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It is undeniable that English is a means of international communication in the fields of science, technology, culture, education, economy and so on. In Vietnam, English has taken on a special significance when people are taking the modernization and industrialization. In addition, of four English skills, speaking is considered as the most vital part for communication. Nunan (1989, p.39) has affirmed that “mastering the art of speaking is the single most important aspect of leaning a second foreign language”. However, from observation, the researcher has identified the problems in speaking ability of the first year students at FELTE ULIS VNU. It is the fact that the first year students at FELTE, after five to six years learning English in high school, still hesitate about practicing speaking English. For the last decades, Vietnamese students usually have been taught English by the traditional method like Grammar Translation. This method considerably cannot foster the speaking ability of students. According to Prator and CelceMurcia in Teaching English as a Second Foreign Language (1979, p. 3), the key features of the Grammar Translation Method are as follows: 1) Classes are taught in the mother tongue, with little active use of the target language. 2) Much vocabulary is taught in the form of lists of isolated words. 3) Long elaborate explanations of the intricacies of grammar are given. 4) Grammar provides the rules for putting words together, and instruction often focuses on the form and inflection of words. 5) Reading of difficult classical texts is begun early. 6) Little attention is paid to the content of texts, which are treated as exercises in grammatical analysis. 7) Often the only drills are exercises in translating disconnected sentences from the target language into the mother tongue. 8) Little or no attention is given to pronunciation. In the light of communicative approach, exploiting information gap activities has turned to be the useful method. Stated by Johnson and Morrow (1981, p. 62), information gap activity is “one of the most fundamental in the whole area of communicative teaching”. According to the knowledge about information gap activities provided by To Thi Thu Huong and Nguyen Thi Mai Hoa (2011), by making use of information gap activities, the teacher will raise the student’s motivation to speak English. Additionally, students can have more opportunities to experience the real life situation. They are also more active and more involved in the learning process. In brief, information gap activities give students chances to manipulate English appropriately not only inside but also outside the classroom. From the researcher’s observation, however, using IGA has faced up with a lot of difficulties. Firstly, as one of the first year students at FELTE, the researcher witnessed the fact that students were not familiar with the use of this technique in the class. Hence, using this technique can take a lot of time, which reduced the effectiveness of information gap activities. As a result, teachers have to prepare a lot before starting an IGA. Secondly, the teachers have to use up a lot of time selecting and creating the suitable information gap for teaching speaking skill. As a result, it
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Statement of the problem and the rationale for the study It is undeniable that English is a means of international communication in the fields of science, technology, culture, education, economy and so on In Vietnam, English has taken on a special significance when people are taking the modernization and industrialization In addition, of four English skills, speaking is considered as the most vital part for communication Nunan (1989, p.39) has affirmed that “mastering the art of speaking is the single most important aspect of leaning a second foreign language” However, from observation, the researcher has identified the problems in speaking ability of the first year students at FELTE- ULIS- VNU It is the fact that the first year students at FELTE, after five to six years learning English in high school, still hesitate about practicing speaking English For the last decades, Vietnamese students usually have been taught English by the traditional method like Grammar- Translation This method considerably cannot foster the speaking ability of students According to Prator and Celce-Murcia in Teaching English as a Second Foreign Language (1979, p 3), the key features of the Grammar Translation Method are as follows: 1) Classes are taught in the mother tongue, with little active use of the target language 2) Much vocabulary is taught in the form of lists of isolated words 3) Long elaborate explanations of the intricacies of grammar are given 4) Grammar provides the rules for putting words together, and instruction often focuses on the form and inflection of words 5) Reading of difficult classical texts is begun early 6) Little attention is paid to the content of texts, which are treated as exercises in grammatical analysis 7) Often the only drills are exercises in translating disconnected sentences from the target language into the mother tongue 8) Little or no attention is given to pronunciation In the light of communicative approach, exploiting information- gap activities has turned to be the useful method Stated by Johnson and Morrow (1981, p 62), information gap activity is “one of the most fundamental in the whole area of communicative teaching” According to the knowledge about information- gap activities provided by To Thi Thu Huong and Nguyen Thi Mai Hoa (2011), by making use of information gap activities, the teacher will raise the student’s motivation to speak English Additionally, students can have more opportunities to experience the real life situation They are also more active and more involved in the learning process In brief, information- gap activities give students chances to manipulate English appropriately not only inside but also outside the classroom From the researcher’s observation, however, using IGA has faced up with a lot of difficulties Firstly, as one of the first year students at FELTE, the researcher witnessed the fact that students were not familiar with the use of this technique in the class Hence, using this technique can take a lot of time, which reduced the effectiveness of information- gap activities As a result, teachers have to prepare a lot before starting an IGA Secondly, the teachers have to use up a lot of time selecting and creating the suitable information- gap for teaching speaking skill As a result, it can lead to more inconvenience for teachers when making lesson plan To be more specific, some teachers admit that they not often use IGA in class Being aware of this difficulty as well as the obvious benefits of using information gap activities, the author of this research paper was encouraged to carry out a study on “Teachers’ difficulties in using of information-gap activities to teach speaking skill for the first year students at FELTE- ULIS- VNU” The author has desire to find out the factors which lecturers consider when they select types of information gap activities Besides, reducing difficulties in conducting informationgap activities in teaching speaking skill for the first year students at ED-ULIS-VNU was also one of the main expectations of this paper It was also estimated that basing on exploring the difficulties of teachers when using information-gap activities, some recommendations for solutions to select and conduct IGA can arise from 1.2 Aims and objectives of the study Firstly, the author aimed at finding out the factors affecting the selection to IGA in teaching speaking skill for the first year students and difficulties in conducting information-gap activities in teaching Next, this study was performed to recommend some solutions for teachers to choose appropriate IGA To achieve these aims of the research paper, the following research questions need to be addressed: What are the factors affecting the choices of information-gap activities to teach speaking skill as perceived by the teachers who are teaching speaking skill for the first year students at ED-ULIS-VNU? What are the difficulties in selecting and conducting information- gap activities to teach speaking skill as perceived by the teachers who are teaching speaking skill for the first year students at ED-ULIS-VNU? What are the solutions to the problems of the teachers in conducting IGA to teach speaking skill as perceived by the teachers who are teaching speaking skill for the first year students at ED-ULIS-VNU? 1.3 Significance of the study The first and foremost significance of this study is that would provide lecturers of the FELTE with a closer look at the conduct of the information gap activities from the aspect of difficulties Hence, they can equip by themselves with the problems in use of IGA Moreover, the findings of the research will supply some hefpful solutions for teachers to reach better use of IGA to teach speaking skill In terms of other researchers who share the same topics, the study can perform as reliable sources for their further studies in the future 1.4 Scope of the study Due to limited time and experience, this study focused mainly on the teacher’s difficulties in selecting and adapting information-gap activities in teaching speaking skill Particularly, this research paper was only made on the aspect of teachers at FLETE- ULIS- VNU In fact, this would be more convenient and manageable for the author who is the last year student at this university Finally, this graduation paper did not focus on teaching all four skills but only speaking skill for the first year students 1.5 Organization The paper consists of five main parts as follows: Chapter 1-Introduction states the rationale for the study, aims and research questions, scope, significance and organization of the study Chapter 2- Literature review aims to supply theoretical background about speaking skill and information-gap activities when teaching speaking skill in the light of communicative approach Chapter 3- Methodology- expresses the methods which are applied to find out the necessary for the study In specific, it consists of selection of subjects, research approach and procedures of data collection and data analysis Chapter 4- Results and analysis is the chapter of data analysis In this chapter, the results will be analyzed in detailed to find out the answers for the above research questions Chapter 5- Conclusions mention the major findings and contributions of the research study Besides, it also refers to the limitations of the paper Finally, in terms of further studies, this chaper supplies some suggestions for other research in the future CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 An overview of speaking skill 2.1.1 The nature of speaking It is a common knowledge that speaking is the easiest and most effective means of communication to help people understand each other According to different linguists, speaking is presented with different definitions Introduced by Celce- Murica, Dornyei and Thurrell (1995, p 10- 24), speaking refers to types of competence including: grammatical competence, strategic competence, strategic competence, socio- cultural competence and discourse competence In other words, learning to speak a foreign language requires more than knowing language features, its grammatical and semantic rules Learners need to equip the knowledge of how native speakers use the language in socially constructed interactions or what is expected socially and culturally by users of target language Based on the opinion of Byrne (1998, p.8), speaking is considered as “a two way process between speaker and listener, involves the productive skill of speaking and the receptive skill of understanding” Hence, in the process of speaking, both speaker and listener play a positive function: the speaker has to encode the message to be understood in an appropriate language, and the listener has to decode the message This view is also shared by Nunan (2003, p.48) who agrees with Byrne at the point that speaking is a productive oral skill and it consists of producing systematic verbal utterances to convey meaning Scott (1981) believed that in speaking activity, both participants have to play the role of speaker and listener alternatively when they react to the information they get and make contribution to it This definition helps to clarify the role of participants when taking part in speaking activity Speaking activity can not be informed when there is only one person to hear and the other say to the whole of activity Finally, the researcher finds the definition of Chaney (1998, p.13) quite easy to understand and follow This definition is also closest to the researcher’s perception of speaking skill He affirms that speaking is “the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts.” In other words, speaking skill is one of methods people use to communicate to each other 2.1.2 Teaching speaking skill in Communicative Language Teaching 2.1.2.1 Communicative Language Teaching The concept of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is introduced first by Hymes in 1972 as “communicative competences” Different from the traditional methods, CLT aims to promote the ability of learner for effective communication According to Ellis (1993, p 91), communicative language teaching is designed to “provide learners opportunities for communicating in the second language.” In regard to CLT, Revell (1991, p 5) claims that “ theories of communicative competence imply that teachers must more than just supply learners with a number of language structures to manipulate.” In other words, teachers have to more to motivate students involved in communicating This opinion, evaluated by the researcher, reflected adequately the differences between CLT and the traditional methods Based on the opinion of Pattison (1989, p.19), teachers must to develop “the learner’s communicative competence and performance” As Brown (1994, p.226) describes, communicative approach focuses on “speaking and listening skill, on writing for specific communicative purposes, and on authentic reading texts.” 2.1.2.2 Teaching speaking skill in CLT Speaking skill should be taught in language classroom However, as written by To Thi Thu Huong (2006), speaking as well as listening skill is ignored with traditional methods which focus mainly on reading and writing Meanwhile, people speak everyday much more than they write Byrne (1980, p.9) believed that “the main goal in teaching the productive skill will be oral fluency which can be defied as the ability to express oneself intelligibly, reasonably, accurately and without too much hesitation” With CLT, according to Scott (1981, p.7), “the communicative approach makes sure that the interactions which take place in classroom are replication of, or necessary prerequisites for a communication operation” In addition, Abu Sharbain (2009, p.23) added that “the communicative approach calls for increasing the students’ talking time and decreasing the teacher’s talking time This comes as a result of providing the learners with opportunities to speak through cooperative independent activities” Hence, from above explanations, the researchers make a conclusion that teaching speaking skill in CLT will lead to create an active and communicative activities for students 2.1.3 The roles of teachers in CLT In traditional method, teacher often takes the central model and dominates all the time in the class Meanwhile, teachers in communicative classrooms will find themselves talking less and listening more- becoming more active facilitators of their students; learning (Larsen- Freeman, 1986) Additionally, claimed by Johnson and Morrow (1981, p.71), teacher , “instead of being the person who provides prompt that trigger utterance of a certain structure from the students”, “now sets up the conditions for communication to take place” In other words, teacher now does not take only single role of model but more than that Breen and Candlin (1980) summarized three main roles of teachers in communicative classroom as “facilitator”, “participant” and “observer and learner” Also giving support for this idea, Byrne (1980, p.1) emphasized that “the first task of a teacher is to create the best conditions for learning.” 2.1.4 Principles of teaching speaking skill In regard to this content, Nunan (2003) and Kayi (2006) suggest some principles that helps teacher to create activity for teaching speaking skill There are some prominent principles used here for basic background as following: The teachers should differentiate between second language and foreign language Fluency and Accuracy should be given to students to practice The teachers should provide opportunity for students to talk by using groupwork and pair- work and limit teachers’ talk Speaking tasks should be planned to involve negotiation of meaning The teachers should design activities involving guidance and practice in transactional and interactional speaking Questions delivered by teachers should motivate students to talk more Teachers should not correct mistakes in pronunciation so often while they are speaking The teachers should reduce teacher speaking time in class while increasing student speaking time Step back and observe students In brief, teachers should well prepare for mixed classes with a variety of levels Teachers should create a communication environment for students to practice speaking skill Problems in teaching speaking skill However, problems in teaching speaking skill are unavoidable There are some practical problems as presented by Ur, P (1996, p.21): - “Inhibition”: Speaking requires speaker’s exposure to an audience, at least Learners can be afraid to speak in front of whole class They will be worried to lose their face when making mistakes before their friends - “Nothing to say”: Some students complain that they have nothing to say The reason is that they have no idea about the target topic or vocabulary of that topic - “Low or uneven participation”: This happens when students work in groups When working with many people, the speaking time of each one will be decreased Leaders may dominate discussion Meanwhile, others say very little or even not at all - “Mother tongue use”: All the students share the same mother tongue As consequences, they may use mother tongue to express their ideas because it is easier and more natural Some students can fell less “exposed” when they use mother tongue 2.1.6 Suggested solutions to problems in teaching speaking skill To solve the problem of teaching speaking skill, Ur (1996, p.22) suggested some solutions as follows: - “Use group work”: This solution will be suitable for problems of inhibition of students They can work in small group in stead of standing in front of whole class - “Base the activity on easy language”: The level for a discussion should be lower so that it should be easily recalled and produced by participants Hence, teachers should review vocabulary before the activity starts - “Make a careful choice of topic and task to stimulate interest”: Activity with interesting topic will motivate students to talk more - “Give some instructions or training in discussion skills”: Teacher should include instruction when introducing the task which is based on discussion - “Keep students speaking the target language”: There are some ways for teachers to keep students speaking the target language Teachers can stay there besides students as much as possible keeping them from substitute for nagging 2.2 An overview of information gap activities 2.2.1 The nature of IGA Cited in Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistic by Richards, Platt and Weber (1979, p.179), “information gap (in communication between two or more people) is a situation where information is known by only some of those present.” In the same opinion, Richard (2005, p.17) believed that an important aspect of communication in CLT is the notion of information gap The existence of information gap refers to the situation that people communicate to get information that they not possess 10 for IGA at home This statistics, by chance, is the same as the informants regarding the amount for prepare IGA at home In the light of theory about the principles in teaching speaking skill, it is believed that there are many requirements teachers should meet to prepare for an IGA They have to cover almost the task, stated by Nunan (2003) and Kayi (2006), including : giving students chances to practice fluency and accuracy, involving students into negotiation of meaning, designing activities involving guidance and practice in transactional and interactional speaking, and reducing teachers’ speaking time in class while increasing students’ speaking time Hence, it is obvious that the time for preparation is worth consideration In conclusion, motivation plays important role to affect teacher on selecting certain types of IGA Next is students’ interest and students’ level Finally, as expected, time for IGA at home or in class also have an impact on teachers’ choice of IGA 4.2 Research question 2: What are difficulties of teachers in selecting and conducting IGA to teach speaking skill? With the belief that the obstacles that put teacher off using IGA could point out the difficulties of teachers when selecting and adapting IGA to teach speaking skill, the researchers has asked about the factors which discourage lecturers to conduct an IGA The results collected as following 4.2.1 Difficulties in choosing appropriate IGA The major problem in choosing appropriate IGA is to design an IGA suitable to objectives of the lesson Out of 15 teachers, 10 teachers, equal to 66.7 % of informants, claimed that they found hard to design an appropriate IGA to objectives of lesson It is restated by interviewed teacher A when she said: 31 The first difficulty is to choose suitable IGA to the objectives of the lesson I care about if my activity suits the topic and it is relevant to the topic 4.2.2 Difficulties in conducting IGA to teach speaking skill The difficulties in conducting IGA to teach speaking skill were categorized as two main types according to the procedure of conducting IGA There was difference between the rates of teachers facing up with difficulties in interaction between teachers and students and with classroom context a) Interaction between teacher and students This difficulty mainly focuses on class management The result reflected that class management is not the difficulty to the teacher when using IGA to teach speaking skill There are only one fifth, equal to out of 15 teachers consider it as one of difficulties when using IGA in class It is a result from the advantage that the class size in FELTE- ULIS ranges from 20- 25 students each class a) Classroom context This factor causes most difficulties for teachers It includes mixed level language proficiency of students in class, time allowance, students’ characteristics, teaching aids As reflected from teachers, the fact that students can be shy or lazy to talk discouraged teachers to conduct IGA This reason discouraged out of 15 teaches from conducting an IGA 32 Figure 4: The number of teachers finding conducting IGA to teach speaking skill However, compared to the previous study by Thu Trang, 05.1.E10, the rate of teachers who found it as difficulty decreased dramatically In that study, students’ shyness or laziness to talk ranked as the second difficulty to the teachers It is caused as a result of dramatic changes in attitudes of students when students are becoming more and more active According to interviewee B, students are now mostly excited when standing a chance to talk Hence, the students’ shyness or laziness to talk does not cause much trouble for teachers It is understandable now that only 26.7% teachers felt discouraged to apply IGA because of this reason However, the teachers had to face up with other difficulties deprived from students when using IGA to teach speaking skill Students’ language proficiency level was mentioned as one of those problems 10 out of 15 teachers responded that this factor discouraged them to use IGA to teach speaking skill It was confirmed by interviewee B as following: My problem comes from the mixed level of students There are some students who are applying here for double major Some students have low language proficiency than others It creates language gap in the class and can cause one difficulty for my conducting IGA 33 This fact is also proved through observation of the researcher When conducting IGA, the observed teacher had to use Vietnamese after English to illustrate the task she wanted students to During observation, the researcher could realize the language gap among students There were groups who sometimes used mother tongue to negotiate meaning Meanwhile, one pair was observed to the task very quickly and fill all the required information into the work sheet To sum up, almost difficulties of teachers, firstly, comes from difficulties to design appropriate IGA to the objectives of the lesson Following is difficulties caused from students’ mixed level These most common obstacles can dissuade teachers to carry out IGA 4.3 Research question 3: What are the solutions to the problems of the teachers in adapting IGA to teach speaking skill as perceived by teachers? This section aims to find out the participants’ suggestion to reduce difficulties for teachers when choosing IGA and for better application of IGA to teach speaking skill for the first year students 4.3.1 Solutions to choose appropriate IGA First of all, the two first statements in question 20 intended to help teachers to choose suitable IGA It included teachers’ attempt to accumulate knowledge about advantages and disadvantages of as many types of IGA as possible Besides, teachers should understand clearly the objectives of lesson before choosing any types of IGA Teachers also can use the supplementary for more ideas, and they should consider the mix level of students to choose IGA Almost teachers hold the same point of view in this issue As suggested from lecturers, to choose appropriate IGA, teachers should build up knowledge about pros and cons of as many types of IGA as possible Following is the recommendation that it is necessary to understand the objectives of the lesson (93.3%) Consideration on student’s mix level to choose IGA is also one of solutions to choose better IGA 34 Figure 5: The number of teachers in favor of each solution to choose appropriate type of IGA to teach speaking skill out of 15 teachers suggested that teachers should pay attention to mix level of students The more they understand the language proficiency of students, the more appropriate the IGA they choose would be In addition, as the results from survey questionnaires, 73,3 % teachers thought that one of solutions was using supplementary for more ideas One interviewed teacher claimed that teachers should have back- up to use alternatives when their activities are not effective enough Hence, as shown in the chart, the best solution for teachers is to accumulate the understanding about advantages and disadvantages of IGA as many as possible Additionally, as a result from interview process, solution to choose appropriate IGA, recommended by interviewee A is that preparing IGA as a leading activities with providing some control It is taken into account to be one of the valuable recommendations to choose IIGA 4.3.2 Solutions for effective application of IGA to teach speaking skill 35 To explore the solutions for better application of IGA to teach speaking skill for the first year students, the researcher provides options for teachers to choose It should be noted that no other options is provided as a answer for questionnaire It can be assumed that these options, partially, reflect the teachers’ suggestion for better use of IGA to teach speaking skill for the first year students at FELTE Figure 6: Solutions for better application of IGA to teach speaking skill As shown in the chart, almost teachers highly recommend understanding the level of each student in class so that applying IGA in class will be more successful There were 12 out of 15 teachers (equal to 80%) who are in favor of this solution When asked about other solutions, no one agreed to ask for commence from colleges as one of solution for the practical problem with IGA It is the results of the fact that time constraint for each teacher limited their time to observe and give suggestion for their colleges Teachers got limited time for preparation, let alone observation from other class It is reported from interviewee B when she said: One of many difficulties for teacher is that they are so busy They not have time to extend the creative activities Besides, students responded that teachers prepare a checklist for students to fill in after the lesson could improve the application of IGA to teach speaking skill It 36 benefits when it does not take much time for students to complete the checklist Meanwhile, teachers can get a lot of information to self- improve There was one teachers who gave other ideas for the question what would you if you find dissatisfied with your IGA She wrote that she would find out what the reasons came from and changed This participant also picked up checklist as one of her solutions for application problems Next, there were out of 15 teachers also confirmed that increasing frequency of use of IGA to teach speaking skill would assist to achieve a better use of IGA Out of interviewed teachers in favor of this solution, informant B asserted that: By practicing day by day, teachers can know the difficulties they have to overcome Hence, one of the solutions for this problem is to try out and adapt as many as possible Finally, teachers confirmed that the teaching aids should be improved to give better solutions for better use of IGA to teach speaking skill In brief, in order to choose an appropriate IGA, teachers should accumulate the knowledge of IGA as well as understanding about the objectives of lesson In regard to improvement in applying IGA to teach speaking skill, it is highly recommended that teachers should understand the level of each student in class and make a checklist to measure what students got after the lesson Besides, it would be more convenient if the teaching aid can be improved Summary: In this chapter, the answers for three research questions, which were received from the data in both surveys and interviews of the study, were clearly presented though tables and charts Major findings as detailed above would be summarized in the conclusion as the final chapter of this research paper 37 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS The previous chapters discussed about the introduction, the literature, the methodology, and the results of the research Finally, this concluding chapter would review and evaluate the findings of the whole paper by writing up summary, limitations, and contributions of the research as well as putting forward several suggestions for further studies 5.1 Major findings of the study In general, the graduation paper gave a comprehensive study on the factors affecting teachers to choose appropriate IGA, their difficulties to choose and some available solutions for their difficulties The data were collected through survey questionnaires delivered to 15 teachers, interview with teachers and observation in 38 one class After collected, information was processed through data analysis and illustrated by charts and tables With regard to the major findings of the research paper, some significant achievements are presented as followings: First of all, the study presented the factors that have influence on teachers to choose appropriate information gap activities To be more specific, these factors were listed as level of motivation, students’ interest and students’ level, time for preparation Level of motivation was considered to be the most important factor Coming next was student’s interest and students’ level Almost teachers paid attention to the fact that if that type of activity could raise students’ interest In addition, and time preparation also had impact on the teachers’ decision Next, the study also revealed some difficulties of teachers when making judgment on the types of information gap activities First of all, teachers regularly got trouble with preparing an activity that could match with the objectives of the lesson Following was the difficulties with the mixed language proficiency level of students It also discouraged teachers to choose a proper type of information gap activities and conduct an IGA smoothly Minority of informants confirmed that poor quality of teaching aids were also one of many complaints for conducting an IGA Finally, the study served as sources of some suggestions to choose suitable IGA and to conduct IGA more effectively The first solution was to accumulate the knowledge of pros and cons of each types of IGA In regard to the objectives of the lesson, it was worth understanding explicitly the objectives of the lessons Additionally, the teacher could improve the quality of applying IGA to teach speaking skill by increasing the frequency of using IGA 5.2 Contributions of the study As the study comes to an end, it is anticipated to benefit for the target population, the teachers who are teaching the first year students at FELTE, and other researchers concerned about the topic 39 The achievements of this study, to a certain extent, fill the gap in the literature review, and provide extra sources of reference for other researchers who intend to make research about this issue Secondly, the findings from the study paper can provide lecturers at FELTE the overview about situation of using IGA to teach speaking skill for the first year students Hence, they can equip for themselves difficulties they might face up with when using IGA In addition, the study comparatively contributes several solutions for the problems of the lecturers Partially, it can lead the authorities to make some appropriate changes so that information gap activities can be made use of 5.3 Limitations of the study To be honest, the study faced up with many limitations due to pressure from time limit and other unexpected factors, although the researchers made effort to justify as well as collecting and analyzing data with cautious consideration Firstly, limitations come from difficulties to access to the whole populations In fact, in spite of lecturers’ willingness to participate in the study, there are many concerns for the teachers It is hard for teachers to arrange schedule and keep in mind their participation Meanwhile, because of objective difficulties during practicum period, time for the research is also limited On the other hand, the dismatch between the researcher’s schedule and timetable for speaking course of the first year students also caused many difficulties for the study to be implemented 5.4 Suggestions for further studies If the study continues, the researcher hopes to extend the larger surveys and interviews including all the teachers teaching speaking skill for the first year students so that the collected data will lead to more reliable and accurate findings 40 Since the studies related to information gap activities, it can be exploited to new directions which are worth further research The research paper focuses on the teaching speaking skill for the first year students at FELTE Hence, other researchers can investigate a further study related to teaching other skills Additionally, the research brings to an end not only to the students at FELTE but also to the students at other departments in ULIS as English for economics or translations Moreover, regarding to the alternatives to information gap activities, further study can investigate to suggest the bank of information gap activities based on particular course books Finally, because the large range of age between informants, the researcher also suggests the further studies on the affect of experience into the selection of IGA REFERENCES Abu Sharbain, I (2009) MA Thesis Difficulties encountering UNRWA Ninth- Grade Teachers in Performing their roles in the Light of the Communicative Approach to Teaching Speaking in the Gaza Strip Faculty of Education: 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With the belief that the obstacles that put teacher off using IGA could point out the difficulties of teachers when selecting and adapting... for teachers to choose appropriate IGA To achieve these aims of the research paper, the following research questions need to be addressed: What are the factors affecting the choices of information-gap... range if other tasks and exercise types can be constructed” 2.2.4 Factors affecting the choice of IGA In order to choose suitable IGA, teachers should consider some factors Based on the graduation