Information Gap Activities: overview

An Information Gap is a lack of information between two or more people. In Information Gap Activities, not everyone knows the same things and people don’t always have the same information in front of them, therefore communication is needed to complete the task.

Students work in groups of two or more. Each student has some, but not all, of the information needed for the activity. As partners to each other to fill in the “gaps” of missing information, they acquire communication skills in a way that is authentic and meaningful (Basturkmen, 1994). The pair creates questions and /or statements and each individual responds in turn (Annenberg Media, 2005). Since each partner knows something that the other does not they must communicate in order to attain complete understanding. These questions which seek unknown answers are known as referential questions, which contrast with display questions, that is, those which seek obvious answers. For example, rather than asking “Do you sleep every day?, you could ask “When do you sleep?” (Annenberg Media, 2005).

Information gap activities: (Raptou, 2001)

• Are not scripted or rehearsed
• Involve spontaneous learning and dialogue
• Involve unique responses which require careful thinking and use of sentence structure to communicate answers
• Require more than regurgitated information
• Involve the combination of information to merge ideas
• Provide structure and guidelines for students to follow
• Results in a more comfortable environment because communication is one-on-one, rather than individual to class.
• Give students a chance to practice what they’ve learned
• Create a need for comprehensible speech in order to accomplish the task
• Do not necessarily involve evaluation during the activity thus increasing motivation and participation without fear and pressure of marks
• Help increase confidence in the language thus resulting in a greater likelihood of speaking in the target language

Information gap activities are successful when: (Ur, 1996, taken from Raptou, 2001)

• The students talk a lot
• Participation is even
• Motivation is high
• Language is of an acceptable level

Problem - Solving Activity: Meet the Neighbours (Reschny, 2004)

Ш Materials: handout (see example)

Ш Goal: To improve reading, listening, and speaking skills in students. Students must read and understand their own statements. Likewise, they must listen to the statements of others and ask appropriate questions if necessary to complete their own understanding. The students also get practice in establishing cognitive patterns that “make sense” in the target language; in other words, they learn to think in their second language.

Ш Procedure:

1. Put the students into pairs.

2. Each student is given a handout which includes a chart and a series of statements which are an incomplete set of statements used to fill in their chart. (use pencil!)

3. Each student reads his or her own statements and fills in the applicable parts of their chart.

4. The students take turns reading their statements to each other and using each other’s information to fill in their charts.

Ш Variations:

1. Ask questions in MT and answer in the TL to decrease level of difficulty.

2. Use objects instead of people to make relevant to unit.

3. Ask questions instead of reading statements to increase level of difficulty.

4. Have some of the blanks already filled-in to decrease level of difficulty.

Ш Time:

Variation Worksheet for “Meet the Neighbors” (ESLgold.com, 2002)

A’s Information:

Person’s Name	From	Occupation	Weekends	Movies
1. Jill (female)		doctor		romance
2.		professor	go fishing
3. Jared (male)	Cincinnati			action
4.	Cleveland	banker	play cards
5. Janet (female)	Dayton

B’s Information:

Person’s Name	From	Occupation	Weekends	Movies
1.	Toledo		relax at home
2. Jason (male)	Columbus			horror
3.		mechanic	play baseball
4. Jenny (female)				drama
5.		lawyer	read novels	comedy

Sample Questions:

What is the first person’s name?
How do you spell it?
Where is he/she from?
What is his/her occupation
What does he/she do on weekends?
What kind of movies does he/she like?

After completing the chart, discuss with your partner:

Which person would you like as a friend? Why?

Problem – Solving Activity: Solve a Problem (Reschny, 2004)

Ш Materials: handout (see example)

Ш Goal: To improve communication skills (including clear pronunciation) and increase ability to think in the target language.

Ш Procedure:

1. Put students into pairs (or they may work independently).

2. The students are given charts with certain logically exclusive possible facts about a set of characters, and an incomplete set of statements about those characters

3. The students must then communicate their statements with their partner to produce a complete set of statements, which allows them to solve the logic problem.

Ш Variations:

Ш Time:

Finding Differences Activities: Finding the Differences (Reschny, 2004)

Ш Materials: handouts (see examples)

Ш Goal: To ask and answer questions, and give information using the present continuous; thus improving listening and speaking skills, while increasing understanding of the target language culture. Students must communicate with each other to understand the differences between the pictures, and understanding the pictures requires understanding of the culture that generated them.

Ш Procedure:

1. Put the students into pairs.

2. Copy the handouts according to the number of students in your class. (Half of the class will get “Student A” handout, the other half “Student B”)

3. Divide the class into pairs – A and B. Give each student a copy of the appropriate handout.

4. They sit facing each other, making sure that their handout is hidden from their partner.

5. Explain what is to be done and allow time for preparation. Everyone then starts at the same time.

6. Set a definite time limit and stop the students at the end of it, whether they have finished or not.

7. They now compare their drawings to see if they have found all the differences.

Ш Variations:

1. Emphasize a particular verb tense in asking questions

2. Emphasize prepositions

3. Use statements instead of questions

4. Use menus with different prices and items (REEP, 2003)

5. Family Trees – students use their own family trees to ask and answer questions. (REEP, 2003).

Ш Time:

F inding Differences Activities: Haunted House (Boggle’s World, 2002a)

Ш Materials: handout: Haunted House pictures A and B (see example)

Ш Goal: to encourage unscripted communication between two students; to use location prepositions in a question and answer format.

Ш Procedure:

1. Put students in groups of two.

2. One student has Picture A while the other has Picture B.

3. Student A identifies the whereabouts of a ghost in Picture A and asks Student B if the ghost is in the same place in Picture B.

a. e.g. Student A: In my picture, there is a ghost in front of the desk in the bedroom. Do you have the same?

4. Student B answers in a complete sentence, and then identifies a different ghost in Picture B asks Student A if the ghost is in the same place in Picture A.

a. e.g. Student B: No, in my picture the ghost is behind the desk in the bedroom. Also, in the bathroom there is a ghost in the bathtub. Do you have the same?

5. Students converse back and forth until they have identified the whereabouts of all the ghosts in the two pictures.

Ш Variations:

1. If the objects on each of the two pictures were colored differently, the students’ dialogue could be more descriptive (emphasizes use of adjectives or color vocabulary).

2. If the rooms had different furniture, the students’ could also compare furniture and its locations.

Ш Time: 10 minutes

Giving Directions Activity: Trace the Route (Reschny, 2004)

Ш Materials: handout (see example)

Ш Goal: To give directions (involving both speaking and listening) which will improve their understanding of directional words and the use of the imperative verb form.

Ш Procedure:

1. Put students into pairs.

2. Students are given a map, a starting point, and a destination. They must then describe a route that can be taken to get from the starting point to the destination.

3. The students must then describe their routes to others, and have them find the destination from the directions.

Ш Variations:

1. Students can invent their own routes

2. Can use a local map

3. Can use a map of a TL city

Ш Time:

Ш

Giving Directions Activity: Up, Down, Left, Right (Reschny, 2004)

Ш Materials: handout (see example)

Ш Goal: To learn to give directions, practice numbers, and use prepositions.

Ш Procedure:

1. Put students into pairs.

2. Student A reads his statements to Student B. Student B follows these instructions and draws what his partner tells him to.

3. When all statements have been read on Student As sheet, Student B reads his instructions and Student A follows.

4. When Student B has read all his statements, the pair shows their completed chard and compares then with the answer on their partners chart.

Ш Variations

1. Use a larger or smaller grid (more or less squares).

2. Use pictures of objects being learned (current vocabulary).

3. Use words instead of pictures.

Ш Time

UP?

DOWN?

LEFT?

RIGHT??

Missing Information Activity: Complete the Drawing (Reschny, 2004)

Ш Materials: handout (see example)

Ш Goal: To practice comprehensible communication, prepositions, adjectives and vocabulary.

Ш Procedure:

1. Put students into pairs.

2. Student A describes what is in his picture to student B, including where to draw it. Student B follows Student As instructions.

3. When finished, the pair compares pictures to check for accuracy.

Ш Variations:

1. Use pictures of vocabulary being learned (ie. Shapes, clothes, etc)

2. Don’t include vocabulary

3. Use a more complex picture.

4. Have a second set of pictures to reverse roles.

5. Use faces (ie. Mr. Potato Head)

Ш Time:

Missing Information Activity: Lost and Found “ On cherche un ohjet perdu” (Harris & Roselman, year unknown)

Ш Materials: handouts: Preparation Sheet (12) – 2 copies, Tourist’s sheet (A12), Officer sheet (B12) (see example)

Ш Goals: to encourage communication between students in a realistic activity.

Ш Procedure:

1. Put students into groups of two.

2. Both students get a copy of Sheet 12, but one student has Sheet A12 and one student has sheet B12.

3. The pair first goes over Sheet 12 in order to prepare for the main activity and to associate themselves with useful grammar, vocabulary and expressions.

4. For the main activity, one student is the tourist who has recently lost a personal item, and the other student is a police officer who runs the local Lost & Found.

5. The tourist tells the Officer what was lost and where it was lost, and then asks the officer if it has arrived.

6. The officer looks at the list on Sheet B12 which says what items have been found and where, and then answers the tourist’s question.

7. This process should be repeated until each item on the tourist’s list has been covered.

Ш Variations:

1. Students could alternate between tourist and officer after each question, thus getting to ask and answer questions.

2. Tourists arrive at a campsite and want to know whether they can stay according to site availability, cost per night, length of stay, size of tent or trailer; one student plays a tourist, the other the campsite manager. (see example)

3. Restaurant Scenario with incomplete menu.

Ш Time: 15-20 minutes

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