CREATING MEANINGFUL SPEAKING ACTIVITY TO YOUNG LEARNERS BY

USING INFORMATION GAP

By:
Dian Savitri and Danny Lutvi Hidayat

INTRODUCTION
According to Oxford Dictionary (2013), language is the method of human
communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and
conventional way. Nowadays, English is an international language. English becomes
important tool in many aspects such as when we want to operate electronics, some of the
manual books are written in English. Besides, in overseas, business English is always used.
Therefore, people around the world should master it if they want to communicate for
international business. Indonesia places English as a foreign language. It means that English
is not used as a medium of instruction in schools and not widely used as a medium of
communication in government, media, etc. As a foreign language, language learner has
different acquisition than language learner who places English as a second language. The
reason is that language learner who lives in country where English as a second language
applied in their daily life. English is used as a medium instruction and widely used as a
communication medium for government. Thus they learn English easily. It is different with
foreign language learner like Indonesian people. English is rarely used and seldom applied in
their daily life.
Based on the fact above, some schools include English in their school subject. In
Indonesia, English is still considered as a difficult subject in school. Both the teachers and the
students have a thought that learning English is hard to do. Here, teaching English will form
the students to have a good grammar. Almost all of their time in class is full of writing
sentences or composing a text. They seldom practice (to speak) English in class.
Language learners, especially young learners need activity to practice and use it,
because the purpose of studying language is to communicate each other. Unfortunately, the
process of teaching English, especially to young learners seldom brings the real world to the
students. This situation happened because of the teacher’s thought. Some of them think that
asking students to speak up is difficult. One of the reasons is that kids prefer playing with
their friends to paying attention to the teacher. This reason brings the teacher to give large
portion in textbook or students’ workbook to give activity for them. Here, the teacher ignores
the core of teaching language.
To succeed the speaking activity, the teacher should pay attention for the
environment. The key to create meaningful speaking activity in the classroom is creating the
comfortable and free environment. Kid should feel relaxed, and their social interactions with
partners should be encouraged. He should been encouraged to speak English everywhere, and
anytime because he loves to speak. It is the big advantages for the teacher to encourage their
students in speaking English (Hung: 2012).
In teaching English, the teacher should give more chances to the students to speak. So
many activities can be used to help in promoting real communication, such as having
conversation, doing role play, singing a song, and describing something. Then in the end of
learning, the students getting something in their mind about what they have learnt and this
activity will add their language acquisition. Nowadays, many linguistics and EFL teacher
agree that communicative language teaching and collaborative learning serve best for this
aim. Communicative language teaching is based on real-life situations that require
communication (Kayi: 2006). The result is students will have the opportunity of
communicating each other in the target language.
 One of ways to create communicative language teaching is information gap. Students
will create real communication with their partner and this activity can increase their talking
time. Learning language is all about practice more and more. Without giving chance to the
students to speak and practice, learning language will fail.

TEACHING SPEAKING
According to The National Capital Language Resource Center (NCLRC: 2004) the
goal of teaching speaking skills is communicative efficiency. Learners should be able to
make themselves understand by using their current proficiency to the fullest. They should try
to avoid confusion in the message due to faulty pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary, and
observe the social and cultural rules applied in each communication situation.
Many language learners regard speaking ability as the measure of knowing a
language. These learners define fluency as the ability to converse with others, much more
than the ability to read, write, or comprehend oral language. They regard speaking as the
most important skill they can acquire, and they assess their progress in terms of their
accomplishments in spoken communication.
Language learners need to recognize that speaking involves some areas of knowledge:
1) Mechanics (pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary): Using the right words in
the right order with the correct pronunciation
2) Functions (transaction and interaction): Knowing when clarity of message is
essential (transaction/information exchange) and when precise understanding is
not required (interaction/relationship building)
Speaking is a crucial part of foreign language learning and teaching. As a language
learner, they should be able to master that language orally. For many years, teaching speaking
seems to be ignored by the teacher. According to Jondeya (2011: 20) teaching English
language teachers have continued to teach speaking just as a repetition of drills or
memorization of dialogues. Nowadays, teacher has to bring the students in a real world in
order to make the students able to use the language based on the context.
According to Nunan (2003: 54), there are several principles of teaching speaking that
should be used by the teacher. They are:
1) Be aware of the differences between second language and foreign language learning
contexts
2) Give students practice with both fluency and accuracy
3) Provide opportunities for students to talk by using group work or pair work and
limiting teacher talk
4) Plan speaking tasks that involve negotiation for meaning
5) Design classroom activities that involve guidance and practice in both transactional
and interactional speaking

YOUNG LEARNER
Young learner is elementary school students who are 6 – 12 years old. They can be
divided into two groups; younger group (6 – 8 years old) and older group (9 – 12 years old).
Basically, the teachers have to remember the importance of teaching English for young
learners is creating kid’s interest in learning English (Suyanto: 2007 p. 15). In achieving the
goal, the teacher should conceive the kid characteristic to choose the appropriate method.
According to Suyanto (2007: 16), there are ten kids’ characteristics that can be used in
analyzing English teaching:
1. Generally, in the age of 5 – 7 years old, kid is egocentric. So they usually relate
what they learn or do with themselves. When they learn English, they like
learning something, which relate with their daily life such as family, favorite fruit,
 favorite food, etc. Kid feels happy when their teacher asks them about the color of
their clothes or talk about their stationary.
2. In the age of 5 – 7 years old, they feel difficult to differentiate the concrete and the
abstract one. They can not do it. So, when introduce English, the teacher should
begin the concrete things before going to the abstract things. For example: the
teacher can point things in the classroom; this is window, this is door.
3. Kids are prone to be imaginative and active. They like learning by playing games,
singing a song, or telling story. This technique will motivate them to learn
English. Playing is a part of kids’ daily life and it can be used to teach English.
4. Kids are easy to feel bored. They have short concentration and attention. To cope
their boredom, the learning activities have to be highly varied and need to be
changed each 10 – 15 minute.
5. Kids’ life is full of color and happiness. An activity involving the interesting and
colorful picture will make kid happy. Besides, singing a song can bring happiness
atmosphere to them so they will enjoy the learning process.
6. Kids like story as they like playing games. In telling story, kid can learn language
by observing and getting the message.
7. Younger groups prefer doing their assignment with their close friends. They can
not share with others and still self-centered until they are in 7 years old.
In the age of 8 – 9 years old, they can work together with others. Working
together can be formed as working in pairs or in groups.
8. In the age of 8 – 10 years old, kids have enough awareness and readiness. They
bring the readiness to the class when they learn English. In this step, kids learn the
intonation, signal, face expression and movement so those activities will help
them to understand a word or a sentence.
9. Kids like having conversation with their friends, especially when they are talking
about everything they have or they bring to school. This situation is useful in
learning English, because the teacher can conduct a speaking activity through this
situation.
10. Last but not least. The most important is that young learner is an active thinker.
They love learning something, including leaning language by doing something
such as singing a song, playing game, having conversation, making movement, or
giving signal.

TEACHING SPEAKING FOR YOUNG LEARNER

Actually, teaching speaking to young learners is full of fun. Kids usually want to use
language that they have learned to communicate. Therefore, in speaking activity, the teachers
have to pay attention to the goal of that activity. A controlled activity has the goal to practice
the language correctly and consider most to the accuracy. Therefore, the teacher can correct
the mistake at that time.
According to British Council, kids are usually less self – conscious than older
children. They are not being afraid to try out new language or make mistakes, and it is an
important (and natural) part of learning a language. Speaking activities help kids develop the
confidence they need for future English language learning.
According to Suyanto (2007: 58), based on research and interview with elementary
school students, 87% feel happy in studying English and 53% feel difficult in English.
Feeling happy in learning English is one of positive signals, because kids need to enjoy the
lesson first before they learn it more. Another positive signal from young learners is they do
not feel shy in saying something in English. Moreover, kids like to repeat what their teacher
says in class. Thus, the process of learning English has to focus on speaking ability.
 Kids’ speaking ability is defined as an ability to communicate using English pattern
appropriately with the situation (Suyanto: 2007). It is wrong when the teacher hopes that their
students can speak English fluently as adult learners have. Asking kids to speak up, answer
greeting, and answer simple question is indicator that they can communicate in English.
To make kids enjoy the learning process and able to say something in English, the
teacher should facilitate and conduct the class to motivate kids in speaking English. In other
words, the teacher must interact with kids in every situation, although it is in a simple
sentence.

INFORMATION GAP AS A MEANINGFUL ACTIVITY

According to Bio (2011), an information gap activity takes place between students,
not between a student and a teacher, though a teacher can certainly demonstrate the activity.
The two students will be asking each other questions to which they do not know the answer.
The goal of the activity is for the students to discover certain information, whether about the
other people or related to a specific activity.
It is an activity where learners are missing the information they need to complete a
task and need to talk each other to find it. This is the classic gap exploited by the
communicative approach. Student A has some information, perhaps concerning the prices of
food. Student B needs to know these prices and so B can ask A some questions to find the
information.
In this context, gap may be taken to mean difference. If there are two students, A and
B, and if A has some information, which B does not, and possibly vice versa, then there is a
difference or gap between the two students. A task which requires B to find out the
information that A has (i.e. a task which closes the gap) will provide a reason for
communication (Rees: 2003).
Information gap activities are useful for various reasons. They provide an opportunity
for extended speaking practice, they represent real communication, motivation can be high,
and they require sub-skills such as clarifying meaning and re-phrasing. Typical types of
information gap activities you might find through; describing and drawing, spot of the
difference, jigsaw readings and listening and split dictations.
According to Patrick (2012), information gap activity has some advantages. He
defined the advantages as follows:
1. The students change the mood in the classroom, the class becomes more student-
centered, enabling the teacher to change role from instructor to monitor/facilitator
2. Student talking time can be increased
3. Pair work gives students time to think, collaborate and reflect on the task in hand, in
relative ease
4. Teachers can tailor – make the content of the activity to provide suitable practice of
the language items being taught

Then he also defined the disadvantages of information gap below:

1. There may be a mismatch in the level of the students in a pair
2. Some lazy students simply copy the required information from their partner
3. Every pair completes the task at a different speed
4. But overall I feel one can live with these possible drawbacks, and most teachers
would surely agree the advantages far outweigh any disadvantages.
IMPLEMENTING INFORMATION GAP

Information gap is a kind of activity or a task. This activity will help the students in
practicing the language then re-phrasing sentence. There are so many kinds of information
gap activity, such as asking the price, finding someone who likes fruits, finding someone who
likes to do sport, and so on. Applying information gap activity can use picture or without
picture. Some of the activities will use table that contain some information and the students
must complete it. According to Patrick (2012), information gap can be applied in pair, trio
and quartet. The most important is that the teacher should decide the target language and
design the appropriate information gap variety.
Based on Sasson (2006), the teacher must consider the following issues in the
classroom:
1. Purpose: What is the purpose of the activity? For example, is the purpose to
introduce, reinforce, use or bridge the gap between letters and their corresponding
sounds? Or the purpose is to reinforce words and their meaning?
2. Organization: Who is in control - the class or the teacher? Once you develop the
necessary classroom management skills, you can effectively implement
information gap activities.
3. Length of Lesson: The element of time must be considered. How long will this
activity take?
4. Ability level: Consider the ability of the class, homogeneous or heterogeneous
groupings, and adaptations such as a backup plan when students can't do the
activity as planned.
5. Materials and procedures: What is needed for the lesson? How will the teacher
present information gap activities.
6. Who? The level of the students including the ability and grade.
7. What? What is the context for your information gap activity?
8. How? Through which new points will the main skills be introduced? Example:
Will students need to read a passage containing the new words before matching
words and their corresponding definitions in pair work?
Implementing information gap activity is easy enough. The teacher only has to
prepare it and give the right instructions. Speaking activities can be challenging to set up and
manage because the learners have not been adequately prepared for the activity and do not
know what is expected to them. Below is a kind of information gap that we used to teach first
and third elementary students in MI Banat NU Kudus, Central Java.
For first grade:
Name :
Find someone who likes……………
Do you like …………….?
Foods
No. Friend’s name

1
2
3
For third grade:
Name :
* how many ………………… do you have?
No. Name Pencil Book Ruler
1.
2.
3.
4.

Here are the steps in implementing the information gap activity:

1. Asking the students to the related material, e.g. do you like orange? Or do you
have pencil? Show me your pencil!
2. Asking the students to practice the question. This is important because it treat the
students to pronounce the correct one.
3. Giving the instruction and rule:
a. The students must find 3 or 4 friends (based on the task) who like or who have
the thing. They are not allowed to ask their close friends. They should go
around the class and do mingle.
b. They have to complete the task by asking in English. The teacher will monitor
them and remind them directly.
c. When they get the answer, they should write it on the paper.
d. There is no copying
e. The students, who had finished, go back to their chair.
4. Evaluating the information gap activity
a. Giving feedback to the students by asking their result, e.g. Sasa, who like
strawberry?; Lia, how many pencils does Sofi have?. When the students give
the answer, the teacher asks other students to re-phrase what their friends say:
b. Lia : “Sofi has four pencils”
c. The teacher points Amanda, “Amanda, Lia said that………”
d. Asking the students to re-phrase together
5. Closing the lesson by singing a song

Based on British council (2009: 106),

there are some suggestions in giving
instruction:
1. Make instructions short and concise
2. Do not give too many instructions at
once
3. Use gesture to reinforce points
4. Check understanding by asking
students to repeat the instructions
back to the teacher
CONCLUSION
Language learning is learning about the language. Not only the form of the language
but also how to use language. Language is a media to communicate between people. If the
students never use the language, they will not be able to master that language. It is crucial for
the teacher to bring the real world and invite the students to use the language based on the
context.
Information gap activity is one of activity that can be used to teach the students in
applying the language. In information gap activities, the students is looking for the real
situations (based on the task itself). Through information gap, the students are accustomed to
use the language when they are in that situation. Therefore, the language learning in
classroom is not wasted. Language class should make the students to speak up.

REFERENCES
Bio, Dr. Olenka Bilash. 2011. Information Gap Activities. An article posted in
http://www2.education.ualberta.ca. Accessed on 28th April 2013.

British Council. 2009. Motivating Learning. Thailand: British Council.

Hung, Tranthi Trangn. 2012. Motivate Learning Through Meaningful Speaking Activities. An
article posted in 12th Spetember 2012. Available online at
http://peltjournal.wordpress.com/. Accessed on 19th February 2013.

Jondeya, Rania Sameer. 2011. The Effectiveness of Using Information Gap on Developing
Speaking Skills for the Eighth Graders in Gaza Governorate Schools. Unpublished
Dissertation. Gaza: Al- Azhar University.

Kayi, Hayriye. 2006. Teaching Speaking: Activities to Promote Speaking in a Second

Language. Journal of Teaching English as Second Language (TESL), Vol. XII, No. 11,
November 2006. Available online at http://iteslj.org/Articles/Kayi-Teaching
Speaking.html. Accessed on 19th February 2013.

Nunan, David. 2003. Practical English Language Teaching (Methodology).

Oxford University Press. 2013. Oxford Dictionaries.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/language. Accessed on 3rd May 2013.

Patrick. 2012. Information Gap. An article posted in English Material. Available online at
http://englishteachingmaterial.com. Accessed on 28th April 2013.

Rees, Gareth. 2003. Find The Gap - Increasing Speaking In Class. An article posted in 8th
October 2003. Available online at http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/ . Accessed on
19th February 2013

Sasson, Dorit. 2006. Information Gap Activities. An article posted in 1st December 2006.
Available online at http://suite101.com. Accessed on 3rd May 2013.

Suyanto, Kasihani K.E. 2007. English for Young Leaners. Jakarta: Bumi Aksara.
The National Capital Language Resource Center. 2004. www.nclrc.org. Washington.
Accessed on 22nd June 2012).