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foreign language leaming and enhances production. Communication activities are also capable of providing context needed for the practice of particular language structures or language functions and enabling students to self-evaluate their success in using the language (based on Sexton and Williams).

Various sourees referred to throughout this chapter suggest a variety of activity types. One of them suggests the foliowing rangę (based on Sexton and Williams):

12.2.7.1    information gathering and text production -from a variety of written / spoken texts students are presented with, they are supposed to evaluate, select, modify or summarise the information they contain, and then they are reąuested to produce in spoken (or written) form a new test based on the information,

12.2.7.2    information gathering and reporting leading to a decision - information on a given topie is presented to students from a variety of different source, notes on various aspects of these topics are taken and findings reported to the whole group which has to make a decision based on the reports,

12.2.7.3    information gathering leading to the solying of a problem - in groups students gather information from a rangę of texts provided, which together provide sufficient information for the solution of the problem, the information needs to be first pooled then discussed, and the conclusive solution is to be reached ion forum,

12.2.7.4    activities involving text reconstruction - students are provided with texts that has been madę corrupt or ambiguous as a result of some interference, then sufficient information is provided to enable learners to restore the text to its former form or interpret the ambiguities,

12.2.7.5    simulating interaction with cued roles - a smali number of students deliver a lecture on a topie (familiar to all participants) with or without the help of visual prompts / materials; other members of a group are cued to be different types of members of an audience who have to behave or act accordingly,

12.2.7.6    discussion simulation - it involves students in collecting arguments for and against viewpoints on a particular issue from a variety of sourees,

12.2.7.7    simulation of a short interaction situation - the situation to be simulated is briefly outlined to students who then prepare the simulation with or without the help of a flowchart, the situation is then acted out, it can be recorded for later analysis of mistakes in grammar, register or vocabulary,

12.2.7.8    narrow focus simulation.- the focus of interaction is deliberately kept fairly narrow, i.e. it is restricted to a number of speech intentions with one of them as a starting point; students are either given a speech intention and asked to prepare a simulation freely or given a flowchart describing the interaction in detail and asked to fili in the language,

12.2.7.9    completing an interaction situation - an extract of an interaction situation is played to students and broken off at the moment when it is open-ended, groups are then requested to prepare and act out their version of the situation development and ending.

12.2.8. Role play| simulation, discussion and problem sofoing

activities

Those types of activities are aimed at triggering off communication in the form of orał exchanges between students. According to Lewis and Hill, “the information gap” is nowadays considered important in language teaching sińce it is the prereąuisite for communication to take place. Many activities are based upon this very principle (1992: 120). This notion is further developed by Grauberg who claims that “people talk to each other [...] for a purpose, such as reąuesting and giving information, reporting what they have done, discussing futurę action” for which, he believes, learners have to be eąuipped with sufficient vocabulary and grammar structure load. However, he ąuotes other factors on which smooth conversation is dependant. They are “the willingness of both partners to take some responsibility fpr the progress of the interchange”, ... getting engaged in “a social relationship ... [which] assumes a measure of cooperation on both sides” and finally listener’s “contribution to the flow of the dialogue” as well as maintenance of social relations through attention and interest (1997:208).