5.2. The information gap
W
e
have said that speakers normally have a communicative purpose
and that listeners are interested in discovering what that purpose
is. However, even if listeners have some idea about the purpose, they
must listen in order to be sure. In other words, they cannot be sure
what it is before they hear what the speaker says. Consider the
following example in which a man (A) speaks to a woman (B) at a bus
stop at midnight:
A: Excuse me. The man who starts the conversation may have
B: Yes? many reasons for speaking. He may want to get
A: Do you have a watch? into conversation with the woman because he
B: Yes… why? thinks she looks interesting, and the question
A: I wonder if you could tell about the time may simply be a pretext for this.
me what the time is? On the other hand he may genuinely want to
B
:
Certainly… it’s
almost 12.
know the time. In both cases there exists an
A
:
Thank you.
information
gap
between what A and B know.
If the question about the time is a genuine one we can say that B has information that A does not have (the time) and A wants that information. In other words, there is a gap between the two in the information they possess. The conversation helps to close that gap so that now both speakers have the same information. But even if this were not the real purpose of the conversation there is still a gap between the speakers where B does not know what A’s purpose is before he speaks.
In the classroom we will want to create the same kind of information gap if we are to encourage real communication.
5.3. The communication continuum
We have already considered the concepts of input and output and we said that there were stages where communication was more important than accuracy. Having discussed the nature of communication we can now suggest characteristics that are necessary for input and output stages.
Where students are working on an output stage with an emphasis on communication we can use our generalisations about the nature of communication to come to a number of conclusions:
Whatever activity the students are involved in, if it is to be genuinely communicative and if it is really promoting language use, the students should have a desire to communicate. If they do not want to be involved in communication then that communication will probably not be effective.
The students should also have some kind of communicative purpose. It means they should be using language in some way to achieve an objective. This objective (or purpose) should be the most important part of the communication.
If students do have a purpose in communication then their attention should be centred on the content of what is being said or written and not the language form that is being used.
The students will have to deal with a variety of language (either receptively or productively) rather than just one grammatical construction or lexical item, for example.
While students are engaged in the communicative activity the teacher should not intervene. By ‘intervene’ we mean telling students that they are making mistakes, insisting on accuracy and asking for repetition, etc. This would undermine the communicative purpose of the activity. The teacher may of course be involved in the activity as a participant. He will also be watching and listening very carefully in order to be able to conduct feed back.
To these 5 characteristics of genuinely communicative activities we can add a 6th - no materials control. Often students work with materials, which force the use of certain language, or at least restrict the students’ choice of what to say and how to say it. By restricting the students’ options the materials are denying the language variety characteristic which we have said is important for genuine communication.
The six characteristics for communicative activities can be seen as forming one end of a continuum of classroom activity in language teaching. They can be matched by opposite points at the other end of the continuum, non-communicative activities of the input stage:
Where students are working on an input stage with an emphasis on accuracy there will be no desire to communicate on their part.
Since the activity is not really promoting language use the students wouldn’t have any kind of communicative purpose. They would be using language without any communicative objective to be achieved.
Where students are involved in a drill or in repetition, they will be motivated not by a desire to reach a communicative objective, but by the need to reach the objective of accuracy. The emphasis is on the form, not its content.
Often only one language item (a grammatical construction, a lexical item, a sound, etc.) will be the focus of attention rather than a communicative variety of language.
The teacher will often intervene to correct mistakes, nominate students, and generally ensure accuracy.
And of course the materials should be specially designed to focus on a restricted amount on language. In other words, materials control would restrict the students’ choice of what to say and how to say it.
We can summarise the points we have made as follows:
