they must devise an itinerary which would enable them to visit, say, five places during one day, spending at least half an hour at each.
i. Reconstructing story-sequences: a picture-script story without dialogue is cut up into its separate pictures. One picture is handed to each member of a group.
Wi thout seeing each other’s pictures, the learners in the group must decide on the
original sequence and reconstruct the story. Based on those activities, information gap activities can encourage the students to
speak in English. In information gap activities there are many kinds of activities that can be applied in teaching speaking. When the teachers give those activities, the
students are eager to pursue the course.
3. Using Information Gap Activities in Teaching Speaking
Teaching speaking through communicative activities as information gap activities is different from the conventional or traditional one. According to Legutke and
Thomas there are several examples of various actualizations of the information gap activities as a technique:
22
Example 1: Spot the difference adult and high-school learners of English at Intermediate level
a. The class is divided into pairs and they are given a picture. b. Student A and student B has different number of small alteration of that picture.
c. Then without showing the picture each other, they describe the picture to each other so they can find the differences of that picture.
Example 2: Reassembling a text a. The class is divided into sub-groups of five and each group is given a text but the
text cut into several parts according to the number of paragraph in the text. b. Each student in the sub-group reads a piece of the text and shares the information
with the others. After they have gotten those entire paragraphs that have been shared, they try to rearrange the paragraphs.
22
See: Micahel Legutke and Howard Thomas, Process and Experience in the Language Classroom, London: Longman, 1991, pp. 96
—99.
The information gap activities are done when the students „A’ have shared about
the gain information to the student s „B’ who do not have that information. When they
have already completed the information, the activity is finished.
C. Conventional Technique
1. Definition of Conventional Technique
Conventional technique has been used by many teachers in educational situation since long time ago. According to Bahrani and Soltani, conventional or traditional
technique in teaching speaking means that the teachers often give the form of drills through one person asks a question and another give an answer where the form of the
questions are structured and predictable.
23
It is also supported by McDonough and Shaw who state that in the former, speaking activities were designed more controlled
activities.
24
In addition, Celce-Murcia reports that the teachers have the main role in controlled practice by providing the forms to be presented in the class.
25
In conclusion, conventional technique is one of the latest language teaching techniques which does not emphasize
in students’ performance and communicative activities but it more emphasizes in
students’ repetition drills and memorization of the materials. For instance, in teaching conversation the teachers have provided the
dialogue and then ask the students to repeat it by whole students, sub-group of the students, and individual drilling. The drilling activities give to the students to be
practiced allotted. Moreover, the teacher has the prominent role in teaching and learning activity. The teachers view that the students has a hole to be fulfilled of
knowledge by the teachers.
2. Teaching Through Conventional Technique
The technique which is used by the teacher is one of the important things that have to do in the classroom. It is done in order to achieve the objective of teaching
and learning activity. One of the most popular techniques is using lecturing in the
23
See: Taher Bahrani and Rahmatollah Soltani, op. cit., p. 27.
24
See: JO McDonough and Christoper Shaw, op. cit., p. 143.
25
See: Marianne Celce-Murcia, op. cit., p. 128.
classroom. In the lecturing class the students sit quietly and listen to the teachers’
explanation. As Sanjaya explains in his book:
26
“Metode ceramah dapat diartikan sebagai cara menyajikan pelajaran melalui penuturan secara lisan atau penjelasan langsung kepada sekelompok siswa.”
Based on the definition above, it is clear that in lecturing method the teachers are encouraged to be covered the classroom in delivering the materials for the pupils. In
addition, another technique that used in this method is using memorization dialogue. It is not complicated to carry out this technique; the students are familiar with it.
According to Larsen and Freeman, memorization can be done in teaching vocabulary, grammar rules, or verb conjugations.
27
For instance, when the teachers are eager to teach vocabulary items he or she just gives the list of words which have been
memorized, it is presented in both of target language and the students’ native
language. Nevertheless, the students just memorize it without understanding the meaning of the sentence, because it is emphasized in accuracy.
Based on the steps above, the conventional method is commonly used in the classroom from the basic level until upper level by the teachers from many years ago
but it is also depend on the s tudents’ need and capacity. In the communicative
method as in information gap activities where the students give their chance to express their ideas using the target language learned especially in learning speaking.
The students give the freedom to increase their knowledge by themselves; the teacher as their facilitator. Whereas, in conventional method the teachers is the dominant
person who deliver the knowledge, the students just take it literally and they are rare to speak up in learning English definitely.
26
Wina Sanjaya, Strategi Pembelajaran, Jakarta: Kencana Prenada Media Group, 2006, p. 145.
27
See: Diane Larsen and Freeman, Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 20.
