Teaching partnerships, in which exchanges of information are used as a teaching tool, are growing in popularity in Japan.
They first became popular during the late 70s and early 80s when the emphasis shifted from treating language as a set of rules to teaching it as a communication tool.
The basic idea is based on pairwork, in which each student has information that his/her partner doesn't have; the goal is to combine the knowledge to complete a task.
For example, one student may have a map with half the buildings are marked, while the other has a similar map showing the other buildings. After some pre-teaching of question forms and preposition, the students take turns asking questions, and filling in all the gaps.
