Using information gap activities to improve 11th graders speaking skills masters thesis in education theory and methods of teaching english 60 14 01 11

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
VINH UNIVERSITY

CHU THỊ HỒNG THÚY

USING INFORMATION GAP ACTIVITIES TO
IMPROVE 11th GRADERS’ SPEAKING SKILLS

MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION

Nghe An – 2016


MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
VINH UNIVERSITY

CHU THỊ HỒNG THÚY

USING INFORMATION GAP ACTIVITIES TO
IMPROVE 11th GRADERS’ SPEAKING SKILLS

Field: THEORY AND METHODS OF TEACHING ENGLISH
Code: 60140111

MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION

SUPERVISOR: TRẦN BÁ TIẾN, Ph.D.

Nghe An – 2016

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I hereby acknowledge that this study is mine. The data and findings discussed
in the thesis are true, used with permission from associates, and have not been
published elsewhere.
Author
Chu Thị Hồng Thúy

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ............................................................................. i
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................ ii
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES .......................................................................... vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................... vii
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................. viii
Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 1
1.1 Statement of the problem and the rationale for the study ..................................... 1
1.2.Objectives of the study and research questions .................................................... 2
1.2.1 Objectives of the study ....................................................................................... 2
1.2.2 Research questions. ............................................................................................ 2
1.3.The significance of the study ................................................................................ 3
1.4 The scope of the study........................................................................................... 3
1.5 Research Methodology.......................................................................................... 3
1.6 Organization of the study ...................................................................................... 3
Chapter 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ........................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
2.1.Speaking Skills ...................................................................................................... 5
2.1.1. The nature of speaking ...................................................................................... 5

2.1.2 Characteristics of the communicative approach ................................................ 6
2.1.3. The roles of speaking in language learning and teaching ................................. 7
2.1.3.1. Speaking creates motivation .......................................................................... 7
2.1.3.2. Speaking releases students’ inhibitions.......................................................... 7
2.1.3.3. Speaking helps to improve other language skills. .......................................... 8
2.1.3.4. Speaking is fundamental to human communication ...................................... 8
2.1.4 Teaching speaking .............................................................................................. 8
2.1.4.1. Principles for teaching speaking. ................................................................... 9
2.1.4.2. Problems in learning and teaching speaking skill ........................................ 10
2.1.4.3 Characters of successful speaking activities. ................................................ 11

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2.1.5 The evaluation grading scale of speaking skills............................................... 12
2.1.6 Classroom speaking activities .......................................................................... 13
2.2. Information Gap Activities ................................................................................ 14
2.2.1. The nature of information gap activities. ........................................................ 15
2.2.2 Benefits of information gap activities. ............................................................. 17
2.2.2.1. Increase students’ talk time in class ............................................................. 17
2.2.2.3. Promote students’ equal participation .......................................................... 18
2.2.2.4. Build students’ confidence ........................................................................... 18
2.2.2.5. Develop students’ fluency and accuracy. ..................................................... 18
2.2.3The teachers’ roles in the information gap activities ........................................ 19
2.2.4 Speaking activities based on information gap activities ................................. 20
2.2.5. Factors affecting the choice of information gap activities .............................. 21
2.2.6 Strategies of implementing information gap activities .................................... 22
2. 2.7. Typical procedure to conduct an information gap activity. ........................... 25
Chapter 3. METHODOLOGY .................................................................................. 27
3.1 Research setting .................................................................................................. 27

3.1.1 An overview of Dien Chau 5 high school ........................................................ 27
3.1.2. Teachers .......................................................................................................... 27
3.1.3. Students ........................................................................................................... 28
3.1.4 The English Language syllabus ....................................................................... 28
3.2 Subject of the research ........................................................................................ 29
3.3 Research design. .................................................................................................. 29
3.4 Research procedures............................................................................................ 30
3.4.1 Planning............................................................................................................ 30
3.4.2 Action ............................................................................................................... 31
3.4.3 Observation. ..................................................................................................... 31
3.4.4 Reflection ......................................................................................................... 31
3.5 Research instrument ............................................................................................ 31
3.6 Data collection. ................................................................................................... 32

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3.6.1 Observation ...................................................................................................... 32
3.6.2 Interview. ......................................................................................................... 32
3.6.3 Questionnaire. .................................................................................................. 32
3.6.4 Test ................................................................................................................... 32
3.7 Data analysis ....................................................................................................... 34
Chapter 4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS .......................................................... 36
A . Description of data .............................................................................................. 36
4.1.Data of observation. ............................................................................................ 36
4.2. Data of interview. ............................................................................................... 37
4.2.1 The description of data from interview with English teachers of 11th
grade of Dien Chau 5 high school. ................................................................... 37
4.2.2 The description of data from interviews with students of 11th grade of
Dien Chau 5 high school. .................................................................................. 38

4.3. The implementation of information gap activities in teaching speaking. .......... 39
4.3.1 Cycle 1 ............................................................................................................. 39
4.3.2 Cycle 2 ............................................................................................................. 42
4.4 The improvement of speaking skills after using information gap
activities. ........................................................................................................... 45
4.5 Students’ responses to the implementation of teaching speaking by using
information gap activities. ................................................................................ 48
Table 3. Table of data showing the students’ responses in learning speaking
though information gap ..................................................................................... 49
B. Interpretation of data. ........................................................................................... 51
4.1. Data of observation ............................................................................................ 51
4.2. Data of interview. ............................................................................................... 51
4.3.The improvement of information gap to improve speaking ability. ................... 52
4.4 Students’ responses to the implementation of information gap in teaching
speaking. ........................................................................................................... 52
Chapter 5. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS .............................................. 54

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5.1. Conclusions ........................................................................................................ 54
5.2. Implications ........................................................................................................ 55
5.2.1 Preparing a good lesson plan............................................................................ 55
5.2.2. Organizing the class activities ......................................................................... 56
5.2.3. Giving instructions .......................................................................................... 58
5.2.4. Creating real communication information gap activities in speaking
lessons ............................................................................................................... 59
5.2.5. Providing support ............................................................................................ 59
5.3. Limitations of the study ..................................................................................... 60
5.4. Suggestions for further study ............................................................................. 60

REFERENCES ............................................................................................................. I
APPENDIX ............................................................................................................... III
Appendix 1: Questionnaires for students .................................................................. III
Appendix 2: Pre – test ............................................................................................... IV
Appendix 3 ................................................................................................................. V
Appendix 4 ............................................................................................................. XIV
Appendix 5 ............................................................................................................. XVI

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LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure 1 Action research cycles by Kemmis and McTaggart ................................... 30
Table 1. Scoring Rubric of Speaking Performance................................................... 33
Table 2. The table of data showing the students’ progressing score in
speaking after being taught through information gap activities ....................... 45
Table 3. Table of data showing the students’ responses in learning speaking
though information gap ..................................................................................... 49

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I especially would like to express my endless gratitude to
my supervisor, Dr Tran Ba Tien, for his 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 his constant assistance. I would also like to express my appreciation to all

lecturers at department of post graduate studies of Vinh university for the
knowledge, guidance and encouragement they give during my study
I also address my gratitude to the principal of Dien Chau 5 high school for
giving me permission to conduct the research in the school and the English teacher
for help, assistance and cooperation. Many thanks are also given to the students of
grade 11A2 for being cooperative during the research.
My sincere thanks also go to my beloved family who always become my
motivation especially to finish this thesis.
Finally, I realized that this thesis is still far from being perfect. Therefore, any
criticisms, ideas and suggestions for the improvement of this thesis are highly
appreciated.

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ABSTRACT
The objective of this research was to improve the speaking skills of the 11th
graders of Dien Chau 5 high school by using information gap activities.
In conducting this research, the researcher used Classroom Action Research as
the method of the research. This research consisted of two cycles and each cycle
consisted of four elements, they were: planning, action , observation and reflection.
To collect data, the researcher used instruments of observation, interviews,
questionnaires and the students’ achievement in pre test and pot test in order to
support the data collected. The data obtained was presented in two ways:
qualitatively and quantitatively.
The research findings showed that the information gap activities were
effective in improving the speaking abilities of the student in class . Information gap
activities can motivate the students to speak English. This can be seen from the
improvements after each cycle. This can be seen by the rise in the students’ mean
scores in the test results: 48,97 in the pre test and 68,3 in the post test. The

improvement was also seen based on the result from the students’ responses that
showed positive and good responses from the students.

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Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION

1.1 Statement of the problem and the rationale for the study
In the time of internationalization and globalization, English is considered as a
mean of communication all over the world. English becomes crucial to
communicate in many things, like business ,education, politics, social relationship
and many other aspects. In Viet Nam , since the development of market economy,
English is 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. In all the four skills of learning English, 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 come from the fact that
traditional language teaching method like the Grammar- Translation one which has
been applied to teach English in our country for ages. In many English classes,
teacher and student exchanges have little communicative value because there is no
real information being exchanged. Teachers often spend a large of proportion of
class time asking “display” questions for which they and their students already
know the answers. Here are three examples of typical display questions:
1. When presenting the new word “book” , the teacher holds up a book and
says: this is a book. What is it?”
2. When teaching the sentence pattern for habitual actions, the teacher asks a
student,” Do you sleep everyday?”
3. When demonstrating the present continuous tense, the teacher performs the

activity, such as walking to the door, and while doing so says “ I am walking to the
door. What am I doing now?”
These display questions serve only to elicit inauthentic language practice to:
present a new word( example 1), elicit a sentence pattern( example 2) or practice a

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grammatical structure (example 3). They are not communicative. They demonstrate
usage rather than use of the target language.
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, they must use the target language to
share that information. The students must speak in order to be able to finish the task.
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 improve speaking skill for the grader
11th in Dien Chau 5 high school. This has given the researcher desire to carry out a
research study on this issue.
1.2.Objectives of the study and research questions
1.2.1 Objectives of the study
This study has some objectives in line with the problems stated above:
To describe the atmosphere in improving the teaching of speaking to the
students by using information gap activities
To know whether the students’ scores in speaking improved after using
information gap activities .
To know the responses from the students after implementation information
gap activities.

1.2.2 Research questions.
Based on the background above, the research questions were formulated as
follows:
1. Does using the information gap activities improve the process of teaching
and learning of speaking skills of students in the 11th grader at Dien Chau 5 high
school? If so, to what extent?

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2. How did the students respond to the implementation of information gap
activities?
1.3.The significance of the study
Doing this research , the researcher expected that the results are useful for the
English teacher of Dien Chau 5 high school in teaching speaking, so that the
English teacher can create more communicative and active activities for the students
by using information gap activities. The researcher also hope to help students have a
better atmosphere in an English speaking class in which they are encouraged to
speak or to state their ideas, thoughts orally in English. Furthermore, using
information gap activities can motivate them to speak English as often as possible,
so that they can improve their ability in speaking skills.
1.4 The scope of the study
Due to limited time and experience, this study focuses on how the students’
speaking skills can be improved by using information gap activities.
The study was limited to teach English language textbook Tieng Anh 11
which is now in use in the high schools.
The study was applied in the school year 2015/2016 second semester by
implementing information gap activities
1.5 Research Methodology.
This research is a classroom action research which is intended to make a

contribution to the improvement of teaching and learning process by using
information gap activities.
1.6 Organization of the study
This graduation paper covers five main parts as follows:
Chapter 1 – Introduction would provide readers with overall information
about the research including the rationale for the study, aims and research questions,
significance, scope , methodology as well as the organization of the study.

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Chapter 2 – Theoretical background would deal with two major concepts,
namely, speaking skill in CLT and information gap activities with a hope to
providing theoretical background for the following chapters.
Chapter 3 – Methodology would show the methods used to find out the
necessary data for the study. In particular, this chapter consists of the subject of the
research, research design, research procedures, research instrument, data collection ,
data analysis
Chapter 4 – Research findings is designed to present some crucial findings
based on the analysis and synthesis of the data collected.
Chapter 5 – Conclusion and implications summarize briefly the main content
of the study, indicate summary of findings, give out suggestions for further
research.

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Chapter 2
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2.1.Speaking Skills
2.1.1. The nature of speaking
Speaking is one of the productive activities in daily life and is the most
important language skill because it is the main skill needed to carry out a
conversation. Different linguists have different definitions of “speaking” as
follows.
Speaking is to express or communicate opinions, feelings, ideas, etc, by or as
talking and it involves the activities in the part of the speaker as psychological
(articulator) and physical (acoustic) stags ( Oxford Advanced Dictionary,1995,p.13)
Chaney (1998,p.13) stated that : “ speaking is the process of building and
sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non verbal symbols in a variety of
contexts”
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” 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

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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.
Based on the previous definitions, the researcher concludes that speaking is
the process of sharing with other persons, one’s knowledge, interests, attitudes,
opinions or ideas. These are important aspects of the process of speaking which the
speaker’s ideas become real to him and his listener. In general, speaking skill is the
ability to say , to address, to make known, to use or be able to use a given language
in the actual communication. 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)
2.1.2 Characteristics of the communicative approach
The following characteristics are outlined by Brown as follows:
1. Classroom goal are focused on all of the components of communicative
competence and not restricted to grammatical or linguistic competence.
2. Language techniques are designed to engage learners in the pragmatic,
authentic, functional use of language for meaningful purposes. Organizational
language forms are not the central focus but rather aspects of language that enable
the learners to accomplish those purposes.
3. Fluency and accuracy are seen as complementary principles underlying
communicative techniques. At times fluency may have to take on more importance
than accuracy in order to keep learners meaningfully engaged in language use.
4. In the communicative classroom, students ultimately have to use the
language, productively and receptively in unrehearsed context (Brown, 1994,p.245)
In addition, Harmer (2001,p.84) suggests that features of communicative
language teaching imply “ the language learning that takes care of itself”, and
agrees with Brown that the accuracy of the language is less important than
successful achievement of the communicative task.

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As pointed out, the researcher found out that the characteristics of the
communicative language teaching asserted on the students’ ability to communicate
in the target language including not just linguistics structures, but also semantic
notions and social functions. Moreover, students work in groups or in pairs to
transfer and negotiate meaning in situations ( real life situations where one person
has information that the other lacks. It is clear that the teacher’s role is primarily to
facilitate communication and as ( Klippel,1991,p.8) assured that teachers should be
careful not to correct students’ errors too frequently because it makes the students
hesitant and insecure in their speech. For developing speaking activities there are
many aspects that should be taken into consideration when organizing activities that
aim at developing speaking skills.
2.1.3. The roles of speaking in language learning and teaching
2.1.3.1. 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.
2.1.3.2. 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

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a large audience later. As a result, they will be more eager and confident to take
part in the speaking activities.
2.1.3.3. 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).
2.1.3.4. 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.
2.1.4 Teaching speaking
Speaking is one of the English skill that should be developed by the students
in the language learning process. Richard (2008,p19) states that the mastery of
speaking skills in English is a priority for many second language or foreign
language students. Therefore, classroom activities the develop learners’ ability to
express themselves through speech would be an essential component of a language
course.
Teaching speaking should include students’ participation. The students’
participation and involvement can be created through various speaking tasks.
Harmer (1998,p87) states that there should be a task to complete so that the students
can use the language to complete and perform the task.

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. 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),

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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.
According to Richard ( 2008,p29) there are three core issues need to be
addressed in planning speaking activities for an English class. The first one is
determining the focus of the speaking skills . The second issue is identifying the
teaching strategies to teach. Lat, the teacher need to determine the expected level of
the speaker task and the criteria that will be used to asses the performance.
Teaching speaking, in the researcher’s opinion, is the way for students to
express their emotion, communicative needs, interact with other persons in any
situation and influence the others. For this reason, in teaching speaking skill it is
necessary to have clear understanding involved in speech and also encourage the
potential of the learners to develop their speaking skill naturally. Overall, teaching
speaking skill emphasizes on the activities to make the students active and creative
2.1.4.1. Principles for teaching speaking.
In teaching speaking, the teacher needs to consider some principles in order to
make the activities fit to students’ needs. Nunan (2003) and Kayi (2006) suggest
some principles that help in teaching speaking.
1. The teachers should be aware of the difference between second and foreign

language.
2. The teachers should give students chance to practice with fluency and
accuracy
3. The teachers should provide opportunity for students to talk by using group
work and pair work and limit the teachers’ talk
4. The teachers should plan speaking task to involve negotiation of meaning

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5. The teachers should design classroom activities that involve guidance and
practice in both transactional and interact ional speaking
6. The teachers should ask eliciting questions such as “ what do you mean?
How did you reach that conclusion?” in order to prompt students to speak more.
7. The teachers should provide written feedback like “ your presentation was
really great. It was a good job. I really appreciated your efforts in preparing the
materials and efficient use of your voice”
8. The teachers should not correct students’ presentation mistakes very often while
they are speaking. Correction should not distract student from his or her speech.
9. The teacher should involve speaking activities not only in class but also out
of class, contact parents and other people who can help
10. The teachers should circulate around classroom to ensure that students are on
the right track and see whether they need to help while they work in groups or pairs.
11.The teachers should reduce teacher speaking time in class while increasing
student speaking time step back and observe students
In the light of the principles of teaching speaking as mentioned above, it could
be concluded that English teachers, when teaching young learners, have constantly
to keep in mind the fact that they deal with a mixed class with varied abilities,
expectations, motivation level, knowledge and, last but not least, different learning
styles. Moreover, English teacher should create a classroom environment where

students have real life, communication, diagnose problems faced by students who
have difficulties in expressing themselves in the target language. Therefore, the
teachers need to vary their approaches and offer as much opportunity as possible to
make the whole class find a little something to hold on to expand and grow
2.1.4.2. 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)

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- 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.
2.1.4.3 Characters of successful speaking activities.
Sometimes spoken language is easy to perform, but in some cases

it is

difficult. In order to carry out the successful speaking, students have to fulfill some
characteristics of a successful speaking activity. Ur( 1996,p.120) lists some
characteristics of a successful speaking activity which can be used to asses the
teaching and learning as follow.
1. Learners talk a lot : As much as possible of the period of time allocated to
the activity is in fact occupied by learners talk. This may be obvious, but often
most time is taken up with teacher talk or pauses
2. Participation is even: classroom discussion is not dominated by a minority
of talkative participant. All get a chance to speak and contributions are fairly evenly
distributed.

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3. Motivation is high: learners are eager to speak because they are interested in
the topic and have something new to say about it or they want to contribute to
achieve a task objective.
4. Language is of an acceptable level: learners express themselves in
utterances that are relevant, easily comprehensible to teach other and of acceptable
level of language accuracy
2.1.5 The evaluation grading scale of speaking skills.
The testing speaking is the most complex task to assess with precision. It is
difficult to judge utterances the testee answers in real time, while recording is
expensive and time consuming. However, it does not mean that speaking test can
not be measured in a correct way.
Thornbury ( 2005,p.125) explains that a test of speaking is time taking and
not easy. The teacher needs much time to test every student’s performance and
sometimes every tester need to find right criteria to be used. Thus, he also gives an

example of criteria . There are four categories: grammar and vocabulary, discourse
management, pronunciation and interactive communication.
In grammar and vocabulary, the aspects to be considered are the accuracy and
appropriateness of syntactic form and vocabulary.
For discourse management, the thing to consider is the ability to express ideas
and opinions in the coherent and connected speech.
Then, the comprehensible utterances like sounds pronunciation and
appropriate linking words are the focus of pronunciation.
Last, interactive communication refers to the ability to interact and to respond
appropriately and at the required speed and rhythm.
The different criteria are proposed by Brown ( 2004, p.147) . He mentions the
three components of testing speaking skills as follow
1. Comprehension: Comprehension for oral communication certainly requires
a subject to respond to speech as well as to initiate it.

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2. Grammar: It is needed for students to arrange a correct sentence in
conversation, or the student’s ability to manipulate structure and to distinguish
appropriate grammatical form in appropriate ones. The utility of grammar is also to
learn the correct way to gain expertise in a language in oral and written form
3. Fluency:

Fluency can be defined as the ability to speak fluently and

accurately
4. Pronunciation: Pronunciation is the way for students to produce clearer
language when they speak. It deals with the phonological process that determine
how sounds vary and pattern in a language.

5. Vocabulary: One can not communicate effectively or express their ideas
both oral and written form if they do not have significant vocabulary. So,
vocabulary means the appropriate diction
2.1.6 Classroom speaking activities
Most of the English teachers face the problem of having passive students who
show no willingness to speak in class, or students who seem interested enough to
speak but find it difficult to express themselves
Traditional classroom speaking practice often takes the form of drills in which
one person asks a question and another gives an answer. The question and the
answer are structures and predictable and often there is only one correct,
predetermined answer . The purpose of asking and answering the question is to
demonstrate the ability to ask and answer the question.
In contrast, the purpose of real communication is to accomplish a task, such as
conveying a telephone message, obtaining information or expressing an opinion. To
create classroom speaking activities, the teacher should provide students with
communicative activities in which the student can engage activities in teaching and
learning process. They must use the target language to share some information.
Speaking activities which can improve students’ speaking competence as
suggested by Richard ( 2006, p19) are:

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1. Information gap activities: this refers to the fact that in real communication,
people normally communicate in order to get information they do not possess. In
this activity , each student has different information and they need to obtain
information from each other in order to finis a task. They must use target language
to accomplish it.
2. Jigsaw activities: These are also based on information gap principle.
Typically, the class is divided into groups and each group

has part of the

information needed to complete an activity. The class must fit the pieces together to
complete the whole. In so doing, they must use their language resources to
communicate meaningfully and take part in meaningful communication practice.
3. Task completion activities: puzzles, games map reading and other kinds of
classroom tasks in which the focus is on using one’s language resources to complete
a task.
4. Information gathering activities: student conducted surveys, interviews and
searches in which students are required to use their linguistic resources to collect
information.
5. Opinion sharing activities: activities in which students compare values,
opinions or beliefs , such as a ranking task in which students list six qualities in
order of importance that they might consider in choosing a date or spouse.
6 Information transfer activities: These require learners to take information
that is presented in one form and represent it in a different form.
7. Reasoning gap activities: these involve deriving some new information
from given information through the process of inference, practical reasoning.
8. Role plays: activities in which students are assigned roles and improvise a
scene or exchange based on given information or clues
2.2. Information Gap Activities
Information gap activity is an activity which is based on information gap
principle that in real communication. People normally communicate in order to get
information they do not process. Real communication is likely to occur in the

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classroom if students practice language forms on their own way and use their

linguistic and communicative resources in order to express their ideas. Because of
the benefits of information gap activities, the researcher wants to exploit
information gap activities in the speaking class.
2.2.1. The nature of information gap activities.
To help students develop their communicative efficiency in speaking, there are
some activities used in classroom to promote the development of speaking skills in
our learners. The discussions below center on information gap activities as one of
the strategies that the researcher used to investigate the effectiveness of these
activities on improving speaking skills for the 11th grader at Dien chau 5 high
school.
The concept of Information gap activities is an important aspect of
communication in a CLT classroom. According to Longman Dictionary of
Language Teaching and Applied Linguistic by Richard, Platt and Weber
(1985,p40), “ Information gap( in communication between two or more people) is a
situation where information is known by only some of these present” . Information
gap activities are useful activities in which one person has information that the other
lacks. They must use the target language to share the information. This definition is
supported by Thornbury (2005, p80) as he states that, there is a knowledge gap that
can only be bridged by using language. The students have to communicate in order
to achieve the task outcome.
While, Harmer(1991,p48) defines information gap as a “gap” between the two
persons in the information they possess, and the conversation helps to close that gap
so that now both speakers have the same information”. Stern (1999,p.32) defines it
as “ information is known by only one student in a pair and it can be conveyed by
different exercises to the other students”
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.

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