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The benefits of this technique to my students have aroused my interest and encouraged me to carry out this research “Using Information Gap Activities to motivate students in speaking les

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ABSTRACT ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF CHARTS vi

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 2

4 Methodology of the study 2

5 Research hypothesis 2

6 Design of the study 3

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Teaching speaking 4

1.1.1 Concepts of speaking 4

1.1.2 The role of speaking in foreign language teaching 4

1.1.3 Factors affecting English speaking ability 6

1.2 Information gap activities 6

1.2.1 Concept of information gap activities 7

1.2.1.1 Concept of information gap 7

1.2.1.2 Concept of information gap activities 7

1.2.2 Benefits of information gap activities 8

1.2.3 Teachers’ roles in information gap activities 9

1.2.4 Forms of information gap activities 10

1.2.5 Some popular information gap activities 11

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 2.1 An action research 13

2 2 Research questions 13

2.3 The informants 13

2 4 The action research procedure 14

2 5 Description of Data Collection Instruments 16

2.5.1 Questionnaires 16

2.5.2 Observations 17

2.5.3 Tests 17

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS 18

3.1 Data collected from preliminary investigation stage – Questionnaire 1 18

3.1.1 Students’ attitude towards speaking skill 18

3.1.2 Factors causing students’ low motivation in speaking English 20

3.2 Intervention 21

3.2.1 The aims of the intervention 21

3.2.2 The intervention of information gap activities 21

3.3 Data collected from the intervention stage 26

3.3.1 Data collected from Observation sheets 26

3.3.2 Data collected from Questionnaire 2 27

3.3.2 Data collected from the tests 29

3.3.2 Data from pre-test 29

3.3.2 Data from post-test 30

PART THREE: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION 33

1 Summary of the study 33

2 Suggestions for the teachers 33

3 Limitations and suggestions for further research 35

REFERENCES 36 APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1: Questionnaire 1 I APPENDIX 2: Questionnaire 2 III APPENDIX 3: Observation sheet 1 – Overall class motivation IV APPENDIX 4: Data on overall class motivation V APPENDIX 5: Samples of the tests VI

PART I INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

It is undeniable that English has been an essential means of communication and more and more Vietnamese students are aware of the importance of English to their study and their future The ability to communicate in English clearly and efficiently contributes

to the success of the learners at school and success later in every phase of life Speaking plays an important role because without it, communication cannot take place directly between people However, speaking is generally considered the most difficult to learn among the four skills in English language learning

In order to teach the students English speaking so that they become more interested

in and maintain their interest in speaking learning The English teachers should provide a rich environment where meaningful communication can take place Communication occurs when there is lack of information between or among a group of people They have to exchange to share the information they have with other people The efficient activities to motivate students in speaking lessons are Information Gap Activities This kind of activity makes students more active in learning process and at the same time makes their learning more meaningful and interesting

At Phuong Dong University, non-English major students have to learn English as a compulsory subject At the end of the term, students will be examined on four skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing Speaking is considered as an important skill which accounts for 25% of the total mark in the final test In the final test, students work in pairs to make a conversation about a given situation and then discuss a given topic Most of the students do not know how to make a conversation; they are very passive in making a conversation One of the reasons for this situation is that they lack practice in using English in real communication situations These students come from different provinces with different language levels When they were at high school, they got used to Translation Grammar teaching method in which the teachers focused on the rules of grammar structures and practiced the drills to remember those structures They did not have chances to practice speaking skills When entering university, students have awareness of the roles of English to their future They themselves have changed the ways

to learn English However, the teachers must find out suitable techniques which create a

need for students to use the structures they have learnt to communicate with each other to make a meaningful conversation In my opinion, one effective solution to this problem is using Information Gap Activities to encourage students to use English for communicating The benefits of this technique to my students have aroused my interest and encouraged me

to carry out this research “Using Information Gap Activities to motivate students in speaking lesson for the first-year non-English major students at Phuong Dong University” Hopefully, this study will make a small contribution to the implementation of

Information Gap Activities in improving speaking skills for students at Phuong Dong University

2 Aim and objective of the study

Within a framework of a minor thesis, the study is aimed at using information gap activities to motivate students in speaking lessons for the first-year non-English major students at Phuong Dong University In order to study the subject matter deeply, the writer focuses on:

- Describing the importance of Information Gap Activities to motivate students to speak English

- Using Information gap Activities to motivate students in speaking lessons

- Providing suggestions for English teachers to prepare English speaking lessons at Phuong Dong University

3 Scope of the study

Due to the limit of the thesis, the study cannot cover all the speaking activities, but focus on information gap activities to motivate students in speaking lessons The study was conducted on the first-year non-English major students at Phuong Dong University

4 Methodology of the study

The method employed in this study is an action research, with the uses of three instruments: observations, questions and pre-tests and post-tests All comments, remarks, recommendations and conclusion are based on the data analysis

The combination of different instruments used in this research would help to gain reliable data and a close investigation into the problems that the students were having

5 Research hypothesis

Students lack practice in speaking English in real communicating situations is one

of the main reasons for the students’ inability to make a meaningful conversation One solution is using information gap activities to motivate students The questions to be dealt with are:

1 What are the causes of the students’ low motivation in English speaking activities?

2 What is the importance of using information gap activities in motivating students in speaking lessons?

3 What suggestions are given for teachers to apply information gap activities at Phuong Dong University?

6 Design of the study

The study is intended to consist of three parts as follows:

Part I is the introduction which give reasons for choosing the thesis, aims and objects and

scope of the study as well as the methodology and research hypothesis of the study

Part II is the development which will be divided into three chapters:

- Chapter I: LITERATURE REVIEW provides concepts of teaching speaking and the concepts of information gap activities

- Chapter II: METHODOLOGY provides the readers with the definitions of the action research, the data collection instruments Detailed information about the research procedure and the participants of the study is also presented

- Chapter III: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS analyzes the data collected from the preliminary investigation stage to form the hypothesis of the study An intervention plan is worked out and implemented The data from the intervention stage are collected and analyzed to make an evaluation of the effectiveness of the intervention

Part III is the Conclusion which reviews the study, presents the suggestions for the

teacher, the limitations of the study and suggestions for further study

PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Teaching speaking

For many years, teaching speaking has been undervalued and English teacher have continue to teach speaking just as a repetition of drills or memorization of dialogues However, today’s world requires that the goal of teaching speaking should improve students’ communicative skills, because only in that way, students can express themselves and learn how to follow the social and cultural rules appropriate in each communicative circumstance

1.1.1 Concepts of speaking

In this section, I will consider what we mean by “speaking” In language teaching,

we often talk about four language skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing Speaking can be regarded as the productive, oral skill

Speaking consists of producing systematic verbal utterances to convey meaning According to Florez (1999, p.1), speaking is “an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information” It is often spontaneous, open-ended, and evolving”

In order to speak accurately and fluently, students need to improve some areas of knowledge As for Burnkart (1998), students need to recognize that speaking involves three areas of knowledge including mechanics (pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary), functions (transaction and interaction) and social and cultural rules and norms However there areas are quite difficult for beginning learners, and they should be taught gradually

Speaking is making use words in an ordinary voice, uttering words, knowing and being able to use language; expressing in words and making speech Therefore, we can infer that speaking is the ability to make use of words or a language to express oneself in

an ordinary voice In short, the speaking skill is the ability to perform the linguistics knowledge in actual communication

1.1.2 The role of speaking in foreign language teaching

It is known that language has been divided into different skill areas based on the purpose of analysis and instruction In view of language teaching there are mainly four macro-skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing It has been accepted for many years

that communication is the proper aim for language teaching That means we learn a language so as to communicate well in that language

For that reason, speaking skill plays an important role in foreign language teaching because effective speaking ability helps learners not only to acquire the language better but also to communicate successfully Speaking skill should be taught and practiced in the language classroom The language course truly enables the students to communicate with others in English, so teachers and students should pay more attention to speaking skill However, many English teachers still spend a lot of time on listening, reading and writing and do not focus on speaking Therefore, there should be a good balance to practice among four skills in classroom

According to Ur (1996:120), speaking seems intuitively the most important of all four skills Speaking is regarded as the first step to confirm who knows or does not know a language Ur (1996) indicates that people who know a language are referred to as

“speakers” of that language, as if speaking included all other kinds of knowing; and many

if not most foreign language learners are primarily interested in learning to speak

Hence, having dealt with the importance of oral skills in language teaching and learning it is essential that language teachers should pay adequate attention to teaching speaking skill The development of communicative skills can take place only if learners have motivation and opportunity to express their own identity and to relate to the people around them That requires the kind of learning atmosphere which gives them a sense of security and value as individuals In turn, this atmosphere depends, to a large extent, on the existence of interpersonal relationships which do not create inhibitions, but are supportive and accepting

In order to improve students’ speaking ability, for teachers, they should play a positive role in helping students get involved in speaking activities in the classroom Rather than leading students to pure memorization, the teacher can provide a richlanguage environment where students have real communication, authentic materials and meaningful tasks that promote oral language Gradually, students will know how to use their target language correctly and communicatively in everyday conversations

1.1.3 Factors affecting English speaking abilities

There are many factors that influence the success or failure in learning English speaking However, the two most important factors are motivation, attitude (Gardner and

Lambert: 1972)

Motivation is seen as “a key consideration in determining the preparedness of

learners to communicate, (Gardner, 1985: 10) while Harmer (2001) defines motivation

simply as “some kind of internal drive which pushes someone to do things in order to

achieve something” According to Carol (1962), motivation decides the amount of time a

learner will spend on the task of language learning She claims: “The more motivation a

learner has, the more time he or she will spend on learning an aspect of a second language” (Carol, 1962) Motivation not only plays an important role in learning, it helps

the teacher as well Lite (2002) confirms that “Motivation is the backbone of any

classroom When the students are motivated, the teacher can perform his/her job the best.”

Teachers are often familiar with two basic types of motivation: extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation Harmer (2001) states that extrinsic motivation is caused by such outside factors as the need to pass an exam, the hope of possibility for future travel, etc In contrast, intrinsic motivation is caused by inside factors like the enjoyment of the learning process itself or by a desire to make them feel better

It can be concluded that motivation is significant in foreign language learning because when learners set the goal of learning a foreign language, motivation helps them produce effort and have a positive attitude to obtain the goal Therefore, in order to be successful, language learners really need motivation to continue their learning

Attitude is the second factor which has an influence on the language learning

Gardner and Lambert (1972) defined attitude as the persistence that a learner has to follow

an object Language learning attitude has a relationship to motivation Language learners who have extrinsic or intrinsic motivation will have the more positive attitude than those without motivation or who consider language learning a compulsory subject

1.2 Information gap activities

Teachers are often searching for activities to make their classroom more interactive; language teachers in particular are also looking for activities that they create a need for learners to use the target language Whatever activity the students are involved in,

if it is communicative and if it is really promoting language use, the students should have a

desire to communicate Information Gap activities are such excellent activities because they are designed so that students have a reason or a purpose for speaking When students have a purpose of speaking, they can center on the content of what is being said, not the language forms that is being used So it can be inferred that these activities make the language classroom experience more meaningful and authentic

1.2.1 Concept of information gap activities

1.2.1.1 Concept of information gap

Information gap refers to a situation in communication between two or more people where information is known by only one of those According to Johnson (1979) and Morrow (1981) the major purpose of communication is to bridge an information gap If the speaker and hearer are both in possession of the same information prior to beginning their communication, communication cannot take place Therefore, a communicative methodology will need to create situations in which students share information not previously known by all participants in the communication

In Communicative Language Teaching in order to promote real communication between students, there must be an information gap between them and between them and their teacher Without such a gap, the classroom activities will be mechanical and artificial Information gap can take place in three ways: One student has some information and the other student has to find it out, one student has information and tells it to the other student

or both students have different information and they tell each other

1.2.1.2Concepts of information gap activities

According to Harmer (2002:88) one type of speaking activity is called “information gap”-where two speakers have different parts of information making up a whole Because they have different information, there is a “gap” between them

The information gap activity is a kind of structured output activities These are like completing a task, for example obtaining missing information, conveying telephone message and expressing an opinion It sets up practicing on specific items of language Structured output activities lead the students to practice specific features of language and brief sentence, not in extended discourse It can form an effective bridge between instructor modeling and communicative output because they are partly authentic and partly artificial By Information gap activities, the teacher is able to improve the students’

speaking ability because it is an interesting technique to apply in classroom The students become comfortable to say everything The teacher only gives simple explanation about the activity and reviews the vocabulary needed for the activity The students get opportunity to develop their communication competence more freely

At the start of an information-gap activity, each pair of students is provided with similar but different information, usually on handouts labeled A and B They exchange information by using relevant language not by looking at each other’s handouts so that by the end of the interexchange they are both in possession of the total amount of information

1.2.2 Benefits of information gap activities

There are a lot of benefits to using information gap activities Firstly, information gap activities create students opportunities to speak in target language for an extended period of time The students should transfer the information so that they get the complete information The activities create plenty communication among students Information gap activities allow each student to use the time effectively They do not need to sit on their chairs and wait until one-to-one or group-to-group presentation is finished Moreover, the classroom activities are fairly distributed, every student has chance to speak Classroom will not be dominated by talkative students

Secondly, these activities force students to communicate in “real” English The material prepared to use in these activities can be motivating and fun for many students Thirdly, Information Gap activities are useful because they are very meaningful An information gap activity focuses on two aspects: attention to information and the necessity

of communicative interaction to reach the objective In other words, as Scrivener (1994,p.62) further explains, the aim of an information gap activity is to “get learner to use the language they are learning to interact in realistic and meaningful ways, usually involving exchanges of information” In so doing they will draw available vocabulary, grammar and communication strategies to complete the task All students are involved in the process equally and they are all moving towards a specific purpose Each student has the task of finding out certain information, and therefore must find a way in which to ask for this information

Last but not least, Motivation is usually quite high in these activities The content

of information gap can be various based on the students’ level and curiosity These activities help the students move from working in a more structured environment into a

more communicative environment and they are hopefully using lots of the target language, and in the process discovering where they have gaps

1.2.3 Teachers’ roles in information gap activities

As with any type of classroom procedure, teachers need to play a number of different roles during the speaking activities However, all the roles have the same purpose

is “to create the best conditions for learning In a sense, then, teachers are a means to an end: an instrument to see that learning take place” (Byrne, 1991)

Wright (1987) proposed two major teacher roles in the classroom: the first one is to create the conditions under which learning can take place; the second one is instructional function Littlewood (1981) used only one term “facilitator” to encompass these two roles

in the communicative language teaching Breen and Candlin (1980) added two other roles and thus the teacher has three roles in communicative classroom: the first is to act as a facilitator of the communication process, the second is to act as a participant and the third

is to act as an observer and learner

Facilitator: As a facilitator of the communication process, the teacher has to perform in a

variety of specific roles:

(1) He/she is the material provider and activity initiator The students may have difficulties

in beginning the communicative information-gap activities directly because they lack the knowledge of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation and skills So the teacher should be the material provider and activity initiator, who supply structural activities such as lists of words and phrases that may be useful in the later communicative activities, different types

of drill or question-and-answer practice These learning activities aim to provide students with a frequent command of the linguistic system After that the teacher should give activities that link between the structural and vocabulary and their potential functional meaning

(2) He/ She is the organizer of the classroom activities According to J Harmer (1991), of all the roles it is the teacher as organizer that is the most important and difficult “The success of many activities depend on good organization and on the students knowing exactly what they are to do A lot of time can be wasted if the teacher omits to give students vital information or issues conflicting and confusing instructions The main aims

of the teacher when organizing an activity are to tell the students what they are to talk about, to give clear instructions about what exactly their task is, to get the activity going, and then organize feedback when it is over This sounds easy, but it can be disastrous if teachers have not thought out exactly what they are going to say beforehand.” In addition

to this, the teacher has to break the whole into pairs or groups, and decide on procedures of pair, group or class work When the information gap is being filled, the teacher has to walk around the classroom and make sure the activity is going smoothly As an organizer in class, the teacher can be the error-corrector, or as a consultant

(3) He/ She may be the error-corrector: When students are in the middle of a speaking activity, over-correction may inhibit them and take the communicativeness out of the activity On the other hand, helpful and gentle correction may get students out of difficult misunderstanding and hesitations

(4) He/ She may be the consultant or adviser: The teacher walks in the classroom and helps where necessary or when asked The students must have questions about the language items and the material And the teacher’s presence in this case may be important support for many students

Participant: Harmer (1991) suggests that teachers should be good animators when asking

students to produce language Sometimes this can be achieved by setting up an activity clearly and with enthusiasm At other times, however, teachers may want to participate in discussion or role-plays themselves That way they can prompt covertly, introduce new information to help the activity along, ensure continuing student engagement, and generally maintain a creative atmosphere However, when engaging in such activities, the teacher has to be clear that he/ she should act as one equal in position to the students

Observer and learner: When the independent activity is in progress he/ she may move

around the classroom in order to monitor the strengths and weaknesses of the students for planning future activities

1.2.4 Forms of information gap activities

Information gap activities are forms of communicative activities in the speaking class In order to get the most proficiency, the teacher can divide the class into pairs or groups In each pair or each group, one acts as the asker, the other the answerer They

discuss for a few minutes and they change the role According to Doff (1996), Information gap activity may take three forms: (1) One student has some information and the other has

to find it by asking questions; (2) One student has some information and tells it to the other student; (3) Both students have different information and they tell each other or exchange their information

1.2.5 Some popular information gap activities

Underhill (1987) asserts that variety of techniques can be used in information gap activity Firstly, they may be peer or group interview Two students set out questions and answers to get certain things about each other Secondly, they may be peer or group description and recreation information in which one describes a picture or a design to another student who has constructed the model from the description alone without seeing the original Thirdly, they can be game like (Harmer, 1998) such as describing and drawing, describing and guessing, finding the differences and completing a story, etc A variety of Information gap activities can be used to develop speaking skills Below are some of common ones:

*Filling the gaps in a schedule or timetable: Partner A holds an airline timetable with

some of the arrival and departure times missing Partner B has the same timetable but with different blank spaces The two partners are not permitted to see each other's timetables and must fill in the blanks by asking each other appropriate questions The features of language that are practiced would include questions beginning with "when" or "at what time." Answers would be limited mostly to time expressions like "at 8:15" or "at ten in the evening."

*Completing the picture: Student A has an incomplete picture of a living room He/ She

has to ask student B who has a complete picture to find out where the things in the given box go and then draw them in the correct place Student B answers student A’s question about the things in the box to help him/ her complete the picture

*Finding differences: The two students in each pair have pictures which are identical

except for some important differences They do not look at each other’s pictures, but try to find the differences by describing their picture

* Talking about yourself: The students themselves are often an underused resources We

can use their lives and feelings for any number of interpersonal exchanges For example, the teacher puts the students in pairs and asks them to tell each other how they feel about

their name and what name they would choose for themselves if they had to choose one that was different from the one they have Or students are put in pairs at random and told to discover find things they have in common This encourages them to cover a number of areas and topics including musical tastes, sports, families, etc

* Completing a Map/ Giving Directions: Two or more sets of maps are used Some

details are given on each of the maps, but on each student’s map certain places would be deleted and the names of these places would be listed at the bottom The task is to ask each other where the places are located to complete the map

* Problem-solving: According to Byrne (1988), problem-solving has been used to group

together a wide range of activities that require students to find “solutions” to problems of different kinds

Many of these problems involve processes that we commonly use in real life as follows:

- We frequently hypothesize links between two things (events, actions, people, etc.)

- We detect differences (real or imaginary)

- We grade things according to criteria (subjective or objective)

Clearly, problem-solving is believed to be necessary and suited to students As students are put in some situations that are similar to the real life, they actively join in the activities because of the feeling that they are doing with their language, taking the risks of

experimenting what they have learnt Moreover, the lessons can become more practical and interesting to them

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY

2.1 An action research

Action research was used as the research method for this study The study uses questionnaires, observation, pre-test and post-test to work out the importance of using information gap activities in motivating students in speaking lessons Action research was used in this study for some reasons Firstly, the researcher can combine two duties at the same time - teaching and researching, because there are positive effects on both our knowledge and our practice Secondly, it is beneficial to both teachers and learners since it

is concerned with improving the immediate learning environment (Wallace, 2001) Thirdly, it is a fancy way of studying what is happening and decide how to make it a better place, and it is manageable

2.2 Research questions

As stated earlier in the introduction, the study tries to investigate the following questions:

1 What are the causes of the students’ low motivation in English speaking activities?

2 What is the importance of using information gap activities in motivating students in speaking lessons?

3 What suggestions are given for teacher to apply information gap activities at Phuong Dong University?

2.3 The informants

The study was conducted with the participation of 64 students in 2 classes 508A23 and 508A 24 – Finance and Banking Department at Phuong Dong University (30 students from class 508A23 were in control group and 34other students from class 508A24 are in experimental group) They were all first-year non-English major students, who were doing the second term of the first year at Phuong Dong University They were almost at the same age of 19 Most of them have been learning English for 7 years, 5 of them have been learning English for 3 years They are required to attend General English course Their level of English proficiency ranges from beginning to low intermediate level The textbook used in their first-year General English course is New Headway Elementary (the third

edition) by Liz and John Soars The classes meet twice a week, each meeting lasts for three 45-minute periods

2 4 The action research procedure

There are several ways in which the steps of action research have been analyzed Kemmis&Mc Taggart (1988) suggests that action research has four steps which progress as

a spiraling and evolving process: planning, action, observation and reflection Susman (1983) distinguishes five phases to be conducted within each research cycle: (1) Diagnosing: identifying or defining a problem, (2) Action planning: considering alternative courses of action, (3) Taking action: selecting a course of action, (4) Evaluating: studying the consequences of an action, and (5) Specifying learning: identifying general findings Burn (1999) considered the action research process as a sequence of cycles which consists

of eleven phases: exploring, identifying, planning, collecting data, analyzing/reflecting, hypothesizing, intervening, observing, reporting, writing and presenting

In this study, Nunan’s action research model (1992) was applied as it is easy to carry out in the teachers' own classroom in limited time and the steps are clear cut to follow This model includes six small steps: initiation, preliminary investigation, hypothesis, intervention, evaluation, and dissemination, which were presented in the table below

Initiation The teacher notices a problem in class

Preliminary investigation The teacher spends time observing the class and taking notes of

their behavior Hypothesis After observation, the teacher forms a question or hypothesis as to

the cause of the problem Intervention The teacher tries several solution to solve the problem

This research was implemented during 12 weeks starting from week 1 of the course Based

on the selected model, the following steps were done one after the other The description of the six step procedure is presented as follows:

* Step 1: Initiation (week 1 to week 2)

Observing the first three speaking lessons, the researcher realized that the students’ learning motivation and their participation in speaking activities were low Therefore, she decided to identify factors affecting the students’ learning motivation in speaking lessons

and the first research question formed was: "What are the causes of the students’ low motivation in English speaking activities?"

* Step 2: Preliminary investigation (From week 3 to week 4)

Data about the learners which may be factors affecting students’ motivation in English speaking activities were collected in week 4 in order to confirm the problem stated in step

1 and find out the causes of low motivation (using questionnaire 1, see Appendix 1)

* Step 3: Hypothesis

The analysis and discussion of the initial data led to the following hypothesis:

Using information gap activities to motivate students in speaking lessons

* Step 4: Intervention (from week 5 to week 12)

Based on the analysis of the data collected from questionnaire, the writer wrote lesson plans and prepared for plan implementation Speaking lesson plans for units 3, 4,5 and 6 were designed In these speaking lessons, Information Gap was used a main technique to motivate the students to speak

In speaking lessons of units 3,4, 5 and 6, the newly designed lesson plans were applied with the same group of students During the 8 weeks of the intervention, the speaking lessons were handled in a different way, using Information Gap activities The lessons were observed using Observation sheet (Appendix 3) right after every lesson to measure students’ interest, enthusiasm, persistence with learning tasks After the planned implementation finished, Questionnaire 2 (Appendix 2) was conducted to gather information about the students’ attitude towards using information activities in speaking lessons

* Step 5: Evaluation: Questionnaire 2 was also analyzed to gather information about the

students’ attitude towards using information activities in speaking lessons Through the students’ responses, the researcher could evaluate the effectiveness of these activities exactly

* Step 6: Dissemination

The action research procedure and its results were reorganized and presented in form of a thesis, which was shared with the researchers’ colleagues and some other teachers, especially younger ones

2.5 Description of Data Collection Instruments

In order to collect the data, the researcher used a combination of 3 instruments: Questionnaires, Observations and Tests to guarantee the objectiveness of the data

2.5.1 Questionnaires

Questionnaires are used to tap into the opinions and ideas of our learners and we do this by asking questions The answers are usually recorded in some ways so that they become available for subsequent reflection and analysis (Wallace, 2001) In this study, two questionnaires were designed because they provided the researcher with responses which could be easily quantified and analyzed

Questionnaire 1 contains 4 questions designed to gather information about the students’

reasons for learning English speaking, their attitudes towards learning English speaking, their frequency of unwillingness to speak English in class and the factors leading to their low motivation in English speaking

Questionnaire 2 contains 4 questions designed to gather information about the students’

attitude towards using information gap in teaching speaking after the eight weeks of plan implementation

To make sure that the students understood the questions, the researcher spent about 30 minutes guiding them to answer and explaining difficult terms when she delivered the questionnaires to the students

2.5.2 Observations

Observation sheet (Adapted from Peacock (1997)) was to explore the overall level of

class motivation including the following components: learners’ interest, concentration, enjoyment, enthusiasm, persistence with the learning task Each item in this sheet was scored on a scale of 1 (low) to 5 (high) The maximum possible mark by Observation sheet

1 was 40

2.5.3 Tests

All pupils were tested at two points in form of achievement tests which cover and focus on measuring what language the learners have learned as the results of teaching (Mcnamara: 2000) before the intervention began (pre-test), and again after all pupils had received the program (post-test) The purposes of the pre-test and post-test were:

● Pre-test – to establish a benchmark of the subjects’ speaking which was to be used as a covariate in the statistical analysis of post-test results;

● Post-test – to detect whether the first cohort maintained any gains or even continued to make progress, or whether there was any tendency for their gains to wash out; also to see whether the second cohort made gains similar to those of the experimental The post-test scores were then compared with the pre-test scores to identify the statistically significant difference, if any, for the acceptance or rejection of the research hypothesis

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS

3.1 Data collected from preliminary investigation stage – Questionnaire 1

3.1.1 Students’ attitude towards the speaking skill

E I always seek for chances to speak in class 14.7

Table1: Students’ attitude towards speaking skill

Table one presents the information about students’ attitude towards speaking skill As can

be seen 54.6 % of the students claim that speaking skill is important to them while 20.7 % suppose speaking skill is little important and it is not important at all for 5% It can be seen that the students have high attitude towards speaking skills

However, most of them feel unwilling to speak English in class 25 students corresponding

to 73.5 % always and usually feel unwilling to speak English in class Among these students, 8 students always feel unwilling, 12 students usually feel unwilling and 5 students sometimes feel unwilling Only four of them said that they spoke whenever they are told and five students answered that they always seek for chances to speak in class These figures prove that the frequency of the students’ unwillingness in speaking was high

It can be concluded that the majority of the students agree that English speaking skill is really significant However, the number of students who feel willing to speak in class is small So what are the reasons for this situation? The answer can be found through question

3 and question 4 in Questionnaire 1

A English speaking is necessary for their future job

B English speaking is compulsory at their school

C They are interested in English speaking skill

D They want to be able to communicate

in English

E Others:

Chart 1: Students’ reasons for learning English

In response to question 3, only 10 students stated that they were interested in English speaking skill, 8 students wanted to be able to communicate in English, 20 students believed that English speaking is necessary for their future job while 25 students claimed that they learned English speaking because it is compulsory at school Three of them gave another reason that s/he wanted to go abroad after graduating In short, many students are aware the necessity of English for their future job However, the number of students

admitted that they studied English because it was a compulsory part in school syllabus is the highest

3.1.2 Factors causing students’ low motivation in speaking English

A Being not interested in English speaking

B Learning goal is not to communicate in English

C Being afraid of making mistakes and being laughed at by my classmates

D Being afraid of making mistakes and being criticized by my teacher

E My teacher’s lack of enthusiasm in English speaking classes

F Having nothing to say

G Not having relaxed atmosphere in the classroom

H Monotonous speaking activities

Chart 2: Factors causing students’ low motivation in speaking English

In an attempt to find out factors leading to the students' low motivation, the researcher gave out the question “What factors makes you unwilling to speak English in class?” A large number of students (28 students) expressed that one of the factors was thatthey were afraid

of making mistakes then being laughed at by other classmates, 25 students felt unpleasant with the atmosphere in the classroom Other factors raised by 20 and 19 students were that their learning goal was not to communicate in English and speaking activities were monotonous Only 6 students referred to being of afraid of making mistakes and being criticized by the teacher, 3 referred to being not interested in English speaking and 3 students to the teacher’s being unenthusiastic in English speaking classes

In summary, the findings in Questionnaire 1 revealed many useful facts related to the students’ motivation Firstly, most of the students learned English speaking mainly because it is a compulsory part in school syllabus More than half of the students were aware of the importance of English speaking to them but the frequency of the students’ unwillingness in English speaking was high The main causes were: learning goal is not to communicate in English, the speaking activities used in the classroom were monotonous, the students were afraid of making mistakes and being laughed at by other classmates and the classroom atmosphere was not really relaxed These findings were really important because it would help the researcher form the hypothesis of using information gap activities to motivate students in speaking lessons and decide on the intervention later

3.2 Intervention

3.2.1 The aims of intervention

The intervention was planned with the aim to test the hypothesis mentioned above, then to

come to an answer to the question: What is the importance of using information gap

activities in motivating students in speaking lessons?

3.2.2 The intervention of information gap activities

Based on the information from Questionnaire 1, the researcher found that the students had difficulty in speaking English They felt the way to teach English was monotonous or not interesting There should be learning activities which create a need for them to speak English They feel inhibited and they like to use their native language rather than English to express their meaning

To overcome the problems, the researcher used information gap activity as a solution to support the speaking lessons The lessons plans and teaching materials were

prepared carefully, so that the students got used to such activities as A shopping list, Describe and Draw, Giving directions, Exchanging personal information, Finding ten differences, Making an appointment, and others

There are a lot of information gap activities which can be applied to motivate students to speak English However in this study, the researcher only aroused some implemented activities The researcher observed these activities based on observation sheets

Before introducing these activities, the teacher had to spent time to provide her students explicit knowledge about speaking and about the ways to implement the information gap activities She encouraged them to try their best to speak as much as possible, sometimes regardless of accuracy in vocabulary, grammar or pronunciation

Activity 1: Buying Things from the shop

Aims

- To give freer practice about acting out a conversation one is a customer and one is a seller They can use structure using “How much” to make question about price

Procedure

Students work in pairs In each pair, student A is a customer and has a shopping list Student B is a shop assistant and has a list of item in the shop and their prices They do not look at each other’s list Student A tries

to buy things on his/ her list, e.g…

Time 10 minutes