How to Use ‘Gaps’ in Communicative Activities

Without a ‘gap’ there’s no reason to communicate.

Students need to have a reason to communicate. Sure, they’ll talk if you tell them to (“discuss the topic with your partner!”) but it won’t be as engaging without a reason. It won’t be ‘genuine communication’.

To make an activity resemble real life, you need a ‘gap’.

So what is a gap? A gap is missing information — something one person knows, but the other doesn’t.

Prabhu describes three types of gaps in his book ‘Second Language Pedagogy’. They are: information, reasoning and opinion gaps.

Although Prabhu’s work is associated with task-based learning, we can apply it to all communicative tasks.

Let’s take a look at each kind of gap, with example activities.

Information Gaps

Information gaps are when students have different information. They then ‘fill in the gap’ of each others’ knowledge by communicating.

Example 1: ‘giving directions’. Each student in a pair has a copy of a map. There’s a different route drawn (i.e. from the train station to ‘their’ home). Students don’t show each other the maps. Student A gives directions to Student B, who draws ‘A’s’ route on his map…