Use the language in this box to describe your pictures to your partners:

There is a square circle rectangle triangle inside the circle outside the circle at at to to the the the the top bottom right left

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6. 10.

7. 11.

8. 12.

9. 13. 14.

Listen to your partner describe the circles for you. Draw the picture that is being described.

Use the language in this box to describe your pictures to your partners:
There is a square circle rectangle triangle inside the circle outside the circle at at to to the the the the top bottom right left

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6. 10.

7. 11.

8. 12.

9.

13.

14.

Listen to your partner describe the circles for you. Draw the picture that is being described.

Simulations Simulations are very similar to role-plays but what makes simulations different than role plays is that they are more elaborate. In simulations, students can bring items to the class to create a realistic environment. For instance, if a student is acting as a singer, she brings a microphone to sing and so on. Role plays and simulations have many advantages. First, since they are entertaining, they motivate the students. Second, as Harmer (1984) suggests, they increase the selfconfidence of hesitant students, because in role play and simulation activities, they will have a different role and do not have to speak for themselves, which means they do not have to take the same responsibility. Information Gap In this activity, students are supposed to be working in pairs. One student will have the information that other partner does not have and the partners will share their information. Information gap activities serve many purposes such as solving a problem or collecting information. Also, each partner plays an important role because the task cannot be completed if the partners do not provide the information the others need. These activities are effective because everybody has the opportunity to talk extensively in the target language. 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. I teach Core French at the secondary level and students complain that when they go to a French-speaking part of the world, they cannot say what they wish to say in French, even though they have had years of French education. We, therefore, need to actively engage students in speaking activities that are enjoyable and that are based on a more communicative approach. One solution is using information gap activities.

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 (Neu & Reeser, 1997). 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 (Neu & Reeser, 1997). Ur (1996) lists the characteristics of a successful speaking activity: 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. 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. Many information gap activities are highly motivational because of the nature of the various tasks. Activities that require the solving of a problem or a mystery are especially effective. As teachers, we know whether an activity is of an acceptable level of difficulty for our students. If students are sufficiently prepared for the activity, the level of language accuracy will be acceptable. For the first time this year, I used information gap activities in my French classes and they were very successful. When I tried the first activity, I could not believe that my Core French students were speaking in

French continuously for 15-20 minutes. Even though that was the result I desired, I was still amazed because it was the first time that I heard my students speaking in French for such an extended period of time. I did not evaluate students during this activity and not one student expected to receive a mark for participating in these activities. They were all happy to do the activity because it was fun and because they knew that it was helping them to increase their confidence in speaking French. As a result of using information gap activities, I realized that there were other unexpected benefits. For instance, these activities greatly increased their motivation for speaking in French more often. Even after the activities were complete, students made an effort to keep speaking in French not only to me, but to each other as well. After doing only two of these types of activities, students wanted to do them all the time and I was more than happy to include them more often in my lessons. Information gap activities can also reinforce vocabulary and a variety of grammatical structures taught in class. They allow students to use linguistic forms and functions in a communicative way. These activities bring the language to life for students. Grammar is no longer a concept they have difficulty applying to their speaking. Students have the

opportunity to use the building blocks of language we teach them to speak in the target language. Creating a variety of information gap activities that will satisfy Ur's criteria listed above is not an easy task. I have created a few simple activities for my beginner French classes. There are, however, a variety of resources that provide suggestions for information gap activities that provide clear instructions and/or activities cards that are ready to be photocopied. I have listed a few below that I have found useful. If our goal as second language educators is to have our learners speak with confidence in the target language, then we must make an effort to provide our students with a greater variety of opportunities to speak in the target language. Information gap activities are an effective means for accomplishing this goal. The structured overview is one way to organize or rehearse information and knowledge to aid understanding. Used prior to reading a non-fiction text, the structured overview is a helpful way to aid comprehension. It may be used in many form including webs, concept maps, or outlines. The strategy can be used across the curriculum where reading and writing, learning and remembering are required his information gap covers 10 basic shapes plus prepositions. Simulation

Simulation is a problem-solving activity where the student brings his own personality, experience and opinions to the task (Livingstone, 1983). It involves discussion of a problem which is presented by the teacher. The students normally bring their own experience to the portraying of the roles in simulation. The situation need not be a real life situation like a board meeting but can be imaginary like being stranded in a desert island. Simulation was originally used as a learning technique in business and military training. The outcome of the simulation was of paramount importance. In language learning however, the end product of the decision reached is of less importance than the language used to achieve it. Role-play is often included within simulation. This allows for extended interaction between the students. These two activities help to recreate the language used in different situations. This is the type of language the students are most likely to use outside the classroom. The main benefit is that it enables a flow of language to be produced that might otherwise be difficult to produce or create.

Advance organizers, or intellectual scaffolding is an approach to teaching that provides a structure of what the students will be going to learn in that lesson. Advance organizers give information in a presentational way and can come

in different forms, such as a written outline, clusters, thinking maps. Using advance organizers is like giving a map to your students and letting them know, This is where we are going today! By giving your students a map and allowing them to be informed on where the lesson is headed, they will be more open and prepared to receive the knowledge imparted upon them. Not only that but they will be able to participate and actively contribute to whats coming next in the lesson. Learning ceases to be a straight transfer of knowledge from a teacher to students, but with effective advance organizers, learning becomes a journey that the class embarks upon with the teacher. Both teacher and student are active parties. While its true that creativity is messy, Dr.Scheuerman also tells us that, Learning is more meaningful if it is organized. and that organization gives more meaning to inquiry. Students that formulate their own questions are kids engaged in learning and moving forward in the process of discovery. Good teaching will more often then not leave the students with more questions then they had when they started. Advance organizers will help facilitate in organizing that knowledge into sets and hierarchies and thus leading the class to a more meaningful discussion and understanding.