Sử dụng hoạt động khoảng trống thông tin để thúc đẩy động lực học và sự tham gia của sinh viên trong giờ học nói đối với sinh viên năm thứ hai ở trường Đại học

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES







NGÔ THỊ KHÁNH NGỌC


USING INFORMATION GAP ACTIVITIES TO PROMOTE
STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION AND PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING
LESSONS FOR SECOND YEAR STUDENTS IN USSH, VNU.

(Sử dụng hoạt động khoảng trống thông tin để thúc đẩy động lực học
và sự tham gia của sinh viên trong giờ học nói đối với sinh viên năm
thứ hai ở trường Đại học Khoa học Xã hội và Nhân văn)



M.A. Minor Programme Thesis


Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60 14 10

HANOI, 2013


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES




NGÔ THỊ KHÁNH NGỌC


USING INFORMATION GAP ACTIVITIES TO PROMOTE
STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION AND PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING
LESSONS FOR SECOND YEAR STUDENTS IN USSH, VNU.

(Sử dụng hoạt động khoảng trống thông tin để thúc đẩy động lực học
và sự tham gia của sinh viên trong giờ học nói đối với sinh viên năm
thứ hai ở trường Đại học Khoa học Xã hội và Nhân văn)



M.A. Minor Programme Thesis


Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60 14 10

Supervisor: Cao Thúy Hồng, M.A




HANOI, 2013
iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table of contents
Page
Declaration
i
Acknowledgements
ii
Abstract
iii
Table of content
iv
Lists of tables, charts and abbreviations
vii

PART A: INTRODUCTION
1
I. Rationale for the study
1
II. Aims and research questions
2
2.1. Aims
2

2.2. Research question
2
III. Scope of the study
3
IV. Method
3
V. Significance of the study
3
VI. Organization of the study
4


PART B: DEVELOPMENT
5
Chapter I: Theoretical background and Literature review
5
I. Theoretical background
5
Part 1: Information gap activities
5
1.1. Definition
5
1.2. Types of Information gap activities
6
1.2.1. Littlewood (1981)‟s classification
6
v

1.2.2. Ellis (1999)‟s classification
6

1.2.3. Doff‟s classification
7
1.3. Benefits of information gap activities
10
1.3.1. Increase students‟ talking time in class
10
1.3.2. Promote students‟ motivation
10
1.3.3. Promote students‟ equal participation
11
1.3.4. Build students‟ confidence
11
1.3.5. Develop student‟s fluency and accuracy
11
Part 2: Motivation
12
2.1. Definition
12
2.2. Types of motivation
13
2.3. Assess students‟ motivation
13
2.4. Behaviour of a highly-motivated student
14
Part 3: Participation
16
3.1. Definition
16
3.2. Types of participation
16

3.3. Assess students‟ participation
17
II. Literature review
17


Chapter II:Methodology
20
2.1. The context of the study
20
2.1.1.The teaching and learning conditions
20
2.1.2.The syllabus
20
2.1.3.The description of the material used
21
2.1.4. The learners
21
2.1.5. The teachers
22
vi

2.2. Research approach
23
2.3. Participants
23
2.3.1. The teachers
24
2.3.2. The students
24

2.4. Data collection methods
25
2.5. Data collection procedure
27
2.5.1. Pre-intervention
27
2.5.2. While-intervention
28
2.5.3. Post-intervention
28
2.6. Data analysis
29


Chapter III: Results and discussion
31
3.1. Data collected from the pre-intervention stage
31
3.2. Data collected from the while-intervention stage
32
3.2.1. Students‟ motivation in speaking tasks in two groups.
32
3.2.1.1. Data from the self-report questionaire
32
3.2.1.2. Data from the observation sheet 1
35
3.2.2. Students‟ participation in speaking tasks in two groups
38
3.2.2.1. Data collected from observation sheet 2
38

PART C: CONCLUSION
41
I. Major findings of the study
41
II. Limitations of the study
41
III. Suggestions for further studies
42
IV. Contributions of the studies
42
REFERENCES
44
APPENDICES
I
vii

LISTS OF TABLES, CHARTS AND ABBREVIATIONS
List of tables:

Table 3.1.1
Motivation in two groups in pre-intervention stage
Table 3.1.2
Students‟ times on task in two groups in pre-intervention stage
Table 1
Motivation of students in speaking tasks in the control group
Table 2
Motivation of students in speaking tasks in the experimental group
Table 3
The data on the overall class motivation in the control group
Table 4

The data on the overall class motivation in the experimental group
Table 5
The data on the students‟ on-task/off-task behavior in the control group
Table 6
The data on the students‟ on-task/off-task behavior in the experimental group
List of charts:
Chart 1
Students‟ motivation in the control group
Chart 2
Students‟ motivation in the experimental group
Chart 3
Students‟ motivation in two groups
Chart 4
Overall class motivation in the control group
Chart 5
Overall class motivation in the experimental group
Chart 6
The level of overall motivation in two groups
Chart 7
Students‟ times on-task/off-task behaviour in the control group
Chart 8
Students‟ times on-task/off-task behaviour in the experimental group
Chart 9
Students‟ times on-task in two groups
List of abbreviations:
IGA:
Information gap activities
USSH:
University of Social Sciences and Humanities
VNU:

Vietnam National University
ULIS:
University of Languages and International Studies

1

PART A: INTRODUCTION
I. Rationale for the study
It is obvious that nowadays English is becoming an international language,
which is used worldwide for the purpose of communication. It is English that helps
us keep up with updated information about the surroundings and establish relations
with foreign countries all over the world. English is needed in various fields such as
tourism, education, trade, science, economy and so on. In Vietnam, English is
taught as one of the compulsory subjects at senior secondary schools and
universities.
Among four main skills, speaking skill plays an important role in English
teaching in the context of Vietnam. Nunan (1991) emphasized that success in
learning a language is measured based on the ability to carry out a conversation in
the target language. For many students, speaking is by far the most important of the
four skills in a second language in general and in English in particular.
However, many EFL students find this skill most difficult to obtain. Most
Vietnamese learners find it hard to use English to communicate in real life. One of
the reasons may be the lack of environment for communicating. In most classes,
students just come to class to listen to teacher‟s lecture without any real
communication in English. The teacher may use some available speaking tasks in
textbook, but most of them can‟t create the real demand for communicating of
students.
During my process of teaching, I realized some problems. Firstly, speaking is
one of the weakest skills of Vietnamese students. This is partly due to their poor
grammar and pronunciation, their lack of vocabulary, and partly because of their

low motivation in speaking lessons. Secondly, students‟ unwillingness to speak in
speaking lesson can be the result of their lack ideas or the uninteresting nature of the
speaking.
2

Due to these above reasons, there is a requirement of some interactive
techniques to improve students‟ speaking skills and motivate them in learning.
Information-gap activities may be a good solution. According to Doff (1988), IGA
are activities where learners are missing some information and they need to
complete a task and talk to each other to find it. Information-gap activities give
students reasons to speak. If the activities are well- designed to reflect the real-life
situations, they can not only motivate students to speak but also prepare students
for real communication outside the classroom.
All of the above-mentioned reasons have urged the researcher to conduct the
research with the title “Using Information Gap Activities to promote students’
motivation and participation in speaking lessons for second-year students at
USSH, VNU”. Hopefully, this research will make a minor contribution to the
implementation of Information Gap Activities in improving speaking skills for
students at USSH.
II. Aims and research questions
2.1. Aims
The study is specially targeted at finding out the effect of IGA on the students‟
motivation and participation in speaking lesson.
2.2. Research question
Regarding the goals of the study, the following research questions are put forward:
1. Can IGA help increase students‟ motivation in the speaking lessons?If yes, to
what extent?
2. Can IGA help increase students‟ participation in the speaking lessons? If yes, to
what extent?

3

III. Scope of the study
IGA has benefited students in many aspects such as enhance students‟
speaking skill, promote students‟ motivation, increase students‟ talking time, build
students‟ confidence, etc. Due to the limited time, this study only focuses on the
effect of IGA on students‟ motivation and participation in the speaking class.
Besides, the subject of this study is 60 students from two English classes in
University of Social Sciences and Humanities (USSH).
IV. Method
In order to achieve these aims, this quasi-experimental research employed
both survey questionaires and classroom observation in order to collect data.
Participantswere divided into two groups: the control group and experimental
group.In the experimental group, teacher used information gap activities in speaking
lesson.The control group was taught in the traditional way with the use of speaking
tasks in textbook. The researcher observed two groups and delivered questionaires
to collect data. Then a comparison was made between two groups to find out the
answer to the questions.
V. Significance of the study
The study was carried out with the hope to provide teachers of English at
USSH with a deeper understanding about benefits of using IGA in teaching
speaking skill. In addition, it is hoped that the study will be of great use in helping
teachers find an effective way to increase their students‟ participation as well
as motivate them to use English in speaking lessons.



4

VI. Organization of the study
The thesis covers three main parts as follows:
Part A is the Introductionprovides readers with overall information about the
research including the rationale for the study, aims and research questions,
significance, method, scope as well as the organization of the study.
Part B is the Development which comprises three chapters:
Chapter I: Theoretical background and literature review deals with three
major concepts, namely information gap activities, students‟ motivation and
participation in speaking activities with a hope to provide theoretical background
for the following chapters.Besides, a review of related studies is also presented.
Chapter II: Methodologypresents the methodsused to find out the necessary
data for the study, including the background information of the context where the
study is conducted, the subjects, the instruments used to collect data, and the
procedures of data collection. Besides, a detailed description of data analysis is
presented.
Chapter III: Results and Discussion presents the findings of the study basing
on the data analysis and synthesis. Furthermore, some pedagogical implications are
provided.
Part C is the Conclusion which summarizes the major findings of the paper,
indicates limitations of the research and offers suggestions for further studies.
The References and Appendices include a list of references that the researcher
used for research, samples of questionaires, observation sheet and model lesson
plans.


5

PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
AND LITERATURE REVIEW

I. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Part 1: Information gap activities
1.1. Definition
Information gap is one of the most fundamental concepts in communicative
language teaching. A great deal of methodologists have talked and said about
information gap activities. They offered different definitions of IGA. Johnson and
Morrow (1981) defines IGA as an activity in which one pupil must be in the
position to tell another pupil something that he/she does not have. According to
Harmer (1983), IGA are those in which students are given different bits of
information. By sharing this separate information, they can complete a task.
Besides,Doff (1988, p.211) stated about the nature of IGA – “one person has
information which another does not have”, so it creates a need to communicate. Neu
& Reeser (1997, p.72) also said that: “In information gap activity, one person has
certain information that must be shared with others in order to solve a problem,
gather information or make decisions.”
These definitions all reflect the nature of information gap activities. In IGA,
there is always an information gap among participants, which causes a need to
communicate. This characteristic of IGA is similar to the nature of a conversation in
real life. In fact, the need to communicate is created when one of the participants
want to find out something they don‟t know. Therefore, IGA can be considered as a
bridge to bring features of real life communication into classroom context.


6

1.2. Types of Information gap activities
Different researchers have offered different ways to classify Information gap
activities.
1.2.1. Littlewood (1981)’s classification
Littlewood (1981) assumed that information gap activities are functional

communicative activities. He divided IGA into two main types:
Sharing information with restricted cooperation.
According to Littlewood, this type of communicative activites produces the
simplest patterns of interaction. The situation is always that one learner (or group)
focuses information which another learner (or group) must discover. And the
knower is not allowed to cooperate fully; he provides information only in respond to
appropriate cues. There are usually questions of specified kind. (e.g. Yes/ No
questions).
Sharing information with unrestricted cooperation.
These activities are based on visual information. That is, information gap is
maintained by the physical fact that the participants can not see each other‟s picture.
Across this physical gap, the learners‟ communicative relationship may be allowed
to become fully cooperative.
1.2.2. Ellis (1999)’s classification
Ellis (1999) divided information gap activities into two main types: One-way
and two- way task. In one-way information gap tasks, one learner has all of the
information, the other simply has to listen and record the information they receive.
In two-way information gap tasks, both learners have information and they must
share with the other to complete the task.

7

1.2.3. Doff’s classification
According to Doff (1988), there are three main kinds of information gap
activities: guessing games, information gap exercises for pair work, and activities in
which students exchange personal information.
In the real process of language teaching, Doff‟s way to classify IGA seems to
be quite specific and useful for language teachers. Each type of IGA is described
quite clear and easy to understand. Teachers can choose one suitable IGA type to
appy in teaching students in class.

a.Guessing games
a1.Guess the picture
The teacher has a set of flashcards with simple pictures (e.g clothes, food,
places, actions). He or she chooses one card, but does not show it to the class. The
students must guess by asking questions, e.g.:
T: Guess how I went to X
Ss: Did you go by car? Did you go by bus? Did you walk?
a2.Guess the sentence
The teacher writes a sentence on a piece of paper or card. He or she does not
show the sentence, but writes the basic structure on the board, e.g.:
I went (somewhere) to (do something).
Students must guess the exact sentence by asking questions, e.g:
Did you go to the park? Did you go to school? Did you play football?


8

a3. 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.
e.g. You are mending a puncture. You are mending a plug.
a4. Guess famous people
One student pretends to be a famous person (alive or dead) who is known to
the others. The rest of the class try to ask yes-no questions to find out who the
person is. For example:
Are you still alive or dead?Are you English? Are you a singer?
a5. “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,

e.g:
“Were you mending something?”, “Were you digging?” or “Do you work outside?”
a6. What and where:
The teacher sends two students out of the room. 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, e.g. “ Is it made of wood?”, “Is it a pencil?”, “Is it high
or low?” or “ Is it on this side of the room?”
b. Information gap exercises
According to Doff, information gap exercises are usually designed for pair
work. They can be done in various ways:
- One student has some information, and the others have to find out by
asking questions.
- One student has information and tells it to the other student.
- Both students have different information, and they tell each other.
Then, Doff describes some models of those information-gap exercises:
9

A. Completing the grid: Students sit in pairs. In each pair, one student has an empty
grid and the other has the text, which is not shown to each other. Students with
empty grid completes the grid by asking questions. e.g What‟s he going to do
tomorrow afternoon?
B. Detecting differences: Two students in each pair are given two versions of a
picturewhich are identical except for some differences. Without looking at each
other‟s pictures, they have to try to find all the differences by describing pictureor
asking to compare.
C. Shopping list: Students sit in pairs. In each pair,Students X is a customer and has
a shopping list.Student Y is a shop assistant with a list of items in the shop and their
prices. They don‟t look at each other‟s list. They will try to buy and sell things.
The author stated the advantages and problems of using these activities in
class. On the one hand, students will be provided with intensive and interesting

language practice while being involved in these activities. On the other hand, the
teachers will find hard to organise these activities in a large class. It‟s difficult for
them to prevent students from looking at each other‟s information.
c. Exchanging personal information activities
According to Doff (1988), these activities are one of the easiest and most
interesting forms of communicative classroom activity in which students exchange
information about their own lives, hobbies and experiences, etc. Students will feel
more natural and comfortable to talk about the fact in their life and share with their
friends. Thus, there is a natural “information gap”. For example, students work in
pairs and ask their partner about his or her daily routine such as When do you get
up?/ When do you have breakfast?/ What do you have for breakfast? / When do you
go to school?/ How do you go to school? etc.
In summary, three types of IGA recommended by Doff (1988) are simple and
effective communicative activities. Teachers can exploit these activities in speaking
lessons to motivate students and get them in real communication.

10

1.3. Benefits of information gap activities
1.3.1. Increase students’ talking time in class
These types of activities are extremely effective in the L2 classroom. Neu &
Reeeser (1997) stated that IGA gives every student the opportunity to speak in the
target language for an extended period of time and students naturally produce more
speech than they would otherwise.
Doughty and Pica (1986, p25) also shared the same idea that “learners tend to
produce longer sentences and negotiate meaning more often in interactive tasks than
they do in teacher-fronted instruction, where the teacher stands at the front of the
room and leads the discussion.”
Overall, IGA creates a chance for students to express their ideas in specific
situation. Students tend to talk more to exchange their ideas with their partner to

complete the task.
1.3.2. Promote students’ motivation
IGA creates an information gap between participants, so it gives students a
reason for communicating. Harmer (1983:90) asserted that “information gap is an
ingredient in most real-life communication.” Thus, IGA creates a real purpose for
the communication to take place. Students will be involved more in these activities
because they have a real reason for completing the task, not just to practise the new
structure or vocabulary.
Moreover, information gap activities are often designed in form of games.
Thus, it can stir and maintain students‟ interest and motivation more because they
like the game. The challenge is one of the essential of every game, which can create
competition among learners and maintain eagerness in the learning process.
Besides, Raptou (2001) also stated that IGA give students a chance to practice
what they‟ve learned. Students have opportunities to put the theory into real daily
conversation. Thus, they will understand the lesson more and be attracted to the
task.

11

1.3.3. Promote students’ equal participation
Moreover, IGA also offer equal opportunities of learning for mixed ability
classes. In IGA, students often work in pair or group and each participant has a
definite role. For example, in the speaking task “Shopping list” suggested by Doff
(1988), students A is a customer, student B is a shop assistant. They have to ask
questions to buy and sell things. Therefore, the speaking task is not dominated by a
minority of talkative participants. All students have a chance to speak, and
contribute fairly evenly to the discussion.
1.3.4. Build students’ confidence
Since most IGA are designed for pair work or group work, students often face
each other during time performing these activities. Neu & Reeser (1997) make a

comment that speaking with peers is less intimidating than presenting in front of the
entire class and being evaluated.
Hess (2001) also stated that IGA creates a secure, nonthreatening atmosphere.
Students can express their ideas freely using their own language without worrying
too much about making mistakes, thus they feel more comfortable and confident in
participating in speaking task in class.
Raptou (2001) also shared the same idea that IGA results in a more
comfortable environment because communication is one-on-one, rather than
individual to class.
Overall, students feel more comfortable and less anxious in comleting IGA in
class. They do not have to worry about speaking in front a class and being assessed
by the teacher.
1.3.5. Develop student’s fluency and accuracy
Raptou (2001) asserted that IGA help students to apply the focused
grammatical structures in order to exchange information and negotiate meaning.
Thus, students involved in the speaking task will keep asking and answering
questions. Through this kind of practice, their fluency and accuracy can be
improved gradually.
12

Neu & Reeser (1997) also stated that in IGA, students are forced to negotiate
meaning because they must make what they are saying comprehensible to others in
order to accomplish the task. So, the students keep talking to maintain the exchange
of information. They try to avoid the pause in the middle of the conversation. In this
way, students‟ fluency can also be improved.
Part 2: Motivation
2.1. Definition
Motivation is an abstract concept that is difficult to define. However, it is used
widely in situations involving learning a second language. According to Dornyei
(2002), motivation is related to one of the most basic aspects of the human mind

and play a very important role in determining success or failure in learning
process. There are many authors offering different definitions of motivation.
Brown (1987, p114) defines motivation as “an inner drive, impulse, emotion,
or desire that moves one to a particular action.” In other word, motivation is some
inner drive that encourages us to achieve certain goals.
Dörnyei (2002, p. 7) gives another definition of motivation as “why people
decide to do something, how long they are willing to sustain the activity, and how
hard they are going to pursue it.”
Ellis (1998) indicated that motivation involves the attitudes and affective
states that influence the degree of effort that learners make to learn a second
language.
Overall, motivation is a process that creates one‟s desire toward doing
something. In second language learning, motivation is the driving force that
involved learners in the language acquisition process.

13

2.2. Types of motivation
Ellis(1998)divides motivation into four types: instrumental, integrative,
resultative and intrinsic.
Integrative motivation: some learners may choose to learn a particular L2
because they are interested in the people and culture represented by the target-
language group.
Instrumental motivation: learners may make efforts to learn a L2 for some
functional reason – to pass an examination, to get a better job, or to get a place at
university.
Resultative motivation: Motivation is the result of learning. That is, learners
who experience success in learning may become more, or in some context, less
motivated to learn.
Intrinsic motivation: Motivation involves the arousal and maintenance of

curiosity and can ebb and flow as a result of such factors as learners‟ particular
interests and the extent to which they feel personally involved in learning activities.
Motivation is clearly a highly complex phenomenon. These four types of
motivation should be seen as complementary rather than as distinct and
oppositional. Learners can be both intergatively and instrumentally motivated at one
and the same time.
2.3. Assessstudents’ motivation
Motivation is an abstract concept that is difficult to define and assess. Many
linguists have suggested different ways to assess motivation in second language
acquisition. In the scope of this small-scale research, the author would like to assess
the students‟ motivation related to the use of information gap activities in speaking
class. Thus, this paper focuses on intrinsic motivation, which is concerned with the
14

internal incentive to do things for one‟s satisfaction (Deci & Ryan, 1985). The scale
used for reference was the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory.
The Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) was originally developed by R.
Ryan, Mims, and Koestner (1983). It is a multidimensional measurement device
intended to assess participants subjective experience related to a target activity in
laboratory experiments. It has been used in several experiments related to intrinsic
motivation and self-regulation (e.g., Ryan, 1982; Ryan, Mims & Koestner, 1983).
The instrument assesses participants interest/enjoyment, perceived competence,
effort, value/usefulness, felt pressure and tension, and perceived choice while
performing a given activity, thus yielding six subscale scores. The
interest/enjoyment subscale is considered the self-report measure of intrinsic
motivation. The perceived choice and perceived competence concepts are designed
to reflect the self-report and behavioral measures of intrinsic motivation, and
pressure/tension is theorized to be a negative predictor of intrinsic motivation.
Effort is a separate variable that is relevant to some motivation questions, so is used
its relevant. The value/usefulness subscale is used in internalization studies (e.g.,

Deci et al, 1994), the idea being that people internalize and become self-regulating
with respect to activities that they experience as useful or valuable for themselves.
Finally, the relatedness subscale is used in studies having to do with interpersonal
interactions, friendship formation, and so on.
Many linguists have used IMI and found it effective. McAuley, Duncan, and
Tammen (1989) did a study to examine the validity of the IMI and found strong
support for its validity. Tsigilis and Theodosiou (2003) also found a Greek version
of the scale to be reliable.
2.4. Behaviour of a highly-motivated student
To investigate the motivation of students in the classroom, it is necessary to
find out about the behaviour of a motivated student in class. When making
15

inferences about student motivation, teachers rely on observations of behavior and
performance. Brophy (1987) proposed six main indicators of a motivated student.
1. Attendance and discipline. At the most basic level, students who are
motivated attend class, pay attention, and are not disruptive.
2. Participation and completion of work. Students who are motivated begin
assignments with little prompting, follow directions, participate in classroom
discussions, and complete tasks on time.
3. Task persistence and acceptance of errors. How long a student stays with a
task, especially a difficult one, is an important indicator of motivation. Highly
motivated students persist and try different solutions before seeking help when they
have difficulty with a task.
4. Quality of task involvement. Students can either invest effort in learning or
find shortcuts to get the task done without expending a great deal of effort.The
amount and quality of effort students expend on learning tasks is an important
indicator of motivation. Highly motivated students are willing to invest effort and to
use the skills they have acquired.
5. Independent learning. Students who are willing to learn more than is

required are reluctant to stop working on a task, even when it is time to move on to
something new. They also may bring in materials from home, complete work that is
not required, or ask questions to learn more about a topic.
6. Interest and liking. Highly motivated students enjoy learning, show
enthusiasm, and take pride in their work.
Based on these points, the researcher can observe the student‟s behaviour in
class and find out their level of motivation in the speaking task.

16

Part 3. Participation
3.1. Definition
Many linguistics have tried to define classroom participation. According to
Dancer & Kamvounias (2005), participation can be seen as an active engagement
process which can be sorted into five categories: preparation, contribution to
discussion, group skills, communication skills, and attendance. Besides,
Green(2008) also defined student‟s participation as the act of being involved in the
class, including an active intervention and showing interest to classroom‟s activity.
Wade (1994) considered the „„ideal class discussion‟‟ as one in which almost all
students participate and are interested, learning, and listening to others‟ comments
and suggestions. It seems that researchers and instructors would like to mention
these mainly quantitative and overt aspects of participation. Though the quality of
student participation is also important, it is much more subjective and quite
challenging in measurement.
3.2. Types of participation
According to Luu, T.T and Nguyen, T.K.N (2010), classroom interaction
includes two types: non-verbal and verbal interaction. Non-verbal interaction refers
to students‟ bahavioural response in class, e.g head nodding, hand raising, eye
contact, body gestures, etc. Verbal interaction includes written and oral interaction.
In written interaction, students interact with others though writing out their ideas or

thoughts. In contrast, in oral interaction, students communicate with others by
speaking in class, answering and asking questions, making comments and taking
part in discussion. In the small scope of this study, the researcher used the term
“students‟ participation” to refer to students‟ oral interaction.


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3.3. Assess students’ participation
Research has focused on verbal and non-verbal aspects of students‟
participation in classroom discussions. The participation in IGA can be also
assessed in the similar way.Besides, when investigating oral participation,
researchers have just paid attention to observable aspects, i.e. the number of turns or
the amount of talking time (Martine, 2003). Due to time constraints, this study
merely examined students‟ oral participation, measured by the level of involvement
in the speaking task. The observation sheet two was employed to find out the level
of students‟ on task in the class.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
Studies related to the effect of IGA in speaking teaching
There have been a number of previous studies on the practice of using
information gap activities to enhance speaking skills. Nevertheseless, not many
researchers have investigated the effect of information gap activities in actual
teaching class.
Defrioka (2009) did a research on "Improving Students‟ Interaction In
Speaking class Through Information Gap Activities". The study aimed to test to
what extent applying information gap activities could improve students‟
interaction in speaking class. Classroom action research procedures (plan, act,
observe and reflection) were used to study the process and participant
outcomes. The participants of this research were the third year students of
Building Department of SMKN 1 Padang, consisted of (22) students. The

study was conducted in two cycles with four meetings for each. The information
gap activities were applied at each meeting with different topic of the lesson.
The results of the research indicated that the use of IGS can promote students‟
interaction in speaking class. The students had more opportunities to speak during
the English lesson. Besides, the classroom action research itself helped students and
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teacher reflect on their successes and failure of the teaching and learning process.
Then, the researcher suggested that all language teachers should employ
information gap activities in their teaching process to promote student learning.
When adopting this type of activity, language teachers should provide their
students with a variety of enjoyable tasks.
Sari (2008) did an action research on "Improving Students' speaking Mastery
Using Information Gap at the Second Year of SMP N3Kebakramat Karangany”.
The study aimed to find out whether using IGA can improve students‟ speaking
mastery and descibe the students‟ response on the information gap in speaking
class. The participants are 40 second-year students in the SMP N3 Kebakkramat
Karanganyar school. The researcher taught IGA in the speaking class. The data was
collected from students‟ answers on oral test in the form of pre test and post
test. The result of the study indicated that by implementing IGA in teaching
speaking, students seemed to be more active and cooperative in speaking lesson.
The students‟ motivation to speak, to practice speaking, and students‟
achievement of speaking were improved. The mean of the pre test was (68.7),
the post test was (71.6), and the improvement result of the implementation was
(2.9). Most of the students said that they loved this technique. Thus, the study
proved that information gap method can make the students more confident, easy to
understand, to cooperate with others, and to practice speaking. They can improve
their vocabulary, pronunciation and express their idea or opinion. The researcher
suggested that the teacher should find the effective way to teach speaking skill in
class.

In Vietnam, there are many studies on the real situation of using information
gap activities to improve speaking skills for the students. A study on “Using IGA to
enhance speaking skills for the first year students in ED-ULIS-VNU.” by Nguyen
Thi Thu Trang in 2009 is one of the examples. The result from the study showed
that IGA have been exploited widely and gained some certain achievements at
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ULIS, VNU. However, there still remains some problems facing teacher and
students. As for teacher, there are some difficulties in adapting activities, organising
the crowded classes or involving students. To students, the lack of confidence, the
discomfort when working in groups or pairs, and the poor language practice are
their major differences. Then, some suggestions were made to improve the method
of implementing IGA.
In conclusion, with regard to the literature review,using IGA in teaching
speaking is quite familiar with teachers in many countries in the world and also in
Vietnam. Many studies were conducted in this issue to clarify the benefit and
problems in using this type of activities. However, in Vietnam, not many studies
investigated the specific effect of IGA in promoting students‟ motivation and
participation in speaking class. Thus, it could be said that the conduct of the present
study meets the practicality of the issue. The research was described in detail in the
following sections.