Information transfer techniques in the teaching of reading and listening in foreign language and English as a second language classrooms are discussed. Students may be presented with a written or spoken text and provided incomplete visual stimuli to be completed with information drawn from the text. The idea is that the learners are helped in understanding the text by means of a nonverbal device such as a diagram, graph, or table. When simple knowledge is the objective, it can provide assistance in familiarizing students with vocabulary. At higher levels, it can assist students in applying specific criteria in the evaluation of a text. Information transfer is ideal for testing and helping comprehension of nonliterary discourse. Other types of information transfer may include ordering a sequence of pictures, comparing text and pictures, and completing documents. Information transfer devices focus on the function of language in a given text and draw students' attention to the logical organization of the text, to the ways in which the writer has deployed information, and to how language reflects this organization. These activities require students to concentrate on what words, sentences, and other language units do in a given text. It is concluded that information transfer exercises are justified on both linguistic and teaching bases and are rooted in the organizational nature of the written text and on the hierarchical structure of learning. Sample exercises are included. (SW)