33 activities in which the practice in using language within real communicative
context is the focus, in which real information is exchanged and in which the language use is not totally predictable. In addition to all of these, Richards
2008:2 also suggests that speaking tasks should have some information-gap. This refers to the fact that in the real communication, people normally
communicate in order to get information they do not possess before. Besides principles proposed by Richards above, Brown 2000:275
elaborates more particularly the principles for designing speaking techniques to be used in the classroom to teach speaking. Those principles are 1 using
techniques that cover the spectrum of student needs, from language-based focus on accuracy to message-based focus on interaction, meaning, and
fluency, 2 providing intrinsically motivating techniques, 3 encouraging the use of authentic language in meaningful contexts, 4 providing appropriate
feedback and correction, 5 capitalizing on the natural link between speaking and listening, 6 giving students opportunities to initiate oral communication,
and 7 encouraging the development of speaking strategies.
3. Information-Gap Activities
a. The Overview of Information-Gap Activities
Information-gap, as what has been touched upon previously, is a crucial feature of communication. In the real life context, some communication
between people occurs when they have an information gap. Thus, by having the communication, they are trying to bridge the gap.
34 As what has been elaborated previously, Morrow 1981 states that there
are three important features of communication: information-gap, choice, feedback. This means that information-gap activities are means of replicating
real life communication to activities in a language classroom context. The give- and-take exchanges of messages in the activities will enable students to create
discourse that conveys their intentions in real life communication Richards and Renandya, 2002: 208.
In line with this, Richards 2006:17 links the characteristics of communication in the real life to authentic communication that can be adopted
to activities in a language classroom context. He states that this kind of authentic communication is likely to occur in the classroom if students go
beyond practice of language forms for their own sake and use their linguistic and communicative resources in order to obtain information. In so doing, they
will draw available vocabulary, grammar and communication strategies to complete a task.
Long as cited in Pica 1986: 307 defines information-gap activities as tasks which require the exchange of information among all participants, each
of whom possesses some piece of information not known to, but needed by, all other participants to solve the problem. He claims that such activities promote
optimal conditions for students to adjust their input to each other’s levels of comprehension and thereby facilitate their second language acquisition, or
foreign language acquisition in Indonesia context. The following is an example of information-gap activities.
35 Students are to work in pairs. In each pair, the teacher labels one student
as student A and the other student as student B. The teacher gives each of student A and B a card that they must not show to each other. Each
card contains an identity of someone card A and B are different. Each of student A and B has to introduce themselves. While student A is
introducing herself based on the identity she has on her card, student B has to listen to her and may ask any question he has to find out or he is
interested in, and vice versa.
Meanwhile, if the teacher asks the students to introduce themselves as who they really are, while in fact they have known each other, the activity is
not an information-gap activity. There is no communication occurs in the activity since the students have already known their friends. In a simple
illustration, they do not need the activity to really know what their fri ends’
names are. Thus, it can be concluded that Information gap activities are parts of
communicative tasks in which a participant of the activities has some information which is not owned by others. When one of them asks something,
she does not know what others are going to say. In order to reach the communication goal, the students have to exchange information to each other.
These activities are attempts to lead students to speak a lot by focusing on the meaning they want to deliver and the purpose of their communication instead
of the language usage they have to obey. Of course, this does not mean that the accuracy of the language production is ignored. However, the main intention
of the information-gap activities is to make the students speak a lot and fluently without being worried of making mistakes.
36 Madya 2013: 61 states that information-gap is the most fundamental
concept of the whole area of learning in communicative language teaching and learning. She explains that any kinds of communicative activities should be
designed thoroughly by referring to this concept. Thus, one of the teachers’
duties is to set a situation in which an information-gap exists and motivate the students to learn to bridge the gap by using the target language appropriately.
b. The Contributions of Information-Gap Activities to Language Learning
