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
Information-gap activities are effective for students to enhance their speaking ability in the target language. This is supported by Pica’s statement
2005:2 that among the most productive tasks for SLA are those in which interaction must lead to a specific goal or outcome and reaching it requires a
verbal exchange of information. Further, citing Long and Gass et.al, she declares that these tasks set up conditions for participants to modify their
interaction through the negotiation of meaning. As participants repeat and rephrase their utterances to make sure their information is accurate and
understood, they also draw attention to the form in which their utterances are encoded.
Information-gap activities as communicative activities are effective to improve students’ participation in speaking. It was because students speak
more willingly when they have a reason for communicating such as to solve a problem or to give other classmates some information they need Spatt et.al,
2005: 35. In line with this, Harmer 2001: 85 declares that the information-
37 gap is a key to the enhancement of communicative purpose and the desire to
communicate. As an information-gap is a fundamental principle of communication,
accordingly, information-gap activities as communicative activities have four contributions to language learning according to Littlewood 1981:17. Those
contributions are as follows. 1
They provide ‘whole task practice’ In considering how people learn to carry out various kinds of skilled
performance, it is often useful to distinguish between a training in the part-skills of which the performance is composed and b practice in the
total skill , sometimes called ‘whole-task practice’. In foreign language
learnings, the means for providing students with whole-task practice in the classroom is through various kinds of communicative activities such as
information- gap activities, structured in order to suit the students’ level of
ability. 2
They improve motivation The students’ ultimate objective is to take part in communication
with other students. Their prior conception of language is as a means of communication rather than as a structural system. Their learning is then
more likely to make sense of them if it can build on this conception. 3
They allow natural learning Language learning takes place inside the students and teachers might
find some frustration to control many aspects influencing the students’
38 learning process. It is likely that many aspects of language learning can
take place only through natural learning processes that operate when a student is involved in using the language for communication. Therefore,
information-gap activities as forms of communicative activities are important parts of the total learning process.
4 They can create a context which supports learning
Information-gap activities as communicative activities provide opportunities for positive personal relationships to develop among
students and between them and the teacher. These relationships can help to ‘humanize’ the classroom and to create an environment that supports
each of the individuals in the class in hisher effort to learn.
c. The Kinds of Information-Gap Activities
