Qualifications of pedagogues under bukhara state university

1.2. Strategies and techniques of using Information Gap Activity in speaking classrooms
Lin (2015) argued that oral language learning tasks can ensure equal discourse status between students, allowing them to truly achieve meaningful communication and interaction in English and learn through mutual assistance. Research shows that two-way information gap activities can help cultivate students’ active learning initiative and creativity, and thus improve their autonomous learning and cooperative learning abilities. Common information gap oral tasks include guessing games, describing and drawing, different viewpoints, role play, referential questions, and so on. They can be effectively used in the foreign language classroom to improve students’ speaking skills.
Guessing Games
As far as teaching is concerned, designing information gap activities that are engaging and in line with students’ interests is very important because the activities can not only enhance students’ interest in learning a target language but also improve teaching effectiveness to some extent (Guo, 2010). Guessing games are a good example. In a guessing game, one party of communication guesses in various ways to get needed information owned by the other party to exchange information. Students work in pairs or in groups to complete a guessing game (Kang, 2016). For example, Student A chooses a certain thing or person and invites Student B to identify the thing or person by asking yes or no questions (Zeng, 2016) as the following dialogue illustrates:
Student A: This is a kind of food that we eat every day.
Student B: Is it a kind of cooked food?
Student A: Yes.
Student B: Is it rice?
Student A: No.
Guessing games can be designed in different ways (Wei, 2012). Teachers need to find out students’ current language proficiency levels and use different strategies to create information gaps for guessing games that can engage students of different proficiency levels (He, 2014).
Describing and Drawing

Describing and drawing is another strategy for designing effective information gap activities. Students can be assigned to work in pairs. For example, Student B can be given a floor plan of an apartment with furniture, plants, etc. Student A is also given a floor plan of the same apartment, but without any furniture or plants. Student B is required to help Student A plan the apartment by telling him/her where to put these things. Student A can ask questions, but the student is not allowed to look at Student B’s drawing. When the students completed the task, they are asked to compare their drawings and identify similarities and differences between the drawings (Lin, 2015), which usually leads to communication between the students.

There are different viewpoints on a need for communication when two parties in communication hold different ideas and opinions (Liu, 2016). Enabling students to express different viewpoints has been used in information gap activities. In teaching practice, teachers should not only educate students but also offer opportunities for them to share their viewpoints (Yao, 2007). Wang et al (2022) recommended that teachers should encourage different viewpoints by taking into consideration teaching contexts and goals.
When carrying out activities with different viewpoints, students should be encouraged to clearly state their own opinions, support their own opinions, and convince the other party when the two parties exchange different viewpoints. The idea behind such an activity is not to decide whether students are right or wrong but to motivate them to use evidence to support their views and convince the other side (Sun, 2005). Topics such as the pros and cons of college students having a part-time job may lead to a good class discussion (Ma, 2018). Classroom debates can be held about more controversial topics.
Role Play

Role-playing is one of the most common forms of activities in oral communication classes (Xiu, 2016). For example, teachers can design cards for various roles according to the teaching content and distribute the cards to students. Students are required to play their assigned roles using the information on the cards. The following example shows that students are asked to plan an event according to their schedules (He, 2014).
A: Why don’t we play badminton some day next week?
B: That’s a good idea. Well, I’m free on Monday.
A: Oh, I’m not. I’ve got to work in the library on Monday. How about Tuesday?
B: Tuesday? Sorry! I’m going to visit my friends in Nanjing on Tuesday.
Teachers can design various role-play activities by taking into consideration student age and language proficiency.
Brown and Lee (2015) discussed referential questions that prompt spontaneous responses from students. They provided a warm-up activity for an intermediate-level class, where students are divided into two groups and asked to write down their favorite singer, sport, and actor on a piece of paper. Students’ answers are then collected and redistributed among them. Next, the students are asked to mingle and find out the three items their partners wrote down. The activity helps students introduce themselves and get to know their classmates, which is especially effective if the students do not know each other well.
Legutke and Thomas give several examples of various manifestations of the information-gap’s techniques:
Example 1: Using pictures (adult and high-school learners of English at Intermediate level)
a). The class is subdivided into pairs and one person in the pair is given an unusual, abstract drawing which he has to describe to his partner so that the latter can draw it unseen. The ‘drawer’ can ask clarification questions but ‘describer’ may not help by pointing to the ‘drawer’s’ work and commenting on its likeness or otherwise to the original drawing.
b). When the participants agree that the drawing is finished, the versions from the other members of the class are displayed and learners exchange comments on the various representations produced.
c). The teacher elicits from the class the areas of difficulty in the task and feeds in the key vocabulary items.
d). The two learners exchange roles and are given a different picture to work with.
Example 2: Spot the difference (adult and high-school learners at elementary/intermediate/advanced level)
a). Learners working in pairs are given a picture each which is identical apart from a number of small alteration.
b). Without showing each other the picture they must describe them to each other in such a way that they can identify all the differences. Example 3: Memorizing the picture (adult and high-school learners at elementary/intermediate/advanced level).
a). The class is divided into sub-groups of five. Each group selects one person who is going to draw. All the ‘drawers’ leave the room for one minute.
b). The teacher projects the picture onto a screen for thirty seconds. The learners are asked not to talk during this time.
c). The ‘drawers’ return and the other group members, who have seen the picture, describe the picture from what they remembered. The ‘drawers’, who now has five minutes to complete the drawing, may ask questions.
d). After about two minutes the picture is projected again for ten seconds so that correction can be made.
e). The pictures from each sub-group are displayed on the wall and the groups discuss which of them is closest to the original
Example 4: Using objects: Assembling a toy (adult and high-school learners, all level)
a). The class is divided into sub-groups of three learners. Each sub-group is given a plastic toy, e.g. a Lego car or similar taken from a breakfast cereal packet which has to be assembled from the parts provided.
b). Two members of the group are given the assembly instructions and have to explain to the third member how to assemble the object.
Example 5: Using the jigsaw technique (jigsaw listening/reading)
a). The class is divided into three groups each of whom is given a listening/reading text relating to a theme common to all three texts. In order to find a solution to a problem, information from all three listening/reading text is required.
b). When a group members have discussed and understood the information on their text, the class is regrouped in groups of three to include one member each from one of the previous groups.
c). Each person in the sub-group of three has information which the other two do not have. They now share their information and try to solve the problem.
a). The class is divided into sub-groups of four and each sub-group is given a text which has been photocopied and cut into several pieces according to the number of paragraphs in the text.
b). Each individual in the sub-group reads a piece of the text and shares the information with the others.
From this collective pool of information, they try to sequence the paragraphs and thus reassemble the text. From the six examples and their techniques above, the writer may conclude that there are three main points in the technique of information-gap activities: First, it can be carried out both in pair and in group. Second, it can use pictures, realia, or even texts as teaching materials. Third, it can be used to present the four skills, not only listening and speaking but also writing and even reading. However, the technique of information-gap activities used by the writer is out of the techniques explained above since she modifies and creates it to fit in the students’ ability level and the language focus.