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
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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

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
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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

“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).
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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:
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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
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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

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
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Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper – secondary school
come up with necessarily being defined. A brainstorming stage can
then be moved onto a more traditional elicitation by showing them
which of words they have already given you is most similar to the one
you want.
1.12. Spider diagrams/ Mind maps
Brainstorming can also be done in a more organised manner
with words being added to categories and subcategories like the
branches and twigs of a tree. You can then point to the place where
the word you want to elicit would be if it was on that mind map, using
other elicitation methods to help them work out which of the
possibilities that could be there you are thinking of.

can see on a video, or even something that is going to appear but
hasn’t yet.
2. Demonstration
Visuals:
Examples 1: A car
A4 card or blackboard
Examples 2: Athletic
Magazine picture
Mime
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Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper – secondary school
Example: cold
T: mimes feeling cold
T. asks, “How do I feel?”
Example: (to) fly a kite
T. mimes flying a kite
T. asks, “What am I doing?”
Realia
Example: bananas (count.), rice (uncount.)
T. brings real bananas and rice into class.
T. asks, “What’s this?”
Example: open (adj), closed (adj)
T. opens and closes the door.
T. says, “Tell me about the door: It’s…what?”
Situation/ Explaination
Example 1: honest
T. explains, “I don’t tell lies. I don’t cheat in the exam. I tell the
truth.”
T. asks, “What am I? tell me the word in Vietnamese.” Good.
Now listen to it in English “Honest”.

2.4. Teacher has to think about how to check students'
understanding.
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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 a game or
activity in order to motivate them in learning.
2.7. Teacher should give them some assignment by telling
them to read, watch films, listen to songs etc and note the useful
word. It is a good way to study vocabulary by themselves.
2.8. Teacher should have a section of board for vocabulary
items that come up while teacher are teaching. Use different colours
for the word / the phonetics /the part of speech.
2.9. It is a good idea to teach vocabulary with associated
meanings together.
2.10. Teacher should encourage students to use a good
dictionary.
2.11. Whenever the student asks the word that has never
heard of the word, you tell the student that you will check and get
back to them later.
2.12. Teacher should enough examples sentences to make
sure that the students understand what the teacher taught and give
extra example if the students are unsure and encourage them to
write the word in an example sentence.
E. APPLYING THE RESEARCH IN TEACHING
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Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper – secondary school
Unit 9: Deserts

Simpson desert.
II. PRESENTATION ( 35 min.)
1. Pre- reading: Guess the
meaning of some words
 Vocabulary:
- to comprise :
- enormous (adj)
- mystery (n)
- corridor (n):
- stable (a)
- shrubland (n)
elicits the new words:
Answers' suggestion:
1. It is a camel
2. It lives in deserts
3. They are dry, hot. Dunes are
around deserts.
4. They are: Sahara, Simpson,
Sonoran (Bac My), King
Canyon (Uc)
- Ss pay attention and answer
the questions.
II. PRESENTATION
- Ss pay attention and take
notes
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Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper – secondary school
a. (to) comprise: T. uses
synonym to elicit the verb.
(to) comprise: “(to) include or

word.
Stable means “not likely to move
or change”
- T. asks “What does it means in
Vietnamese?”
f. shrub-land:
- T. uses translation.
shrub-land: vùng đất có nhiều cây
bụi.
* Rub out remember
2. While reading :
Task1: Give the Vietnamese
equivalents to the following
words or phrases
- Ask students to read through the
- Ss answer: Một hành lang nhà
- Ss answer: ổn định , cố định.
Task 1: Checking the
vocabulary : Matching (a
poster)
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Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper secondary school
text once to find out some new
words, guess the main idea.
- Ask Ss to read the passage
silently, stop when they meet a
new word or a phrase and find
words or phrases in the passage
which have the following
meaning given in the Task 1.

- đỉnh , nóc
- cỏ lá nhọn
- kéo dài, căng
ra
- Hội địa lí
hoàng gia Uc
- dốc đứng
- có cát
Task 2:
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Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper – secondary school
and ask them to work in pairs
- Get Ss to check theirs answers
and explain their choices.
- T calls on some Ss to read theirs
answers and explain their choices.
- T comments and gives
feedbacks.
Task 3: Answer the following
questions
- Ask Ss to read the passage
silently and answer the questions
individually
- Ask Ss to work in pairs to
compare their answers.
1. F (There are five: the Great
Victoria, the Gibbon, Great
Sandy, Tanami and Simpson)
2. F (Simpson is the last part
of Australia.

Ranges in the north, the
Mulligan and the Diamantia
Rivers in the east and the
Macumba and Finke Rivers in
the west.
3. In 1845
4. He was the president of the
South Autralian Branch of the
Royal Geographical Society of
Australia.
5. They took camels across the
desert.
6. In the west part, they are
short, mostly less than 10
meters high, and in the northern
part, they are parallel and are
up to 20 meters high.
7.Two. They are hummock
grasses and spinifex.
- Ss read the story silently,
individually and answer the
following questions.
1. I think it is funny
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Techniques for eliciting new vocabulary at upper – secondary school
HOMEWORK ( 5')
- Learn vocabulary
- Prepare section B - SPEAKING
2. dessert (mãn tr¸ng miÖng)
and desert (sa m¹c)

- Work in groups to answer:
Suggested answers:
Cat Ba, Cat Tien, Cuc
Phuong , U Minh, ……
2. The new lesson
Teacher’s activities Students’ activities
I – BEFORE YOU LISTEN (10’)
Introduce the new lesson: You are
going to listen to a passage about
Cuc Phuong National Park.
-Ask Ss to work in pairs to discuss
the following questions:
1. Where is Cuc Phuong National
Park?
2. What is the area of the rainforest
in Cuc Phuong National Park?
3. When is the best time to visit Cuc
Phuong National Park?
4. What can be seen in Cuc Phuong
National Park?
- Go around helping if necessary.
- Call on some to answer out loud.
- Give comments and correct
- Work in pairs to answer
questions:
Suggested answers:
1. It is south west of Ha Noi.
2. It contains over 200 square
kilometers of rainforest.
3. It is during the dry season,

- Ss answer: Các loài bị đe
dọa và nguy hiểm
- Ss answer: Người dân tộc
thiểu số.
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