ELICITING
I. WHAT IS ELICITING?
In many classes, during the presentation stage:
- the teacher talks and students just listen, repeat or answer a set question.
- the teacher dominate the lesson – using English to introduce new material
- help students to be more involved in the presentation
+ ask students for their ideas and suggestions, guess new words, or say what they already
know
II. THE VALUE OF ELICITING
- Eliciting helps students think and pay attention, even if they don’t know the word being
elicited.
→ used for: presenting new language as well as reviewing what was taught earlier
- It lets students use what they already know.
→ used for: classes with different levels/different learning backgrounds.
- It helps teachers see what students know or don’t know, so they can adapt the
presentation to the level of the class
- Eliciting takes more time than straightforward presentation of new language, so teachers
should use both eliciting and 'straight' presentation.
III. ELICITING FROM PICTURES
- When using pictures, it’s good to ask general questions that have many answers. This lets
more students join in and speak more.
- Even if students can’t answer, asking first makes them more interested in the new word
and encourages them to listen more carefully.
IV. GETTING STUDENTS TO GUESS
- Although students probably did not 'know' all the items, it was quite easy to guess them
correctly.
- By eliciting the examples rather than simply presenting them, the teacher helped
students to see for themselves how the rule works. It also enabled him to see whether they
had understood the rule or not.
→ Eliciting is one way of encouraging students to guess and to work out rules for
themselves.
The teachers’ technique of eliciting:
- The teacher should pause after asking each question, to give students time to think.
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- The teacher should vary his or her questioning technique according to the difficulty of
the question, letting good students answer difficult questions and directing easier
questions at weaker students. In this way the whole class will be involved.
- The teacher should try to elicit 'onto the blackboard', building up a set of examples as
students respond.
V. GETTING STUDENTS TO IMAGINE
Look at the picture and the questions below.
A.
Where is this woman standing?
What is she wearing?
What is she doing?
What is she holding in her hand?
What time of day is it?
- The questions are about things that are quite clear in the picture. Each question either
has a single correct answer or a small range of possible answers, e.g. She's standing by the
sea / on a jetty; She's looking/gazing/staring out to sea, etc.
→ The purpose of questions like these would be to elicit key vocabulary or structures, or to
establish a situation or topic.
B.
Why is she standing here? What has happened?
How does she feel? Why?
What is she thinking? Write some of her thoughts in a few words.
Imagine this is a scene from a film. What will happen next?
- The questions require quite a different kind of answer.
They require students to interpret what is in the picture (e.g. why the woman is standing
there) or to imagine things beyond the picture itself (e.g. what will happen next). There are
no single ‘right' answers to these questions but a wide range of possible answers: students
are encouraged to express their own ideas and feelings; give a more imaginative, personal
response.
→ The main purpose of questions like these is to involve the class in discussion and to
stimulate freer use of language.
