Information gap task

An information gap task is a technique in language teaching where students are missing information necessary to complete a task or solve a problem, and must communicate with their classmates to fill in the gaps.

[2] One example of an information gap task is a spot-the-difference activity.

[3] Further examples are students sharing information to complete a class timetable, and an activity where students must share information about their families and then draw each other's family trees.

[3] Information gap tasks are also used to test language ability.

According to Underhill, these kind of tasks have the advantage that they produce concrete evidence of communicative competence, or of the lack of it, but the disadvantage of only testing the ability to communicate factual information.