Using information gap activities to enhance speaking skill for the first year students at faculty of english hanoi open university

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ENGLISH --- ---GRADUATION THESIS B.A DEGREE IN ENGLISH STUDIES Using Information Gap Activities To Enhance Speaking Skill For The First Year Students

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ENGLISH

-

-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

CODE: 19

DECLARATION

Title: Using Information Gap Activities To Enhance Speaking Skill For The First Year Students At Faculty Of

English – Hanoi Open University

I certify that no part of the above report has been copied or reproduced by me from any other person’s work without acknowledgement and that the report is originally by me under strict guidance of my supervisor

Hanoi, 4th May, 2015

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I especially would like to express my endless gratitude to my supervisor, ThS Nguyen Thi Mai Huong, for her helpful encouragement, constructive comments and precious advice at all stages of the development of this graduation paper There is no doubt that the study would be impossible to be accomplished

without her constant assistance

My sincere thanks also go to the teachers and the first year students at Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University for their valuable suggestions and cooperation in discussing and completing the survey questionnaires for the research

Finally, I owe a great debt to my family as well as my roommates whose support and

inspiration have greatly contributed to the fulfillment of the thesis

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

Contents

DECLARATION 1

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 2

ABSTRACT 3

PART A : INTRODUCTION 6

1.1 Aims and Objectives of the study 7

1.2 Scope of the study 7

1.3 Research questions 8

1.4 Methods of the study 8

1.5 Design of the study 9

PART B : DEVELOPMENT 10

CHAPTER 1 : LITERATURE REVIEW 10

2.1.1 Speaking Skills 10

2.1.2 Information Gap Activities 16

Chapter 2 : THE STUDY 29

2.2.1 2.1 Data collection 29

2.2.2 2.2 Data analysis 30

2.2.3 2.3 Summary of findings 42

CHAPTER 3: IMPLICATIONS AND APPLICATION 46

2.3.1 3.1 Implications 46

2.3.2 3.2 Application 52

PART C : CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 59

3.1 Summary 59

3.2 Limitations of the study 60

3.3 Suggestions for further study 60

REFERENCES 62

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

inside but also outside the classroom

There have been a number of previous studies on how to exploit information gap activities in the speaking class Nevertheless, no researchers have examined the

practice of using information gap activities to enhance speaking skill for the first year students in Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University This has given the researcher desire to carry out a research study on this issue

This study is specially targeted at

Examining the current situations of using information gap activities in teaching speaking skill to the first year students in Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University

Indicating benefits as well as problems of applying information gap activities

in English speaking class

Suggesting some useful and applicable information gap activities to develop speaking ability for the first year students

3 Scope of the study

Due to limited time and experience, this study focuses mainly on the application of information gap activities to develop speaking skill for the first year students in Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University The reasons for the researcher’s choice are as follows: First, the Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University has widely been known as prestigious university of English learners in Vietnam; thus, there may be much room for information gap activities to be used and information gap 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

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?

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

5 Methods of the study

This study was mainly conducted according to qualitative research by using survey questionnaire and interview and basing on quantitative approach by using observation technique collect data

The main informants of the study fall into two categories: the first year students and the teachers of English As they are directly involved in the process of language learning and teaching, studying their opinions will give the researcher a complete picture of the use of information gap activities to enhance speaking skill for the first year students in Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University

6 Design of the study

This graduation paper covers three main parts as follows:

Part A – Introduction would provide readers with overall information about the research including the rationale for the study, aims and research questions, significance, scope as well as the organization of the study

Part B – Development would deal with three major chapters:

Chapter 1 : Literature review with a hope to providing theoretical 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

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, intonation, facial and body movements This view is also shared by Scott, R (1981) who regards speaking as “an activity involving two (or more) people in which the participants are both hearers and speakers having to react to what they hear and make their contributions at high speed” Through the interaction, each participant will try

to achieve his communicative goals and fulfill his ability of interpreting what is said

to him

Brown and Yule (1983, p.6) have a different access to speaking skill by discussing the nature of speaking in spoken language and written language They hold that written language is characterized by well-formed sentences which are integrated into highly structured paragraphs Spoken language, on the other hand, is

composed of short, often fragmentary utterances, in a range of pronunciation They also put emphasis on the transactional and interactional function of spoken language, which is the most important function In other words, the primary purpose of speech

is the transfer of information and the maintenance of social relationships

However, in order to have an easier understanding of the concept of speaking,

a clearer definition of Chaney (1988, p.13) should be mentioned He puts it 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 short, speaking skill is one of the man’s means used to communicate with each other The highest level of speaking skill is the ability to speak fluently, appropriately and understandably every time, everywhere and in every situation This

is the aim as well as desire of many language learners It also explains why Bygate considers speaking skill as “a skill which deserves attention every bit as much as literary skills in both first and second language” (1987, p.2)

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

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 and we cannot identify what communicative operations the learner can engage in as a form of practice The result of purely structural practice is the ability to produce a range of usage, but not the ability to use form appropriately As for Hymes (1971), L2 learners need to know not only the linguistic knowledge but also the culturally acceptable ways of interacting with others in different situations and relationships In order to use the language effectively, he insists, learners need to develop communicative competence more than knowing a set of grammatical, lexical, and phonological rules In this sense, the learners now concentrate on using language for communication rather than just mastery of language forms

To sum up, “communicative” is a word which has dominated discussions of teaching methodology for many years It helps promote the learners’ ability to take part in the process of communication in real situations Although “real communication” in English seems to be impossible to achieve, the language teacher should try to make their class more communicative and meaningful

1.1.3 The roles of speaking in language learning and teaching

• Speaking creates motivation

Motivation is defined as the learner’s orientation with regard to the goal of learning a second language (Crook and Schmidt, 1991) Many students equate being able to speak a language as knowing the language, or as Nunan (1991) wrote,

“Success is measured in terms of ability to carry out a conversation in the target language” Therefore, if students do not learn how to speak or do not get any opportunities to speak in the language classroom they may soon get demotivated and lose interest in learning In other word, students’ motivation for speaking will be increased since they talk with others and for their own sake On the other hand, if the 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)

• 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

1.1.4 Problems in learning and teaching speaking skill

Speaking is considered the most important but most difficult-to-develop skill Therefore, in the process of learning teaching this skill, there are obviously some

practical problems as pointed by Ur, P (1996, p.21)

Inhibition: Speaking requires some degree of real-time exposure to an

audience Learners are often inhibited about trying to say things in a foreign language

in front of the whole class: worried about making mistakes, fearful of criticism or losing face, or simply shy of the attention that their speech attracts

Nothing to say: Even if they are not inhibited, you often hear learners

complain that they cannot think of anything to say: they have no knowledge of the target topic, of vocabulary to talk

Low or uneven participation: Only one participant can talk at a time if she or

he is to be heard; and in a large group, this means that each one will have only very little talking time This problem is compounded by the tendency of some leaders to dominate, while others speak very little or not at all

Mother-tongue use: In classes where all, or a number of, the learners share the

same mother-tongue, they may tend to use it because it is easier, because it feels unnatural to speak to one another in a foreign language, and because they feel less

“exposed” if they are speaking their mother-tongue

1.1.5 Suggested solutions to teaching speaking skill

In order to solve the problem of learning and teaching speaking skill, Ur (1996, p.122) offers the following solutions:

Use group work: This increases the sheer amount of learner talk going on in a

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

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 most common reason is that one person has a piece of information that is unknown to the other(s) and there is “a need to communicate” (Doff, 1988, p.210) Indeed, very often we talk in order to tell people things they do not know and to find the things out from other people According to Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistic by Richards, Platt and Weber (1985, p.40), “Information gap (in communication between two or more people) is a situation where information is known by only some of those present” Sharing the same idea by Harmer (1998, p.88), information gap is stated as “where two speakers have different parts of information making up a whole Because they have different information, there is a

“gap” between them

In the language classroom, the aim of a communicative activity is to get learners to use the language they are learning to interact in realistic and meaningful ways, usually involving exchange of information (Scrivener, 1994, p.62) Therefore, the same kind of information gap should be created among students to promote real communication An information gap activity, in class terms, means that one student must be in a position to tell another something that the second student does not

already know A look at the example given by Johnson and Morrow (1981, p.62) will provide a clear view

If two students are looking at a picture of a street scene and one says to the other, “where is the dog?” when he knows that the dog is sitting outside the post-office because he can see it as clearly as his fellow-student can, then this is not communicative There is no information gap But if one student has the picture of the street scene and the other has a similar picture with some features missing which he must find out from the first student, then the same question becomes real, meaningful-and communicative

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

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

activities into two main kinds: puzzle form and personal questionnaire

Doff (1988) classifies information gap activities into guessing

games, information gap activities for pair work and exchanging personal information activities

Littlewood (1981) considers information gap activities as

Functional communicative activities which consist of two kinds: sharing information with restricted cooperation and sharing information with unrestricted cooperation

Following Ellis (1999) divided information gap activities into two

types: one-way and two-way In one-way information gap activities, one person holds all the information, and the other simply listens, understands and records the information they receive A two-way information gap occurs when both learners have

information to share in order to complete the activity

The researcher finds Doff’s ways of classifying information gap activities into guessing games, information gap activities for pair work and exchanging personal information activities the clearest and the most reasonable These types of activities are easy for the teachers to exploit and easy for students to complete the task and

solve problems effectively The next part will be about each of Doff’s information gap activities

• Guessing games

Penny Ur defines a guessing game in Discussion That Work (1981) is that “a

guessing game is the process of discovery by one individual or group of an item of information known to another, with some on its transmission” A guessing game forces students to ask questions to find the information they really need It can be 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

Ss: Did you go by car?

Did you go by bus?

Did you walk?

b Guess the sentence

The teacher writes a sentence on a piece of paper or card The sentence is hidden, but the basic structure is written on the board to provide the context for the

guessing I went to do _.Students must guess the right

sentence by asking questions like:

Did you go to the park?

Did you go to school?

Did you go to the stadium?

Did you play football?

c Guess famous people

One student pretends to be a famous person (alive or dead) who is known to everyone, and the others try to ask yes-no questions until the identification of the person is determined For example:

Are you still alive or dead?

Are you Vietnamese or English?

Are you a singer?

d Mime

The teacher calls a student to the front and secretly gives her a sentence written on a piece of paper, which describes a simple activity, e.g go fishing The student mimes this activity The other students try to guess the situation by asking

questions

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

• 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

∗ The two students in each pair are given different bits of

information which the students must converse to find out

∗ One student has information and tells it to other student

Then Doff gives some models of those information-gap exercises:

A Completing the grid: students sit in pairs or in groups One student

or one group has an empty grid and the other has the text, which is not shown to opposite team Student(s) with empty text complete(s) the grid by asking questions

B Detecting differences: this kind of exercises is based on contrast and analogy

Two students in each pair are given two versions of a picture or a story which are identical except for some differences or missing details Without looking at each other’s pictures, pairs of students try to find all the differences or missing items by describing picture, telling the story or asking to compare

C Jigsaw activities: jigsaw activities are more elaborate information gap that can

be done with several partners Each student has one or a few pieces of the “puzzle”, and they must cooperate to fit all the pieces into a whole picture The puzzle piece

may take one of several forms It may be one sentence from a comic strip or one photo from a set that tells a story It may be one sentence from a written narrative

It may be a tape recording of a conversation, in which cases no two partners hear exactly the same conversation

D Shopping list: students sit in pairs, students X is a customer and has a shopping

list while student Y is a shop assistant with a list of items in the shop and their prices They are not allowed to look at each other’s list They will try to buy and sell things

Information gap exercises provide intensive and interesting language practice 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

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

talkative participants: all get a chance to speak, and contributions are fairly evenly distributed

Motivation is high: Learners are eager to speak: because they are interested in

the topic and have something new to say about it, or because they want to contribute

to achieving a task objective

Language is of an acceptable level: Learners express themselves in utterances

that are relevant, easily comprehensible to each other, and of an acceptable level of language accuracy

Information gap activities might satisfy all of the above criteria since the exploitation of information gap activities in second classroom has been proved to offer many advantages as follows:

1.2.3.1 Promoting students’ motivation for speaking

Concerning motivation of classroom activities, Littlewood (1981, p.17) states that “Language learners’ ultimate objective is to take part in communication with others Also, most learners’ prior conception of language is as a means of communication rather than as a structural system” Additionally, he affirms that students’ motivation to learn is more likely to be sustained if they can see how their

classroom learning is related to this objective and helps them achieve it with increasing success when he mentions purposes of communicative activities Thus, the motivation of most language learners is to gain a capacity to speaking in that language However, many language teachers have difficulty in motivating their students to speak in the target language Thanks to information gap activities, students’ inspiration for speaking will be increased since they talk for themselves, for their own sake One side has a certain thing that must be shared with the other to solve a problem, gather information or make decisions As there is a real need for communication, students are likely to produce in target language In other words, information gaps serve as a stimulus to elicit speech Moreover, information gap activities are often designed in the form of games, which is said to stir and maintain students’ interest and motivation more easily especially as they like the game Challenge - the essential element of every game - will create competition among

learners and maintain eagerness in the learning process

1.2.3.2 Developing both accuracy and fluency of students

Information gap activities contribute much to students’ language proficiency

in some ways by getting students to use target language with both accuracy and fluency when they have to talk to bridge the gap of information Regarding accuracy, information gap activity acts as an aid in reinforce the newly presented items of language by providing repetition of particular items in a more interesting and stimulating context Students are allowed to use linguistic forms and functions communicatively These activities bring the language to life for students Besides, fluency is taken into much more consideration than accuracy Raptou (2002) puts it that information gap activity is a good solution since they give every student the chance to speak in the target language for an extended period of time and in a more natural way Also, in information gap activities, students are mostly involved in

exchanging and conveying information; therefore, they can keep talking and asking questions, etc, to keep the conversation going They are independent of the teacher as they can use different kind of structures or phrases in order to prevent the conversation from breaking down With the main purpose for developing communicative competence, being fluent and convincing is more important than being grammatically accurate

1.2.3.3 Increasing students’ talking time:

Information gap activities are mainly carried out in the form of pair works and group work; therefore, students will be less intimidating when speaking with peers than speaking in front of the whole class and being evaluated Although information gap exercises are quite controlled and use simple language, learners are really exchanging information and using language communicatively They are stimulated to manipulate their foreign language skills and linguistic knowledge to the full in order

to close the gap Another advantage is that students are forced to negotiate meaning because they must make what they are saying comprehensible to others in order to accomplish the tasks (Neu and Reeser, 1997) Students have to try to convey information to one another and reach mutual comprehensive through restating, clarifying and confirming information If students do not know how to convey the information needed, their task will certainly fail

1.2.3.4 Encouraging students’ equal participation

An information gap activity requires a good cooperation and full participation from students who share work jointly and contribute to the common task This might establish a kind of atmosphere that encourages learners to help one another or ask for

help from their peers In other words, no student would be too dominant or another keeps silent during the activity Better students have chance to help their weaker partners while weaker ones can put aside their inhibitions and can learn something from better friends Moreover, the encouragement to participate in the activity from the teacher also makes a better different impression of closeness on students

1.2.4 Factors affecting the choice of information gap activities

In order to select the most effective and appropriate information gap activities, teachers must take many factors affecting their choice into consideration Among them, the four following criteria need to be paid most attention to: students’ language level, topics and objectives of each lesson, time allowance, and teaching aids

First and foremost, students’ language level is the most significant factor

affecting the choice of an information gap activity The reason is that the activity is under or above the students’ language level; the students may lose their interest when they find out that the activity is too easy or too difficult to be accomplished The activity then is just a waste of time and effort

Secondly, the information gap activity which is chose must suit the particular

objectives of each lesson The teacher should not let his students perform an information gap activity which is claimed to develop students’ ability of using common expression in making small talks whereas the topic of the lesson is about technology and the lesson is targeted at developing students’ capacity of talking about the uses of mordent invention in daily life Therefore, in order to pick out suitable information gap activities, the topic and objectives of each lesson need to be clarified right from the start

Another important factor must be considered carefully is time allowance for

the activity For instance, an information gap activity set for warming up the class

should be spent just below ten minutes while fifteen to twenty minutes can be spent

on an information gap activity used in order to practice newly presented language items

Last but not least, teaching aids (cards, pictures, flashcards, etc.) for the

information gap activities should also take a great deal of attention Sketchy or illegible cards or pictures surely depress students’ interest for the activity An information gap activity that is interesting but hard to find the materials to be carried out also should be eliminated That is why, during the preparation, the teacher should assure that the aids are available, visible and attractively presented so he can motive his students to learn best

Chapter 2 : THE STUDY 2.1 Data collection

2.1.1 Methodology

This study was mainly conducted according to qualitative research by using survey questionnaire and interview and basing on quantitative approach by using

observation technique collect data

The information collected could give the researcher a deeper understanding of the real situation of what have been done well and what difficulties have been

encountered so that practical and suitable suggestions can be made to improve

speaking skill for these students

2.1.2 Subjects of the study

The main informants of the study fall into two categories: the first year students and the teachers of English As they are directly involved in the process of language learning and teaching, studying their opinions will give the researcher a complete picture of the use of information gap activities to enhance speaking skill for the first year students in FOE,HOU

For conveniences, 100 candidates for the research were chosen randomly from

4 classes of K21, Faculty of English, HOU Also, 5 teachers who are teaching English for the first year students will be chosen randomly as participants responding

to questionnaire and interviews After searching for a list of teachers of English for the first year students, the researcher then will contact them in advance to check for

participants may be sufficient and various enough to ensure the subjectivity and reliability of the research.

2.1.3 Setting of the study

In the participant observations at each class meeting, the use of ICT applications and instructional activities will be observed, and field notes will be compiled from the observations

In addition, the structure and content of subsequent interviews or questionnaires will be determined after the data analysis process has commenced Every effort will be made to ensure that the teacher and the students are comfortable with the data collection techniques and that they are clear about the purposes of the data-gathering procedure

S (%)

T (%)

S (%)

T (%)

S (%)

T (%)

S (%)

T (%)

S (%)

Completing the

As can be seen from table 01, guessing games seems to be the most

frequently-used kind of information gap activities It is usually exploited by 80% of the teachers and rarely by the other 25 % At the same time, the students’

questionnaire shows that the first year students have had the chance to participate in this sort of activity at quite frequency (13% always + 69% often + 22% sometimes) Only 6% have never been introduced to Reasonably, this is because of the fact that guessing games which do not require much time or effort as other kinds to prepare, are simple for the teacher to prepare and apply They could provide students the

chance to practice language and enjoy fun as well Next come to exchanging personal information activities as their appearance in speaking lesson, according to the

students, is only a little bit less than those of guessing games (8% always + 63%

usually + 41% sometimes) For the teachers asked, sharing personal information is

frequently used by six out of the ten teachers (60%) and occasionally by 40% of

them Equally favored, detecting differences activities are the third choice of most

teachers They are applied usually by 45% of the teachers and at times by 36%

However, 34% of the first year students rarely take part in this kind of information

gap activity and 11% admitted that they never saw finding differences games in their speaking lesson Exercises of completing the grid come next to as it can be judged from the figure that only 30% of the teachers use them usually, 20% often, 40%

seldom and 10% never do so As students stated, the frequency of completing the

grid is as follows: 8% always, 33% usually and 39% sometimes Jigsaw activities are less favored and less given to students by the teachers The least popular activity is shopping list Of the ten teachers, three sometimes, five rarely and the rest two never employ these activities To students, shopping list has been seldom or never

introduced to 45% and 33% of the students respectively Perhaps, the main reason is that the content and form of this exercise is restricted, so it is difficult to recycle for

many times

In sum, different kinds of information gap activities have been exploited with

a high frequency for the first year students More than 75% of the students can attend

at least three kinds of information gap activities regularly or occasionally, indicating teachers’ remarkable recognition of the advantages of information gap activities Moreover, it is possible to say that the appearance of Inside out book and some other materials which aims at developing four English skills at the same time, has positively affected the use of information gap activities in teaching and learning speaking skill at FOE, HOU

2.2.2 Methods of organizing class to do the information gap activities

Figure 01: Methods of organizing class

As can be seen clearly from the chart, the most common way of organizing class during the information gap activities is in pairs This is proved by the fact that three-fourths (75%) of the students choose this option in comparison with one-fifth (24%) for individual work Similarly, in speaking activities, 80% of the teachers often let their students do the tasks in pairs while 20% of them conduct the activities

in the form of individual work Organizing class according to groups is also a popular way applied by 67% of the teachers and admitted by 72% of the students Obviously, most of the teachers realize the importance students’ work in an interactive way, for example, in pair work and team work These ways of class organization believed to

be good methods to increase students’ participation and greater amount of language practice during the information gap activities Students have chance to work with each other to bridge the information gaps However, very few teachers (17%) conduct the activities in the form of the whole class work According to students asked, 12% state their teachers organize their class on the whole The less favor of this method of organizing class may result from the problem that the whole class

work can create the noise and chaos in the classroom It takes time for the teachers to stop students from chatting or gossiping in class and operate the activities Also, it is very hard for the learners to distribute their tasks with so many members in the group

2.2.3 How teachers help students in information gap activities

How teachers

practice in

pairs/groups

Sit/stand besides Ss and give them

Move round to help shy or less

How teachers

deal with Ss’

mistakes

Encourage cross check among peers

Table 02: Techniques to help students in information gap activities

Table 2 presents the techniques that the teachers use to help their students during information gap activities With a view to help students work in pairs/groups

or teams effectively, eight teachers, making up 80% of the respondents, usually assign a group or team leader to help them control and keep the group members on a right track 100% of the teachers set up a rule of no Vietnamese to make sure of the effectiveness of the activities and it serves as a practical tool to promote students’ use

of the target language Likewise, an equal percentage of the teachers asks students to self-adjust their work The students’ answers to this question are different from those

of the teacher Specifically, nearly all of the students (93%) put it that establishing a rule of” no Vietnamese” or “English only” is the most common way of their teachers Around 47% of the students present that asking students to self-adjust their work is the way their teachers use However, in the real observations in some speaking classes, this method seems to be difficult to carry out The reason may lie in

the fact that students find it hard to self-adjust their work as they still have no clear idea of what to do Sometimes they can be misled if the teachers let learners self-control the tasks It is better when students’ adjustment is accompanied with their teachers’ guidance and support Other 2% of the respondents reveal that they often provide their students with equal tasks in pairs or groups so that the students must participate equally In general, the teachers have used different ways to assist their

students in pair work or group work and maximize the effectiveness of the activities

When asked about the ways to help students involve in the information gap activities, 80% of the teachers move around to check students’ performance as well

as to give them suggestions when necessary These two techniques are also described

by 73% and 60% of the students respectively Seven of ten teachers, making up 70%

of the respondents, move around to help shy or less advanced students to actively take part in Fortunately, only 5% of the students experiencing the activities in which teachers only sit and observe This way was also employed by some of the teachers observed These teachers said that they did so to avoid interrupting their students who were highly concentrating on their task In short, most of the teachers have already combined the two first techniques to provide the students with the great help However, a few teachers have not shown much concern or responsibility when the activities are going on Everything is put in students’ hands and then these teachers only sit and observe Letting students stand on their own feet is good to some extent but no assistance or no encouragement at all is not advisable

In terms of giving correction, as can be seen from the table, an overwhelming majority of the teachers (87.5%) say that they often take notes typical mistakes of students during an information gap activity and then correct all at last Also a large proportion of the teachers (70%) encourage cross check among pairs or groups Not many respondents, only a quarter of them deliver correction right after students’

making mistakes This is because of the fact that students may be distracted and forget the next idea if they are stopped and corrected by their teachers right in the middle of their speech These data prove that the teachers have used different ways to correct their students’ mistakes depending on different circumstances, not stick to one particular type Similarly, 75 % of the students asked state that they are often corrected at the end of the activity several typical mistakes collected by their teachers 19% are asked for individual correction, of which some students interviewed are not in favor since it is very hard for them to self-correct even when they are not aware that they have made mistakes in their speaking From what the researcher has observed in several classes the same problems may face the method of pair check or group check as it is beyond the students’ capacity to correct their peers’ mistakes Luckily, no teachers ignore their students’ mistakes

2.2.4 Teachers’ problems when conducting information gap activities

A: Students are shy or lazy to talk

B: I find it hard to design an appropriate IGA

C: I have difficulty in class management

D: Time is limited