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
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CODE: 19

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

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

HÀ NỘI – 2015


Graduation paper

DECLARATION

Title: Using Information Gap Activities To Enhance

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

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

Student

Supervisor

Lê Hồng Ngọc

M.A Nguyễn Thị Mai Hương

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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.

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ABSTRACT

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

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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

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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

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

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

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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.

2. Aims and Objectives of the study
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.

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

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

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

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

teachers?
(c)

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

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

(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

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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.

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

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

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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

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

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.

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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).

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

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.

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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

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

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

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

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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 postoffice 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.

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

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

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

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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

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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?

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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.

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

∗ 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

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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.

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

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

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