen?”, “Is
it high or low?” or “ Is it on this side of the room?” (Doff, 1988, p.214)
In short, guessing games is a useful technique to enhance students’ speaking
skill since they have chance to ask questions and involve into the activity. Students
might appreciate this kind of activity which is enjoyable and fun, and at the same
time guessing games is not very demanding on the teacher’s time, energy or
preparation. It can be carried out in a variety of interaction patterns from lockstep
through small groups to mingling mode.

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• Information gap exercises
Besides guessing games, information gap exercises can also be exploited to
get students involved in real communicative practice. According to Doff, these
exercises are usually designed form pair work and can be done in various ways as
follows:
∗ One student has some information, and the others have to find out
by asking questions.

Although the exercises are quite limited and language simple, the students are
really exchanging information and using language communicatively.

• Exchanging personal information activities
Doff A. (1988) views this kind of information gap activity as one of the easiest
and most interesting forms of communicative classroom activity in which students
tell each other about their own lives, interest, experiences, etc. When students talk
about themselves, there is a natural information gap since everybody has something
slightly different to say (p.128). It is somewhat like doing a survey questionnaire on
personal information. A typical model is Your favorite food or Find someone who. In
this activity, students have some minutes to walk around to ask their friends if they
like or dislike something given in the questionnaire or if they have such given habits.
In general, exchanging personal information activity helps students genuinely
communicate and get to know about one another better. Moreover, students are
motivated when offered the chance to express themselves.
In conclusion, three types of IGA recommended by Adrian Doff (1988) are
simple communicative activities; however, teachers can use them as effective ways to
get students to communicate with each other in classroom.

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1.2.3. Benefits of using information gap activities in teaching speaking skill
Ur (1996, p.120) lists the characteristics of a successful speaking activity as
follows:
Learners talk a lot: As much as possible of the period of time allotted to the
activity is in fact occupied by learner talk.
Participation is even: Classroom discussion is not dominated by a minority of