The document discusses different types of speaking activities that can improve students' listening and speaking skills in a second language classroom. It focuses on information gap activities and role-play activities. Information gap activities involve students sharing information to solve a problem, where each student plays a necessary role. Role-play activities place students in simulated situations where they must use the target language. Both activities provide opportunities for extended student speaking practice and negotiation of meaning between students. Examples of each type of activity are provided.

1. One of the challenges many second language teachers face is motivating their students to speak in
the target language. Confident students always participate and students who are less confident are
reluctant to speak. Even when students speak in the target language, they are usually answering a
question and this approach greatly limits student output. Oral presentations provide opportunities
for students to speak in the target language for an extended period of time and these activities are
useful, but they should not be the only opportunities students have to speak at length. Because
students prepare for these presentations by writing a script and then rehearsing it, they have
difficulty speaking in the target language spontaneously because they are given little opportunity to
do so. When students choose to learn a language, they are interested in learning to speak that
language as fluently as possible. The active process of receiving and responding to spoken and
sometimes unspoken
Listening is one of the subjects studied in the field of language arts and in the discipline of
conversation analysis. In sociolinguistics, SPEAKING or the SPEAKING model is a model socio-
linguistic study developed. It is a tool to assist the identification and labeling of components of
linguistic interaction that was driven by his views that. To facilitate the application of his
representation, constructed the acronym, S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G for setting and scene, participants,
ends, acts sequence, key, instrumentalities, norms, & genre under which he grouped the sixteen
components within eight divisions.
Types of listening and speaking activities
Information gap: In these types of activities students learn and practice speaking by implying fun
and they also improve their speaking and listening skills by playing communication games.
Jigsaw activities: In multidirectional information gap games one student has to talk to a partner in
order to solve a puzzle, draw a picture, put things in right order or find similarities and differences
between pictures.
Role play and Simulation: In role-plays, students are given a situation plus problem or task, but
they are also played individual roles. In stimulation, students speak and react as themselves, but the
group role, situation and task is imaginary.
Contact assignments: It involves sending students out of the classroom and talked to people in the
target language.
I consider, Information gap and Role play as the improving factors for “My students”
listening and speaking skill. These two factors can help students to improve their listening and
speaking skills.
Information Gap activities & my context:
In an information gap activity, one person has certain information that must be shared with others
in order to solve a problem, gather information or make decisions. These types of activities are
extremely effective in the L2 classroom. They give every student the opportunity to speak in the
target language for an extended period of time and students naturally produce more speech than
they would otherwise. In addition, speaking with peers is less intimidating than presenting in front
of the entire class and being evaluated. Another advantage of information gap activities is that
students are forced to negotiate meaning because they must make what they are saying
comprehensible to others in order to accomplish the task. Information gap activities satisfy all of
the above criteria. The teacher simply explains the activity and reviews the vocabulary needed for
the activity. Students are then on their own to complete the task. Each participant plays an
important role and the task cannot be accomplished without everyone's participation.

2. Example:
Student A: Look at the information about films at the local cinema. Listen to your partner’s questions and
use the information to answer them.
Student B: Look at the information about films at the local cinema and ask your partner questions to find out
more about the films.
Focus Elements:
 Learners talk a lot. As much as possible of the period of time allotted to the activity is in fact
occupied by learner talk.
 Participation is even.
 Classroom discussion is not dominated by a minority of talkative participants: all get a chance to
speak, and contributions are fairly evenly distributed.
 Motivation is high. Learners are eager to speak: because they are interested in the topic and have
something new to say about it, or because they want to contribute to achieving a task objective.
 Language is of an acceptable level. Learners express themselves in utterances that are relevant,
easily comprehensible to each other, and of an acceptable level of language accuracy.
Feedback Evaluation
Do:
 Listen carefully to the instructions.
 Ask your teacher to repeat if you don’t understand exactly what you have to do.
 Look at your partner and check that he/she understands you when you speak.
 Be ready to repeat or explain things if he/she doesn’t understand you.
 Listen to your partner’s answers carefully and show interest in what your partner says.
 Take turns with your partner.
Don’t:
 Talk a lot more than your partner.
 Ignore what your partner says.
 Worry if you and your partner have different levels of English.
 Look at your partner’s worksheet and copy the answers.
Role-play activities & my context:
Role-play is any speaking activity when you either put yourself into somebody else's shoes, or
when you stay in your own shoes but put yourself into an imaginary situation! It is widely agreed
that learning takes place when activities are engaging and memorable. Jeremy Harmer advocates
the use of role-play for the following reasons: its fun and motivating quieter students get the chance
to express them in a more forthright way. The world of the classroom is broadened to include the
outside world - thus offering a much wider range of language opportunities Role-play is possible at
elementary levels providing the students have been thoroughly prepared. Try to think through the
language the students will need and make sure this language has been presented. Students may need
the extra support of having the language on the board. I recently did a 'lost property office' role-
play with elementary adults and we spent time beforehand drilling the structures the students would
need to use. When the role-play began the students felt 'armed' with the appropriate language. At
higher levels the students will not need so much support with the language but they will need time
to 'get into' the role.
Example
Look at the information on your role card and talk to your partner. Find a solution to the problem.
Student A: You are a guest staying at a hotel. The hotel website says it is a luxury hotel, but in your
room the sheets and towels are dirty, the bathroom is too small, the street outside is very noisy and

3. you decide two more problems. You want to change to a better room and you want a discount. Talk
to the receptionist and solve the problem.
Student B: You are a hotel receptionist. There is a guest staying at the hotel who complains about
everything, even when there isn’t a problem. You can move a guest to a different room, but you
can’t change the price of a room. Talk to the guest and solve the problem.
Focus Elements:
 Bring situations to life: Regalia and props can really bring a role-play to life. A group of my
young learners recently played the roles of pizza chef and customer. A simple cone of white card
with CHEF written on it took a minute to make and I believe it made the whole process more fun
and memorable for the class.
 Keep it real and relevant: However, it may be within their schema to imagine they have been
asked to help an English speaker who is visiting their own country. This may involve using some
L1 to explain about the local culture or to translate local menus into English for the guest to their
country.
 Feed-in language: As students practice the role-play they might find that they are stuck for words
and phrases. In the practice stage the teacher has a chance to 'feed-in' the appropriate language.
This may need the teacher to act as a sort of 'walking dictionary
 Error Correction: There are many ways to correct mistakes when using role-play. It is rarely
appropriate for the teacher to jump in and correct every mistake. This could be incredibly
demotivating! Some students do like to be corrected straight after a role-play activity
 Use your imagination and have fun: The most successful role-play I did last year was with a
group of teenagers and was used as a spring board activity after listening to a song. The class
worked in pairs to act out the scene of Skater Boy finally getting to meet his ex-girlfriend after the
concert.
Feedback Evaluation
Do:
 Role playing can (that is it has the capability) to develop greater involvement with the issues and
knowledge that is the focus of training (but it may not create greater involvement).
 Role playing can be used as a behavioral pre-training assessment or diagnostic to assess where a
learner is in terms of skills, since the trainer can observe real behavior.
 Role playing also allows assessment of how well learner understands and can apply what is
learned, as indicated in their behavior.
 Provides opportunity to practice in what is presumably a safer environment where mistakes have
no real world consequences as would be the case in on the job practice.
 Role playing practice can be segmented or divided up in ways that could not be done in real on
the job settings. A person can practice a part of the actual skill to be learned until mastery, then
another part of it and so on in progressively more complex steps.
Don’t
 The power of role playing is only harnessed when the role player receives EXPERT feedback.
 While trainers may like role plays, many people who attend training actually hate them and feel
exceedingly uncomfortable in role play situations.
 The role playing of highly emotionally charged situations tends to be less effective in large
groups, since the role playing tends to take on the characteristic of acting performances, or, the
performance becomes too artificial and sounds funny.
 Almost every use of role playing in large group training sessions involves extreme compromise,
often to the extent that learning does not occur, or is interfered with.