Eliciting
Recently, I read a blogpost which rightfully derided poor elicitation techniques, but seemed to completely skip over good techniques for eliciting from students.
So, before you read any further, ask yourself what eliciting means in your classroom and if any of the following ideas seem familiar.
The post I read
Just to give a clear idea about what I’m reacting to, the post I read gave an example teacher-student interaction similar to the following.
A: How many people are in this picture?
B: Two.
A: Yes. And they are a man and a … ?
B: Woman.
A: Yes. How are they related?
B: They’re married.
A: No.
B: They are brother and sister?
A: No.
B: They are colleagues working on an important task.
A: Yes ! And what might they be saying?
B: Well, I think he’s saying …
This is not effective eliciting. In fact, the original post author rightfully cringed at this type of interaction just as I do. The questions the students can answer are too simple, and the others are simply speculative.
Of course, every class has different goals, but this seems like a warm-up activity at best and then, really focussed on a “describe the picture” type exercise found on some tests.
What is effective eliciting?
Eliciting means drawing information or reactions from people in response to our actions or statements. In this way, nearly any question we ask can be a form of elicitation. So, perhaps a better question would be …
What is the goal of effective eliciting?
This might be obvious, but the goal is for the students to speak more, speak meaningfully, and to display effective use of the language being learned.
How do we elicit more from students?
Hopefully we can do something a bit more creative than just asking direct questions. Below, I’ll outline a few examples with the caveat that I do NOT claim to have all the answers or techniques and would love to have your input and ideas on this.
1. Questions
The questions we saw earlier directly ask for very specific information.
A: How many people are in this picture?
B: Two.
Yawn. This question doesn’t take the learner into account in any way and isn’t meaningful communication.
Something as simple as saying, “Tell me about this picture” or “Tell us what you think about this picture” will open the range of responses students can give and give us a better understanding of what they are capable of.
But what if we really do want to elicit specific information as say, part of a review? Then, of course direct questions may be necessary. For example, in last week’s class we practiced talking about future schedules.
Directly
T: Tell me your schedule for tomorrow. Use the language we practiced in class last week.
B: Ok. Tomorrow, I’m going to have a meeting at …
Conversationally
T: Are you busy tomorrow?
B: Not really, but I’m going to have a meeting at …
2. Prompts
Short prompts are a great elicitation tool to get students talking or to say more. Here, we mean that we will elicit a speaking response, we are not looking for specific information
a. images
Give students an image and have them build a story around it filling in as much detail as they can. For younger students, a cute character like one of my illustrations may work. For adults, a graph, chart, or logo could do the trick.
b. share a tweet, quote, or line from a story
Again, adjust the content to the group. In one of my adult classes, I shared a tweet their CEO had posted that morning and had them discuss what it meant for their business.
c. because …
Depending on the student’s level, a single word can be enough to spur them on to say more. They are likely capable of saying more, but without that little elicitation prompt from the teacher, they would sit in silence.
Student A: What did you do last weekend?
Student B: I just stayed home.
Teacher: … because …
SB: … because I wanted spend time with my son.
Teacher: so …
SB: So … we played a few games.
SA: Sounds great. What did you play?
SB: Well …
d. playful silence
It helps to be a little humorous with this but if a student gives a too-short answer or statement and you know they are capable of more, a friendly dose of silence combined with a wry grin can often elicit more speech from them.
A: How was your day?
B: Pretty busy.
A: …… : )
B: But not bad. I got a lot done and had lunch with some coworkers.
A: ………….. : D
B: We went to a Thai place near our office.
So what do you think?
What is your experience with eliciting and what are some better ways we can elicit language from our students? Do you use the techniques above and do they work for you?