skkn theme ((techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper – secondary school

- To draw out what the learners know through their relationship to the words they understand.. Eliciting is not asking, “What does ________mean?” It is not a “you should know this” quest

A REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE RESEARCH

B AIMS OF THE RESEARCH

C SCOPE, OBJECT AND RESEARCHING METHOD

D MAIN CONTENT

I GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1 What is Eliciting?

2 Eliciting Lexis (Vocabulary)

3 Principles and advantages

II TECHNIQUES FOR ELICITING NEW VOCABULARY

1 Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary.

2 Demonstration.

3 Some suggestions for the teachers.

E RESULT AFTER APPLYING THE RESEARCH IN TEACHING

F CONCLUSION

G REFERENCE BOOKS

A REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE RESEARCH

Vocabulary is one of the important aspects of language to teach There are many quotations from famous linguistics to support this idea For example, "Without grammar very little can be conveyed; without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed." (Wilkins 1972:111) and "When students travel, they don't carry grammar books, they carry dictionaries." (Krashen in Lewis 1993: iii) Moreover, errors of vocabulary are potentially more misleading than those of grammar Sometimes the context of the utterance would lead a listener to question their first interpretation, but a chance response such as "Yes,

my father has an affair in that village'(confusing the Swedish affar meaning 'shop' with the English 'affair' which can mean 'extra-marital relationship') gives the listener the wrong impression From above, you will see the importance of vocabulary Hence teachers should know how to present vocabulary effectively in order to help student develop vocabulary

B AIMS OF THE RESEARCH

- To introducing eliciting new vocabulary and showing its

benefits

- To show ways of eliciting new vocabulary

- To show how new vocabulary can be presented for various classroom activities

- To draw out what the learners know through their relationship

to the words they understand

C SCOPE, OBJECT AND RESEARCHING METHOD

- Scope : Researching in the process of teaching English at Le

Hoan upper-secondary school

- Object: This subject is concerned with ways of organizing

activities in the class

- Researching method: Reading reference books , discussing

with other teachers, applying in teaching, observing and drawing out experiences

Anything in the lesson can be elicited: vocabulary, grammar, experiences, and ideas The objective of eliciting is to allow the learners the chance to participate in the learning process by letting them express their acquired or intuitive knowledge, and through critical thinking which will enhance their language abilities by adding

to what they already know

To understand what effective eliciting is, it will help to know what it is not Eliciting is not asking, “What does mean?” It

is not a “you should know this” question similar to that used by a teacher in an academic setting It is not a vague, trivia-based question

in which the learner must provide some definition similar to a word

game or puzzle Eliciting draws out what the learners know through their relationship to the words they understand But further than that, it allows the teacher to see what the learner knows, and so permits the teacher to add to their knowledge.

The key to successful eliciting lies in an artful interaction between the teacher and the learner There is no special time for eliciting to occur during the lesson It can be used as needed—during any of the engage, study and activate sections of the lesson

2 Eliciting Lexis (Vocabulary)

Let’s say that there is a text about the common cold Let’s say you want to present this reading to your learners How can you prepare them to wholly understand the text? By engaging them through eliciting, you can start talking about health in general and then more personally and specifically: For example, the teacher elicits:

What kinds of health problems are common in most people?

What kinds of common health problems do you suffer from?Within text, you will need to determine the key lexis or vocabulary for this reading You will decide on the key lexis based on your knowledge of your learners and what you feel is essential for them to understand, before they read, in order to get the gist of the text Some of the words they may already know, some may be new to them Whatever the case, you will try to get your learners to use these words in order to show they understand them Otherwise, you can use them yourself interactively through discussion of the theme, by asking questions and using the key words in context

For the example of a text on the common cold, you could start

by having your learners will start out by providing you with some of the basic, general language about common illnesses -words and phrases they know already You can write these words and phrases on the board as they bring them up, organizing them into parts of speech: nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc Later, you’ll be able to erase all but the key words located in your text

For example, let’s assume that most of your learners know the words “a cold” and “a virus”, but you aren’t sure they know the verb,

“to spread” The teacher elicits:

A virus can spread colds What other illnesses can be spread?Assuming the learners already know the meaning of colds and/or virus, they can deduce the meaning of SPREAD from context If the teacher adds a gesture to show SPREAD (I.e., using your hands to sweep across the room is a spreading gesture), then the learners will most certainly access meaning

The teacher shouldn’t assume, however, that the learners have understood the word(s) by the assent of the learners (by their saying only the word, or merely nodding their heads) The teacher will then want to CONCEPT CHECK meaning by asking something like,

“What other illness can be spread?” The teacher should expect to hear something like, “the flu can be spread, or malaria, or AIDS.” By doing this, the teacher ensures that everyone has understood its precise meaning (see Concept Checking)

Eliciting is often used to pre-teach key vocabulary (words that will appear in the study and activate stages of the lesson) In doing this stage interactively, with the teacher and the learners collaborating and negotiating language (teacher draws out, learners discover, and together you arrive at understanding), the learners will more likely hold onto the meaning of these words not only in the lesson, but beyond it.

Effective eliciting of lexis can enhance the learners’ overall understanding of a lesson, especially in reading and listening lessons Effective ways to elicit:

Ask, “What is another way to say ?” For example: What

is another way to say that you are very, very hungry? (I'm starving)

Provide a simple definition For example: It is something that

we drink hot coffee and tea out of (a mug)

Act it out For example: Wipe your brow and pretend to fall Then ask, “What did I do?” (I fainted)

Ask, “What is the opposite of ?” For example: What is the opposite of tall? (short)

Use a visual For example: Shoe a picture of two people who look the same and ask, “What do we call two people who look the same?” (identical twins)

3 Principles and advantages

Eliciting is based on several premises:

Collectively, students have a great deal of knowledge, both of the language and of the real world This knowledge needs to be activated and used constructively.

The teaching of new knowledge is often based on what the learners already know

Questioning assists in self-discovery, which makes information more memorable

Eliciting helps to develop a learner-centred classroom and a stimulating environment, while making learning memorable by linking new and old information Eliciting is not limited to language and global knowledge The teacher can elicit ideas, feelings, meaning, situations, associations and memories For the teacher, eliciting is a powerful diagnostic tool, providing key information about what the learners know or don't know, and therefore a starting point for lesson planning Eliciting also encourages teachers to be flexible and to move

on rather than dwell on information which is already known

II TECHNIQUES FOR ELICITING NEW VOCABULARY

What’s your favorite way to elicit new vocabulary? Do you mime, or draw, or do something else? Please share in the comments below!

1 Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary.

1.1 Opposites

This works for certain adjectives, verbs, nouns, adverbs, determiners etc, e.g “What’s the opposite of dark/ stop/ an idiot/ suddenly/ few?”

1.2 Ranks, sequences and sliding scales

We can extend the idea of giving opposites to include things that could be written with two opposites as steps on a scale, e.g (words you are trying to elicit in brackets) “What comes next? Cold, hot, (boiling)/ Dislike, like, (love)” This can be extended to anything else that could be seen to have some kind of sequence such as “pupil, undergraduate, (graduate)”, “tap, hit, (bash)” or “today, yesterday, (the day before yesterday)”

1.3 Similarities

This is another good way of eliciting “the day before yesterday”-

“If tomorrow is followed by the day after tomorrow, what is yesterday preceded by?” This works for word forms (e.g “the noun of ‘act’ is made the same way as the noun for ‘connect’ that we learnt last week”) and similarities inspelling and pronunciation (e.g “It has the same spelling/pronunciation/grammatical form as ‘bought’”)

1.4 Definitions

This is the technique that new teachers tend to use most often and most naturally This is perhaps because we often use it when we really can’t remember a word or name in our own language and are hoping the person we are speaking to can come up with it or at least understand what we are talking about anyway, as in “I need one of those, what do you call them? Things to get your car off the ground so you can change a tyre” “A jack?” “Yes, that’s it.” You can make the definitions you use to elicit in class easier to come up with and understand by writing all the definitions you are going to use on your

lesson plan, taking them straight out of a dictionary or the teacher’s book, writing the definition up on the board as well as or instead of saying it, or only using words they should know at that level (perhaps from a vocabulary list) when writing definitions You might also want

to have a plan B definition in case the first one is not understood or is confused with another word

1.5 Synonyms

If you are lucky, you won’t need to go through a whole long definition if there is a word that means approximately the same (it doesn’t always matter if it is not an exact synonym as long as it produces the word you want, but make sure that it doesn’t reinforce their wrong idea that two different words are the same) You can increase your chances of using this method successfully and often by getting the students used to doing exercises on synonyms in class and for homework If there are several synonyms, you might want to check with a teacher with more knowledge of students with that L1 which of them is more likely to be familiar because it is similar to their own language, is more often studied in the school system, is part

of a well known product name etc

1.6 When we talked about it before

Another method we use naturally in our normal speech we can exploit in the classroom is “Who was that actor we were talking about yesterday? You remember, when we were talking about films that we hate That’s right, Beat Takeshi Well, he…” with variations like

“Remember the word everyone had problems with in the test?” and

“What was the word for the kind of shop that we did a roleplay about last week?”

1.7 Memory

The idea of getting them to remember things to elicit words can

be extended to, for example, seeing if they can remember a word from

a dialogue they have just been doing, e.g “What was the third product

he asked for in the shop?”

1.8 Gaps

This could mean a word with letters blanked out, a typical sentences with the word or expression you are trying to elicit blanked out, or a combination of the two, e.g “He let the c_t out of the bag” This can be used with spoken elicitation as well as written elicitation

by humming the missing part of the sentence

1.9 Stress clues

By humming the rhythm of the word or drawing its stress pattern

on the board, you can help students work out which of several similar words you are trying to elicit from them

1.10 Multiple choice

You can really go for it with giving clues by telling students options they can choose from, although if you have chosen this method because students actually have no idea of the answer this makes it more of a presentation than an elicitation

1.11 Brainstorm

Although not many people think of it this way, brainstorming is basically a form of eliciting but without the words you want them to

come up with necessarily being defined A brainstorming stage can then be moved onto a more traditional elicitation by showing them which of words they have already given you is most similar to the one you want.

1.12 Spider diagrams/ Mind maps

Brainstorming can also be done in a more organised manner with words being added to categories and subcategories like the branches and twigs of a tree You can then point to the place where the word you want to elicit would be if it was on that mind map, using other elicitation methods to help them work out which of the possibilities that could be there you are thinking of

1.13 Common mistakes

Another technique that teachers don’t often think of combining with elicitation is talking about errors, but in fact giving hints about what mistakes students make with a word or expression can be a great hint about which one you are thinking of (e.g “People often confuse it with ‘butter’, but it has flour and is put on something that you deep fry” for “batter”, or “Spanish speakers often think it means pregnant, but it actually means ashamed” for “embarrassed”) This technique can also lead onto talking about subjects like false friends, pronunciation mistakes, negative and positive connotations (“People who call someone fat should probably use this word that we learnt last term instead”) and formality mistakes (“Although some people write

‘hello’ at the beginning of a business email, the word we want starts with ‘d’ and is…?”)

1.14 Visuals

Just like your students when they get totally stuck communicating in English during their travels, you might find that a quick sketch is the only way to get them to understand and produce the word or expression that you mean In you think a picture might be the best way of explaining something, you also have the option of using a flashcard or a printout from the internet (try searching in the images option of Google)

1.15 Multimedia

If you have internet access in the classroom, there is also the option to just search for an image as the topic comes up (as long as the students can’t see the search terms you are using, as this means there

is nothing left to elicit!) Using video takes a lot more preparation, but you could use a very short clip to elicit the name of something you can see on a video, or even something that is going to appear but hasn’t yet

Example: cold

T: mimes feeling cold

T asks, “How do I feel?”

Example: (to) fly a kite

T mimes flying a kite

T asks, “What am I doing?”

Realia

Example: bananas (count.), rice (uncount.)

T brings real bananas and rice into class

T asks, “What’s this?”

Example: open (adj), closed (adj)

T opens and closes the door

T says, “Tell me about the door: It’s…what?”

Example 3: (to) complain

T says, “The bed is too hard I don’t like it The room is too small It’s no good, etc.”

T asks, “What am I doing?”

Example: (to) forget

T asks, “How do you say “quên” in English?”

2 Some suggestions for the teachers

Each teacher has ways to teach new words Whatever teaching style are used the suggestions which may help teachers are followings:

2.1 Teacher has to prepare the way to show meaning For example, if the words which the teacher is going to present are concrete, the teacher should prepare picture of those words to present

2.2 Teacher has to ask students to tell the meaning first in order to elicit meaning from students before they offer the meaning

2.3 Teacher has to think about how to show the meaning of a word with related words such as synonyms, antonyms etc Moreover, the example words should be the word that students are already known

2.4 Teacher has to think about how to check students' understanding

2.5 Teacher has to think about the context in real situation where the words might be used in order to relate learning language

to real life and also promotes high motivation

2.6 Teacher should review the vocabulary via a game or activity in order to motivate them in learning

2.7 Teacher should give them some assignment by telling them to read, watch films, listen to songs etc and note the useful word It is a good way to study vocabulary by themselves

2.8 Teacher should have a section of board for vocabulary items that come up while teacher are teaching Use different colours for the word / the phonetics /the part of speech

2.9 It is a good idea to teach vocabulary with associated meanings together

2.10 Teacher should encourage students to use a good dictionary

2.11 Whenever the student asks the word that has never heard of the word, you tell the student that you will check and get back to them later

2.12 Teacher should enough examples sentences to make sure that the students understand what the teacher taught and give extra example if the students are unsure and encourage them to write the word in an example sentence

E APPLYING THE RESEARCH IN TEACHING

Unit 9: Deserts

Lesson 1: Reading Class: 12A1, 12A6, 12A11.

I Objectives

By the end of the lesson Ss will be able to:

- understand the passage about deserts and scan for specific information

- use vocabulary related to the topic of the lesson through exercises

II Teaching aids

- Textbook, chalk, posters, pictures

III Procedures

I WARM – UP ( 5 min.)

- Ask Ss to look at pictures in

their textbooks and discuss the

questions below

Discuss and answer the questions