Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper – secondary school CONTENTS 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 1 Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper – secondary school 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 2 Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper – secondary school - 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. D. CONTENT I. GENERAL INTRODUCTION 1. What is Eliciting? Synonyms: searching, drawing out, discovering, realizing, understanding. Eliciting is a technique used by the teacher during the lesson that involves the language learner in the process of discovering and understanding language. 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 3 Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper – secondary school 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. 4 Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper – secondary school 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). 5 Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper – secondary school 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: 6 Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper – secondary school 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?” 7 Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper – secondary school 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 8 Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper – secondary school 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 9 Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper – secondary school “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 10 [...]... etc. 13 Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper secondary school T asks, What am I doing? Synonym/ Antonym Example 1: Intelligent T asks, Whats another word for clever? Example 2: stupid T asks, Whats the opposite of clever? Translation Example: (to) forget T asks, How do you say quờn in English? 2 Some suggestions for the teachers Each teacher has ways to teach new words Whatever teaching style... 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?) 11 Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper secondary school 1.14 Visuals Just like... Consolidation: (2) - Summarize the main points of the lesson: + New words that related to the lesson + Some main, special features of Cuc Phuong National Park 4 Homework: (2) - Learn by heart all the new words - Remember Some main, special features of Cuc Phuong National Park - Prepare for new lesson * Handout Task 1 (8): Filling missing information and verifying the guesses 1 Cuc Phuong National Park... example sentence E APPLYING THE RESEARCH IN TEACHING 15 Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper secondary school 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 -... the subject and be aware of the conservation II Preparation: 1 Teachers preparation: Textbook, pictures, chalks, lesson-plan, handout 2 Studentspreparation: Textbooks, pens, pencils III Procedure: 1 Check the previuos lesson Lead to the new lesson Teachers activities WARM UP (4) Students activities 23 Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper secondary school - Ask Ss to work in groups close... be the word that students are already known 2.4 Teacher has to think about how to check students' understanding 14 Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper secondary school 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... to produce language 32 Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper secondary school REFERENCE BOOKS 1 Jeanne mcCarten (2007) Teaching Vocabulary New York : Cambridge University Press 2 Pual Naion (1990) Teaching and Learning Vocabulary USA : Heinle&Henle 3 Richard Frost (2004) Presenting vocabulary from http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/presentingvocabulary 4 Tricia Hedge (2008)... caves, correct 24 Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper secondary school answers - Give the answers - Elicit some of the words given in the book or those taken from the - Listen and write down listening passage threatened and endangered and endangered species: ethnic minority: flora (n) fauna (n) defeat (v) a Threatened species - Ss answer: Cỏc loi b e T uses explaination to elicit the da v... individually to write write about the special features of about the special features of Cuc Phuong National Park in five Cuc Phuong National Park in minutes five minutes - After 5 minutes T tells them to stop - Read his/her sentences out writing and ask them the number of loud Other Ss listen and 29 Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper secondary school sentences they can write The Ss comment... around for help grasses and spinifex - Call on some pairs to present - Give comments - Ss read the story silently, individually and answer the following questions III CONSOLIDATION & 1 I think it is funny 22 Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper secondary school HOMEWORK ( 5') 2 dessert (món tráng miệng) - Learn vocabulary and desert (sa mạc) - Prepare section B - SPEAKING - Do exercise at . 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 RESEARCHING METHOD 2 Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper – secondary school - Scope : Researching in the process of teaching English at Le Hoan upper- secondary school. - Object: This subject. Checking). 5 Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper – secondary school Eliciting is often used to pre-teach key vocabulary (words that will appear in the study and activate stages of the