Teachers’ use of elicitation techniques to teach speaking skill to first-year students of UET, VNU

Nguyễn Minh Tuấn Năm bảo vệ: 2012 Abstract: Application of Communicative Language Teaching into English classrooms has mushroomed worldwide, and employment of elicitation techniques t

Teachers’ use of elicitation techniques to teach speaking skill to first-year students of UET, VNU

Chu Thị Huyền Mi

Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn Thạc sĩ ngành: Lý luận và phương pháp dạy học tiếng Anh

Mã số: 60 14 10 Người hướng dẫn: ThS Nguyễn Minh Tuấn

Năm bảo vệ: 2012

Abstract: Application of Communicative Language Teaching into English classrooms has

mushroomed worldwide, and employment of elicitation techniques to enhance learners’ competence in spoken English is not an exception However, how to maximize the outcomes

of those techniques among Vietnamese students in general and to non-English-major students

is always a big concern to educators This study was conducted with a view to examining teachers’ use of elicitation techniques to teach speaking skill to first-year students at University of Engineering and Technology, Vietnam National University, Hanoi To be more specific, the researcher desired to investigate teachers’ concept of elicitation teaching, their actual implementation and effects of elicitation techniques on their students’ spoken English skill The three objectives were expected to be accomplished by a triangulation of three data collection instruments including questionnaire, interview and classroom observation Targeting at first-year student population, the study could involve 80 of them in the questionnaire survey and ten teachers in both questionnaire and interviews Classroom observation was also implemented to support and test the results gained from the former instruments Upon data analysis, the researcher could work out important findings as follows, i.e most of the studied teachers had an adequate understanding of elicitation teaching and used it with high frequency “Increasing students’ talk” was the most significant effect of elicitation whereas “time consumption” was the biggest shortcoming of the techniques Regarding their actual implementation, all techniques, especially questioning, were used on a regular basis to elicit students’ talk The manners of elicitation which were paid the most attention to included “combining different techniques”, “alternating types of questions” and

“direct questions to a variety of students” The findings could after all generate meaningful

pedagogical implications for students, teachers and educational authorities

Keywords: Tiếng Anh; Kỹ năng nói; Phương pháp giảng dạy; Thủ thuật gợi mở

Content

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

This chapter aims at stating the rationale, objectives, scope and significance of the research

An overview of the rest of the study is also provided in this chapter

1.1 Rationale

According to an article posted on www.vietbao.vn on 9 December 2009, a large number of Vietnamese fresh graduates are complained about their limited English proficiency at workplace settings, especially their weaknesses in English communication despite their acceptable ability in their own specializations This problem may stem from some deficiency in English teaching and learning at university and lower academic levels Therefore, it is about time to take a closer look at the current use of teaching methods which are designed to develop students’ speaking competence

For the last few years, communicative language teaching (CLT) has remarkably emerged as

an innovative teaching approach to the teaching of second and foreign languages throughout the

world According to Nunan (1991), CLT features interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal

of learning a language This emphasis involves that students are required to construct a habit of

enthusiastically participating in classroom exchanges and real communication to enhance their speaking skill The new learning strategy can only be enabled when there is a shift between teachers’ and students’ roles Learner-centered learning has reigned in modern classrooms where students are

given more autonomy while teachers take the roles of controllers, assessors, organizers, prompters,

participants and so forth (Harmer, 2001) who facilitate students’ participation in a variety of

interactive activities In an attempt to reverse that dominant status between the two parties, elicitation teaching has been spread into English classrooms on an international scale

On the way of educational integration, the communicative approach has been adapted to Vietnam’s national curriculums of almost every academic level, ranging from elementary, middle, secondary to post-secondary levels Although the interest in and development of communicative-style teaching developed statistically worldwide, the adoption in Vietnam has been obstructed by the inherent dominance of grammar-translation approach It is commonly seen that Vietnamese students are typically passive and shy in language classrooms while teachers tend to embrace the role of

"expert" who would impart his or her knowledge or "expertise" to unknowing students, who in turn would be assessed by evaluation instruments intended to measure the amount of transferred

"expertise" (Rudder, 2000) Similarly, while elicitation has been considered an essential tool to teach speaking skill in modern classrooms worldwide, the use of it in Vietnam has turned out not to be as effective as expected Therefore, the present study saw a need to learn about teachers’ perception of elicitation teaching and their actual employment to better understand the matter

1.2 Aims and objectives

In doing the research, the author attempted to address three main aspects Firstly, the study investigated how teachers conceived about elicitation in teaching speaking skill In addition to the concepts, their actual employment was also closely looked at Last but not least was students’

evaluation on the effects of elicitation teaching on their performance These objectives were accomplished by answering the following questions:

1 What is teachers’ concept of elicitation in teaching English speaking skill to first-year students of UET, VNU, Hanoi?

2 How do they employ elicitation in teaching English speaking skill to first-year students of UET, VNU, Hanoi?

3 What effects does the employment have on students?

1.3 Scope of the study

First and foremost, the research focused on teachers’ application of elicitation techniques in

speaking lessons only in order to foster students’ talk Therefore, application into other kinds of

lessons and the outcomes of the teaching on other linguistic skills are not taken into consideration

Also, as stated in the earlier part, the research targeted at freshmen of UET, VNU only, which excluded those from other academic levels and institutions

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter means to review background theories related to the issue including definitions

of key concepts and relevant knowledge Several related studies of the same field are also brought to discussion

2.1 Key concepts and relevant knowledge

Elicitation teaching is a typical execution of communicative teaching approach and has been extensively employed by teachers who are committed to Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) This fact shows a tight relationship between CLT and elicitation teaching Therefore, before digging deeper into the major concept, it is significant to review the theory of the underlying approach

2.1.1 Communicative Language Teaching

CLT has emerged as by far the most popular teaching approach defaulted in almost every English language classroom worldwide Kumaravadivelu (1993: 12) affirmed the influential power

of CLT that “CLT which started in the early 1970s has become the driving force that shapes the planning, implementation and evaluation of English language teaching programs (ELT) in most parts

of the world” Richard (2005: 6) also gave a full account of what language teachers mean by

“communicative”:

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) can be understood as a set of principles about the goals

of language teaching, how learners learn the language, the kinds of classroom activities that best facilitate learning, and the roles of teachers and students in the classroom

2.1.2 Elicitation

2.1.2.1 Definition of elicitation

The majority of CLT teachers tend to mention elicitation as their familiar teaching practice but the explanations of this term vary broadly This diversity may stem from a fact that elicitation hardly gets any specific clarifications in academic literature The nature of it can be roughly understood via the word “elicit” which means “draw facts, responses, answers, etc from somebody, sometimes with difficulty” (Oxford Advanced Dictionary, 2008)

2.1.2.2 Types of elicitation

Teachers are given five main kinds of tools to elicit students’ talk and thereby making their classrooms genuinely communicative as follows An earlier research of the same field (Chu, 2009) made a detailed account of eliciting tools used in CLT classes

2.1.2.2.1 Making questions

2.1.2.2.2 Using pictures

2.1.2.2.3 Using games or activities

2.1.2.2.4 Using texts and dialogues

2.1.2.2.5 Using non-verbal language

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 3.1.2 Participants

Since this study investigated the use of elicitation in real classroom settings, both teachers and students were involved as subjects of the research

Although the research focuses on teachers’ application of elicitation teaching, students play

an equivalent role as direct beneficiaries, observers and evaluators of the process They were primarily selected for the questionnaire to obtain answers to Research Question 3 The total number

was approximately 80, which constituted nearly one fifth of the entire population

The selection of students taking part in the survey primarily complied with the principle of

random sampling This sampling method is useful if the researcher wishes to be able to make generalization, because it seeks representativeness of the wider population (Cohen, Manion and

Morrison, 2000: 100) Every student has chance to be selected The selection of one may not eliminate the likelihood of the others Therefore, this sampling method could ensure high diversity and, thus, validity for the study On applying the mentioned theory, the researcher did hand-pick

four out of given 15 classes In these four chosen classes, the researcher selected 20 students from

each to approach

However, to intensify the representativeness of the study, another method namely stratified

sampling was also employed to choose these 20 students properly The researcher divided the

whole population of each class into sub-groups, each of which “contains subjects with similar

characteristics” (Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2000: 101) Their A1 scores are the only criterion

for different categories which serve the later selection

Teachers:

Because teachers are the target of this research, they underwent a careful selection procedure for both the questionnaire and interview session 10 out of 14 teachers of the Department were invited to share their opinion and experience on the investigated issue within the questionnaire It needs to note that eight out of this 10 were intentionally taken from four earlier-selected classes, which might be useful for the comparison between their own responses and their students’ evaluation From those 10 teachers, six of them were invited to the interview session

3.2 Research Instruments

As a survey research, it fully employed all three fundamental tools namely questionnaire, semi-structured interview and classroom observation The combination of these three instruments was believed to generate valid and reliable data

3.2.1 Teacher and Student Questionnaire

The first data collection method, the questionnaires, was delivered to both teachers and students This tool was popularly used in almost every primary research According to Wilson and

Mc Lean (1994), questionnaire was highly regarded for its outstanding merits including providing

structured, numerical data, being able to be administered without the presence of the researcher, and often straightforward to be analyzed (cited by Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2000: 245) Also,

from reality, the researcher found it time- and effort- saving to conduct questionnaire survey among

a relatively large number of UET freshmen and teachers

3.2.2 Teacher interview

Effective as the questionnaire can be, this is not always the case In fact, there are several disadvantages in using questionnaire as a data collection instrument, one of which is the limited depth of the answers obtained The interview then appears as a no-less-important tool as it served the purpose of obtaining in-depth information far beyond the results initially collected from

questionnaires According to Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2000: 268), interview is a common

research tool used to collect data, as in surveys or experimental situations In the current research,

semi-structured interview was employed to probe for details

Six semi-structured interviews were face-to-face interaction between the researcher and

selected teachers Like questionnaires, every interview was started with a session of sharing personal information To avoid possible misunderstanding and confusion, the interviews were done

in Vietnamese Under the interviewees’ permission, the responses were noted and tape-recorded so

as not to miss any important details At times, unclear points were further explained, which partly enriched the quantity and quality of collected data

3.2.3 Classroom observation

In the light of a primary research, classroom observation was regarded as a must for a maximum degree of objectivity Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2000: 305) claimed that

observational data are attractive as they afford the researcher the opportunity to gather „live‟ data from „live‟ situations On doing lesson observation, the researcher could verify the results collected

earlier from questionnaires and interviews and particularly examined the teacher’s actual employment of elicitation (Research Question 2)

Before the date of observation, a checklist was drafted to orientate the observation Due to

several external obstacles, the researcher was admitted into only two lessons: One was File 1D in Group 2 and the other was File 3 Practical English in Group 10 The lessons were also filmed so

that the analysis work became more favorable and accurate

In conclusion, the combination of the three most common tools namely questionnaire, interview and classroom observation brought to the researcher a rich amount of valid and reliable data, the analysis of which would be presented in the next chapter

3.3.2 Implementation

This stage consisted of three steps related to activities carried out both outside and inside classrooms

Step 1: Teacher questionnaires and students were issued to get initial responses

Step 2: Classroom observation was conducted in two lessons, the choice of which could not

be determined by the researcher herself but on permission

Step 3: Teacher interview was done right after the observed classes were finished It was

the suitable time for the interviewer to clarify any points that she found ambiguous or worth asking about the observed lessons as well as about the questionnaires

3.4 Data analysis procedure

Based on questionnaire results, the researcher began to classify, synthesize and report data

To make the analysis comprehensible, answers to every question in the form of words were transferred into charts first, followed by a detailed explanation Semi-structured interviews were transcribed, analyzed and integrated into the presentation of questionnaire results so that readers could have a deeper understanding of the situations

Regarding classroom observation, the researcher made a thorough analysis on the observation details videoed from the two lessons The results then were double-checked with those

of questionnaires and interviews

To sum up, the research did involve a considerable number of 80 freshmen and 10 teachers

of English from UET, VNU in questionnaire survey, interview and classroom observation The results, after that, were synthesized, analyzed as well as reported in the most reader-friendly way and would be clearly presented in the next chapter

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS

This chapter is where the answers to the three research questions can be found Apart from a thorough analysis of the data collected from the collection instruments, it also presents significant pedagogical implications for relevant parties of the research

4.1 Data analysis and discussion

Research question 1: What is teachers’ concept of elicitation in teaching English speaking skill to first-year students of UET, VNU?

 Teachers’ concept of elicitation in teaching speaking

The questionnaire survey was initiated by the question of “how often do you teach speaking

skill by getting students to provide information rather than giving it to them?”which is supposed to

yield dual answers Firstly, it checks whether teachers are aware of elicitation that they ever use in teaching speaking, and secondly, if yes, the frequency of teachers’ actual using elicitation in teaching speaking Rather than directly revealing the name of this way of teaching, the research gave the equivalent definition to prevent biased answers

Two important conclusions can be made from the first question Firstly, teachers are well aware of the technique that they use in teaching speaking, i.e elicitation, to their first-year students The data can also reveal that they put this teaching way into use with high frequency

 Teachers’ concept of benefits of elicitation in teaching speaking skill

Such an evaluation and observation reached an agreement that elicitation was considered a highly effective tool in teaching speaking skill to UET freshmen

 Teachers’ concept of the shortcomings of elicitation teaching

Although elicitation was asserted to bring a number of benefits to both teachers and students surveyed, the employment of that method had significant disadvantages Generally, all the

shortcomings in discussion were of medium degree since neither “never” nor “usually”

constituted a high percentage out of the entire respondents No teachers added any other shortcomings to the list provided by the researcher

In general, the findings so far have answered the first research question about teachers’ concepts of elicitation teaching That is, teachers have an adequate understanding of elicitation as a teaching method for bettering students’ speaking competence; elicitation has a number of

constructive influences on them, especially increasing students’ talking time and that teachers all clearly realize shortcomings of elicitation teaching

Research question 2: How do they employ elicitation in teaching English speaking skill

to first-year students of UET, VNU?

 Frequency of using specific elicitation techniques

As can be found previously, the first research question partly examined the frequency of teachers’ employing elicitation in English classes The survey afterwards investigated simultaneously what elicitation techniques and how often they were used

It is clear from the below chart that questioning was most frequently employed by teachers, followed by the use of pictures and games & activities The use of body language and texts & dialogues were rarely used in the classrooms No teachers added any other techniques to the list provided by the researcher

It can be concluded from the three sources of data that questioning was most frequently used in EFL classrooms Pictures and games & activities were also enthusiastically employed, but

on a less regular basis Texts & dialogues were seen to be least frequently exploited

When comparing the present research with a related study namely Tran (2007), the results showed some similarities and contradictions Tran (2007) revealed the highest percentage going to questioning at 50% which is 60% in the current research However, when it comes to the least frequently used technique, it was “body language” in Tran (2007) and “texts & dialogues” in the current study with 1% and 0% of frequency respectively Pham (2006) findings hardly showed any contradiction with the present one

Moreover, the converging point of the three studies was well-supported by the literature on

the same field According to Doff (1988), “the focus of eliciting techniques is what questions to ask

to elicit the expected target language”

In short, questioning is widely agreed to be the leading technique which determines the effectiveness of elicitation and no techniques were unused in English classrooms

 Teachers’ elicitation manners in teaching speaking skill

Besides the frequency of teaching by elicitation, the researcher saw a need to observe how teachers employed these techniques before giving necessary implications

All in all, teachers exercised all the available rules for elicitation teaching with a considerable frequency However, rules for proper questioning and combination of techniques are the most often complied with by the teachers of UET

Research question 3: What effects does the employment have on students?

If part of the first research question of “what is teachers‟ concept of elicitation in teaching

English speaking skill to first-year students of UET, VNU?” investigated the effects of elicitation

teaching as perceived by teachers, the third question would seek for students’ own evaluation Afterwards, some comparison would be made between the two groups of figures

As can be seen from the pie chart, 55% of the students said that they were “a bit nervous” when evoked to speak, followed by a percentage of 27, 5% who feel “nervous” to speak Just 5% of the respondents said that they were “very confident” to speak

During the lesson observed, the students were quite shy or unwilling to give answers to many questions delivered by their teachers However, when put into groups for doing group work, they got more enthusiastic As the observer could see, they preferred to give answers in chorus, not individually

From the two sources of data, elicitation gained limited achievements in making students more confident to speak

With regard to the activation of students’ background knowledge, the surveyed students did not highly evaluate the help of elicitation when more than half of them chose “so-so” and the percentage descended to “much” and “very much” The fact that none of them chose “not at all” means that little or much, students’ background knowledge was activated when they were elicited

by the teachers

Although elicitation was said to bear little effects on students’ speaking manner and activation of their own background knowledge, it could significantly help increase their talk time The majority of the respondents headed for “much” and “very much” with 62.5% and 23.75% respectively No students thought that elicitation did no help to their talk time

For this question, students were mostly seen not to feel very embarrassed to listen to their peers’ talk as 43.75% of them chose “so-so” and 33.75% felt willing to listen to their peers Meanwhile, there were a relatively small number of students ticking “much” or “very much”

The lesson observation demonstrated the similar results with the questionnaire survey During the lesson, the students paid quite much attention to their peers’ speaking and sometimes corrected the wrong information for them or proceeded their peers’ talk However, when some individuals took long to finish their answers, many of the peers felt bored with listening and lost concentration On the whole, students did not hesitate much to listen to their peers’ speaking

Elicitation was regarded by students as quite a helpful method in making them memorize the lessons better The category “very much” dominated the ranking with three quarters of respondents while “not at all” was equal to “so-so” at just 5%

In short, the five questions can reveal students’ evaluation of the effects of elicitation that is used by their teachers in speaking lessons Elicitation techniques were tremendously believed to be the most effective in increasing students’ speaking time and helping students remember the lesson better Also, students did not hesitate much to listen to their peers’ responses to teachers’ elicitation On the other hand, their confidence and background knowledge were not dramatically enhanced as assessed by students

There are some similarities and dissimilarities between these evaluations and teachers’ own concepts of the effects of elicitation teaching Like what most student-respondents claimed, a highest percentage of the surveyed teachers emphasized the effectiveness of elicitation in increasing students’ talking time However, while students thought that their teachers’ elicitation did not help much in activating their background knowledge, the teachers themselves tended to place an emphasis on this aspect Another benefit highly appreciated by students was the possibility

of making themselves memorize the lesson better

4.2 Implications

The above findings contribute to the construction of significant pedagogical implications which are bound to better the employment of elicitation method in EFL

Darn (2009) agreed with the results of this research on the fact that eliciting is a basic technique and should be used regularly, not only at the beginning of a lesson but whenever it is necessary and appropriate However, since elicitation consists of five different types, a suitable combination and alternation of them is strongly believed to bear positive effects on keeping students motivated and accomplish the objectives of each lesson In doing so, teachers need to be well aware of the nature, benefits and drawbacks of elicitation teaching The research proved that elicitation is the most effective in increasing students’ talk but does not necessarily mean a decrease

in teachers’ talk Therefore, teachers need to consider suitable time for elicitation as well as for presentation during the lesson to balance the meaningful talk between them and their students This solution partly helps solve the problem of time consumption which was reported to be the biggest challenge of elicitation teaching

When it comes to elicitation manners, as questioning is the leading technique (Doff, 1988), teachers are supposed to exploit it to the fullest in a proper way As can be inferred from the research, although questions requiring specific knowledge can be commonly considered useful in activating students’ background knowledge, an overuse of them may be met in silence and, hence, can hardly stimulate students talk In addition, teachers should pay attention to questioning manners For instance, it is not advisable to “wait until students volunteer to response” because it may be a waste of time and students are not all confident to response; and prolonged silence or