Module teaching and integrating language skills lesson 1

Suggested answers:
1.What time of day is it?
2. How do we know that it’s night?
3.Who are these two men? / Who has broken into the house?
4. Where is the dog sitting?
5. Why is it sitting there?

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  (2 min) Say that it does not matter if students cannot answer these questions. The whole
  

point of eliciting is to find out whether someone knows the correct answer. Some students may actually have a bigger vocabulary than others. If nobody can give the answer it is a signal to the teacher that she should introduce the word or words which are needed to answer the question. By trying to elicit the needed vocabulary first teachers can make the class listen with more interest.

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  (5 min) Ask participants the following question:
  

~ What else besides asking questions can a teacher do to elicit vocabulary and get students to produce language?

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  Invite random responses.
  
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  (8 min) Say that now you will demonstrate three elicitation techniques. Ask Ss to act as students. Do the following:
  

N	YOU	students
	1 Say, “A small electric lamp which one burglar is carrying in his hand is called a …” Say,“ Right. ‘Torch’ is British English and ‘flashlight’ is American English.” NB If participants do not know the answer give it yourself and write both words on the board / flipchart.	Torch/Flashlight
	2 Say,“ Describe the burglar in the window”.	Possible answer:He is a young man who is wearing…. He is a little bit clumsy; he has dropped his torch.
	3 Say, “I will mime the action now, and you will give the verb”. Move quietly on tiptoe looking stealthily around you as if you didn’t want to be seen or heard. NB If participants do not know the answer, write the word ‘sneak’ on the board and say that this is how the first burglar is moving.	Sneak.

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  Elicit from Ss or tell them that first you said an unfinished sentence to elicit the word ‘torch/flashlight’. During the second demonstration you gave a short prompt and elicited a long answer. In the third demonstration you mimed the action to get them to produce a verb. Stress that eliciting is really only suitable for ‘closed’-type information, when the teacher is ‘fishing’ for a particular answer.
  

Summary
Establish that

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  when teachers ask students questions they should start with easy questions and then move on to more difficult ones;
  
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  it is not enough to ask questions which develop only lower order thinking skills; teachers should ask questions which require higher order thinking skills;
  
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  elicitation is important because it gives a teacher information about how much and what exactly students know;
  
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  elicitation is also motivating for students because it gives them a chance to be actively involved in a lesson. It can also be a more entertaining and memorable way to learn.