Matakuliah
Tahun
: G0454/Class Management & Education Media
: 2006
RUNNING a CLASS (2)
Pertemuan 11-12
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I. ELICITATION
General Idea:
Elicitation is a useful part of setting up an activity :
whether it is a role play, a game, a listening task or a
presentation.
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Presentation :

is the part of the lesson that will be dominated by the
teacher as she introduces new material.

The teacher does most of the talking while the
students listen.

If the students speak, it is usually to repeat what the
teacher says or to answer a set of questions.
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However, it is possible to involve the students
more in the activity by asking them for their :
– ideas,
– information and
– suggestion,
getting them to contribute what they already know; and by
encouraging them to guess vocabulary items or new words.
This is called Eliciting.
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ELICITING
• Eliciting means drawing out information, language ideas,
etc from the Ss rather than having the T give them.
• It is a technique based on the principles that :
 Ss probably know a lot more than we may
give them credit for;
 starting with what they know is a productive
way to begin new work;
 involving people in a question and answer
movement towards new discoveries is often
more effective than simply giving “lectures”.
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STEPS TO ELICITING
1.
I convey a clear idea to the Students, perhaps by using
pictures or gestures or questions, etc.
2.
They then supply the appropriate language,
information, ideas, etc.
3.
I give them feedback.
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• I CAN elicit :
 language,
 ideas,
 feelings,
 Meanings,
 contexts,
 memories, etc.
• I CAN’T elicit :
things they don’t know
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THE VALUE OF ELICITING
1.
Eliciting involves the class by focusing students’
attention and making them think and get involved in
the context. This happens even if students do not know
the words being elicited. So, elicitation can be used for
presenting language as well as reviewing what was
taught earlier.
2.
Eliciting encourages students to draw on what they
already know or partly know. Because of this, it is a
useful technique for mixed ability classes or classes of
students from different learning backgrounds, where
different students know different things.
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3.
Eliciting increases the amount students talk, so as to
activate the language they already know.
4.
Eliciting gives teachers a chance to find out what
students know and what they do not know and so
adapt the presentation to the level of the class : the
pace of the lesson and the length of time needed for
that particular language point.
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5.
Eliciting gives students a motivating feeling of being
encouraged to invest part of themselves in the context,
so that what happens seems to depend partly on the
students themselves.
6.
Eliciting takes more time than straightforward
presentation of new language, so most teachers would
not try to elicit all the time, but rather use a mixture of
eliciting and straight presentation
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TECHNIQUES OF ELICITING
 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.
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2.
A good elicitation consists of some kind of stimulus
that would automatically produce the desired language
item(s) from a native speaker. This stimulus can take
many forms :
 A picture
 A board drawing
 An OHP transparency
 A short piece of recorded material
 A gapped sentence on the board
 Actions, gestures or mimes
 Verbal explanation of a situation
 A combination of any of these methods.
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3.
4.
5.
The creation of a really suitable stimulus (esp. for
elicitation of structure) will be almost impossible if the
teacher has not really worked out the meaning
(concept ) of the language point in question.
Elicitations are best kept simple, with as little teacher
talk as possible. Beware of using unfamiliar vocabulary
at this stage of the lesson.
Don’t “give the game away”. For example : pointing
at a picture and asking “What’s he doing?” is NOT an
elicitation of Present Continous! Any reasonably
intelligent student could respond correctly to such a
question, but would she necessarily really understand
the meaning of what was being said ?
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6. Not too fast. Even though the elicitation phase is usually
very short ( 2-5 minutes ), don’t rush things too much :
 The teacher should pause after asking each question, to
give students time to think and dig a little giving extra clues
where appropriate.
 Also, if the first response you get is exactly what you’re
looking for, don’t immediately say “very good!” and use this
response to start the presentation because you haven’t
found out how much other students know.
 Check to see what a few other students think, then, you
can use the correct response as a starting point for your
presentation.
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
On the other hand, not too slow. If the language point
is new, most students won’t get it right in the elicitation
phase. Don’t wait for them to produce language that
they have never been taught before.
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Conclusion

Elicitation is a necessary but very difficult “art” requiring
great skill and flexibility on the part of the teacher.

Finding the right balance of number (6) and (7) is probably the
most demanding thing of all.

Clarity of thought and sensitivity towards the students’
reactions are the two most important qualities required for this
difficult task.
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