How To: Information Gap Activities

An information gap activity is any activity in which one or more participants have information that the other participants do not have and they must communicate that information to the others using only words.  This is helpful for language learning because it requires the participants to use language in order to negotiate for understanding.

Some ideas for information gap activities might be:

1. Picture Gap: One participant has a picture that he/she explains to the other participants who draw the picture according to the explanation.  At the end of the activity the pictures can be compared to see where mistakes in explanation or understanding were made.

2. Go Fish

Some Go-Fish cards.  There are two of each square, and many of the squares differ only by minute details, therefore, much explanation is necessary (as you will be able to tell from the video below).

The video below was taken during one of our language sessions in which we played a variation of "Go Fish" using the cards picture above.  My husband is on the left, and a language helper is on the right (I am taking the video :).

3. Guess Who

4. I Spy - can be played with busy books (where's waldo, or I Spy books, etc.)