Using Information Gap Technique to Increase the English Speaking Paprticipation of the Seventh Graders of SMPN 12 Malang

English as an international language is used as a tool of communication all over the world. It has four important language skills and one of them is speaking. Speaking is considered as the most essential means of effective communication. However, teaching speaking is not an easy job. Speaking is considered as the most difficult skill to teach because it happens in real time. There are many issues regarding teaching speaking. One of the problems is the lack of students participation in speaking class. This condition was found in VII F class of SMPN 12 Malang. The class was so passive when it came to speaking. There were only some of the students who were brave enough to speak in class. The condition happened because of several reasons. The first reason was that the students were scared of making mistakes in front of their friends. They did not want to be embarrassed because of making mistakes. The second reason was lack of chance of speak. The teacher rarely gave them chance to speak. The teacher still used traditional method in class where the teacher is the center of the class. Having this in mind, teachers should create activities that would engage the students in the teaching and learning process. One of the speaking technique that can make students more actively engaged to the teaching and learning process is Information Gap. In this technique the students should use the target language to share information. The technique requires active participation on the part of the students. This research aimed the increase of students’ speaking participation after using Information Gap activities in the teaching and learning process. This research used Classroom Action Research (CAR) as the research design. This research also used various Information Gap activities in two cycles and recorded two aspects which were students’ individual participation and class participation. The data were collected from observation checklist for class active participation, students’ individual participation table, field notes and questionnaire. The research could be call successful if when the student individual participation reaches 60%. The second criterion of success is when 80% of the students’ showed positive responses toward information gap The result showed that the speaking participation of the students gradually increased. The individual participation increased as well as the class participation. In the first cycle, students’ individual participation was 62.5%. In the end of the second cycle, the individual participation increased to 75%. The students also showed positive responses toward Information Gap. The questionnaire result showed 80.66% of the students gave positive response toward Information Gap. In the end of the research the students felt a lot less anxious to speak, they felt motivated and more confident to speak, and they were enthusiastic in doing the activities. In conclusion, information gap technique can increase students’ active speaking participation. Not only individually but also the whole class participation. According to the students the learning and teaching process also felt more enjoyable and fun because they did different information gap activities in each meeting and it felt like playing games rather than doing school task. Using information gap technique can be one of the many options on how to increase students’ speaking participation. The further researcher can use more various information gap activities when applying this technique. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:Table Normal;mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-priority:99;mso-style-qformat:yes;mso-style-parent:;mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;mso-para-margin-top:0cm;mso-para-margin-right:0cm;mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;mso-para-margin-left:0cm;line-height:115%;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}