The Effect of Using Information-Gap Tasks on Iranian EFL Lexical Devel

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اين مقاله سعي بر ان دارد تااز فعاليتهاي رد و بدل كردن اطلاعات به منظور ياد گيري  لغت يادگيران پيش متوسطه زباني استفاده نمايد تا مشخص گردد كه ايا رابطه اي بين استفاده از اين نوع فعاليت و توسعه لغت وجود دارد يا خير.                                                                                                                                  

Abstract

The major aim of this study is to find out whether there is any relationship between the use of information-gap tasks in the classroom and Iranian EFL learners’ lexical development. For the purpose of this study five different kinds of information-gap tasks were chosen and practiced with the experimental group. Then, with the help of a t-test between the posttest results of the experimental and control groups, the results were analyzed. The hypothesis that there would be a relationship between the use of information-gap tasks and lexical development was sustained. It is suggested that teachers and materials producers might want to take such a relationship into account.

Introduction

Words are the most tangible representative of language. They are the building blocks of any language, without them no message can be sent or received (Rivers, 1981). Vocabulary is a sine qua none of L2 learning and, “it would be impossible to learn a language without vocabulary – without words” (ibid, p. 462). Students learn a couple of thousand words mainly those most frequently used during the initial stages of instruction as second or foreign language acquisition. Language proficiency, however, requires mastery of a considerably larger number of words. It is, therefore, necessary at any stage of language acquisition to learn a large amount of vocabulary.

       The development of a rich vocabulary is an important element in the acquisition of a second language (Nunan, 1991: 118). Contemporary scholars have widely offered different techniques. Among them, strategies such as “flash cards”, “word lists”, and “bilingual dictionaries” are the most famous widely being used in EFL/ESL classes.

       However, whatever the strategies students employ, learning words is not a waste of time and with some effort they may store words in their long-term memories. One objective of ELT is to facilitate and develop retention of words in long-term memories.

       To date, most of the empirical researches on vocabulary learning strategies in a second language have focused on different tasks and sub-tasks of vocabulary learning. Krashen in his book Principles and Practice in Second Language Learning concludes that the vocabulary naturally acquired is more persistent than vocabulary learned through memorization or dictionary use. In a comprehensive review of research on incidental vocabulary learning in mostly L1 contexts, Krashen (1989) concluded that incidental vocabulary learning, or “acquisition”, achieves better results than intentional vocabulary learning. Of course one of the ways in which incidental vocabulary learning is used is the use of tasks. In other words, the more demanding a task is, the more vocabulary items and concepts will be learned. However, this strategy seems to be more effective for native speakers and intermediate to advanced L2 learners who already have at least a basic grasp of the language skills such as reading and listening.

       Rivers (1983) argues that the more one’s vocabulary develops, the easier it is to add new words. Information-gap tasks can be employed to do so. Also, by involving students in various types of tasks, such as information-gap tasks, this study also helps learners consider foreign language learning as an enjoyable activity not a boring and tedious one. Since the students’ attention is on communicating the intended meaning, and not on the production of correct speech, their mental barriers and anxieties will be minimized. On the other hand, the students will learn to take responsibility for their own progress.                 Communication activities have a well-established place within many language learning programs. Although the range of types of such activities is large, all provide learners with opportunities to use language to do things and, in particular, to engage in meaningful interactive oral language production. Typically, their goal is to improve the fluency with which learners access their knowledge of the target language (Nation and Thomas, 1988; Ur, 1981). Other goals include developing confidence in social communication skills, dealing with the unpredictable nature of conversation (Ladousse, 1987), and improving grammatical accuracy (Rinvolucri, 1984).

       Research carried out in recent years indicates that there may also be a role for vocabulary learning either as an incidental goal or as one of the primary goals of a communication activity.

       In a study of the acquisition of mathematical vocabulary through the performance of split information activities by eleven-to thirteen-year-old students, Hall (1992) found that the vocabulary learning of students working on these interactive activities was greater than that of students working within a teacher-fronted arrangement with a reading focus.

       Hall (1992) concluded that split information activities can provide opportunities for talk which increase both language knowledge and content knowledge. He further suggests that the requirement for spoken output in these activities and the generative use of new vocabulary items (their use in new contexts and in new structures) are the key factors leading to acquisition of these items.

       Simcock (1993) studied learners’ performance in ask-and-answer activities where students read a story in pairs and then respond to preset questions from their partners about the events in the story, responding as if they were the people in the story who had experienced these events. She found that new vocabulary encountered in the reading input for the activity was used productively and accurately by learners even when they were not being asked about these items by their partners. This suggests a role for incidental vocabulary learning when the learners’ focus is primarily on meaningful performance of a communicative activity.

       A study by Elley (1989) provided empirical evidence of incidental vocabulary learning for seven-to eight-year-olds involved in listening to stories in which there was repetition of the new words, illustrations of the words, and redundancy through context. Elley recorded gains of 15% where there was no explanation of the new words and 40% gains where explanation occurred. Although this result relates largely to listening, it also shows the acquisition of vocabulary in a context where attention is on meaningful communication and not on language itself.

       This study also gives language teachers and learners an opportunity to begin thinking about the new ways of teaching and learning a foreign language in an attempt to persuade them to examine modern methods and techniques. In addition, the findings of this research will be beneficial to syllabus designers and text book writers in putting their selection, sequencing and grading on a more useful and practical basis.

Methodology

Before the treatment, the PET test of 80 items was administered to the 100 students, through which 60 students whose scores were between one standard deviation below and above the mean of all scores were selected (homogeneous scores). After specifying two groups exactly by randomly selecting 30 students for the experimental group and 30 students for the control group according to the matching procedure, a teacher-made test of 35 vocabulary items was developed. To standardize the test, the researcher administered it to 30 students with similar characteristics to the experimental and control groups. Then the characteristics of each individual item, i.e. item facility (IF), item discrimination (ID) and choice distribution (CD) were calculated through which 5 items – with unacceptable item facility, choice distribution, and item discrimination – were deleted. The remaining 30 items were used as the assessment tool in the posttest of the study.

       Furthermore, for determining the characteristics of the test as a whole unit, the reliability of the test was calculated by Kurder and Richardson 21 formula which was % 80.56.

       Then a sixteen-session course of instruction began. This course lasted for two months during which for the CG (control group), the conventional techniques of teaching vocabulary, and for the EG (experimental group), the task-based techniques of teaching vocabulary were used (20-25 words each session). 

       After 16 sessions, the teacher-made vocabulary test was used as the students’ posttest. Then the scores’ means of both experimental and control groups on the posttest were compared to each other to decide whether the null hypothesis should be rejected or accepted.

Results

In this phase, the researcher compared the means of both experimental and control groups after administering the posttest to determine whether there is any difference between the means of the two groups on the posttest stage or not. The following table illustrates the summary of the statistical data obtained from the posttest:  

Table 1. Summarized Data for the Means Comparison Process

As is seen, the mean score for the control group was 17.1 while the mean score for the experimental group was 19.9. The difference between these two scores with the experimental one higher than the control group shows that there has been a kind of difference between the performances of the two groups in learning vocabulary which is explained and clarified with the use of the t-test.

       In order to test the hypothesis through t-test, two parameters were required: the t-observed and the t-critical. If the value of the t-observed was greater than the value of t-critical, then the null hypothesis would be rejected implying the difference between the two groups was significant. Here is the result of this process in the following table:

Table 2. The t values 

As shown in the table above, the t-observed was 1.89 with degree of freedom 58 while the t-critical value was 1.67with degree of freedom of 58. Thus the t-observed value was greater than the t-critical value meaning that the null hypothesis was rejected. In other words, the treatment was effective enough to make a statistically significant difference between the experimental group and control group. That is to say that using information-gap tasks as a teaching technique in the classroom does affect the lexical development of Iranian EFL pre-intermediate learners significantly.

Pedagogical Implications  

The aforementioned findings and discussion have revealed that the EFL learners' degree of learning increases when they learn new words by the use of information-gap tasks in the classroom. Although storing information in memory, drawing pictures, guessing games, and using dictionaries is more or less used in Iranian EFL classes and all the subjects were familiar with these strategies, this study indicated that they did not improve the performance of the students who learned the new words through the aforementioned tools. So teachers must revise their vocabulary teaching strategies in order to encourage the learners to expand their word knowledge efficiently as well as quickly.

       The learners in the experimental group – taught through the use of information-gap tasks – were gradually seen to become less dependent upon teacher's assistance. Therefore, it is suggested that EFL teachers make their students self-dependent in the process of vocabulary learning.

       Actually, language teachers can benefit from these techniques in order to educate more active students who are at the same time better communicators. In this way, language teachers can save great amount of time, energy and money. In other words, instead of wasting their time and energy on a technique which has little practical value, they can concentrate and embark upon these types of techniques which are practically more powerful and useful and which are theoretically supported by many other disciplines, such as psychology, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, etc.

       Also because task-oriented techniques contain many different types of activities, such as problem-solving, role play, etc. they enjoy a great amount of diversity. Therefore, students instructed through such techniques rarely get bored and tired. In fact, they are often engaged in these activities so much that they actually forget they are learning a new language. This makes them concentrate on how to communicate the intended meaning not on the language forms.

       On the other hand, during information-gap activities students are not under pressure to produce correct speech and as a result, their mental barriers and internal resistance are minimized. Here the only thing they need to do is to communicate with others. This further gives them the opportunity and the ability to put what they already know onto practice.

       The findings of this research study give students opportunities to develop strategies for interpreting and comprehending language as it is actually used by native speakers. They also help learners figure out the speakers’ intention and predict what their interlocutors are likely to say.

       In addition, task-based techniques encourage cooperative relationships among students. This further gives students the chance to work on negotiating meaning. On the other hand, when learners work in small groups, the amount of the communicative practice they receive will be maximized. In this way, students also learn to pay attention not only to communicating the intended meaning, but also to the social context of the communicative event.

       There is still another advantage to the task-based techniques. That is, these activities teach students to take more responsibility for their own learning. They should act as active participants not as passive recipients, in order for them to carry out the tasks. Here the students are given opportunities to express their own ideas and opinions, and in so doing they have a choice not only about what to say, but also how to say it.

       The findings of this research also help syllabus designers and textbook writers to put selection, sequencing and grading of teaching materials on a more effective and practical basis. They are also encouraged to use more authentic materials in designing and writing teaching materials. 

References

Elley, W (1989). Vocabulary acquisition from listening to stories. Reading

        Research Quarterly: 24(2), 174-187.

Hall, S (1992). Using split information tasks to learn mathematics

        vocabulary. Guidelines: 24(2), 72-77.

Krashen, S (1989). We acquire vocabulary and spelling by reading:

        Additional evidence for the input hypothesis. Modern Language

        Journal: 73(4), 440-464.

Ladousse, G P (1987). Role play. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Nation, I S P and Thomas, G I (1988). Communication activities.

        Occasional paper no.13, English Language Institute, Victoria

        University of Wellington.

Nunan, D (1991). Communicative tasks and the language curriculum.

        TESOL Quarterly: 25(2).

Rinvolucri, M (1984). Grammar games. Cambridge: Cambridge University

        Press.

Rivers, W M (1981). Teaching foreign language skills. Chicago: The

        University of Chicago Press.

Rivers, W M (1983). Communicating naturally in a second language.

        Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Simcock, M (1993). Developing production vocabulary using the “ask and

        answer” technique. Guidelines: 15(2), 1-7.

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