VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

VŨ THU THỦY

THE EXPLOITATION OF ELICITING TECHNIQUES TO

ENHANCE THE READING COMPREHENSION ABILITY FOR
THE FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS AT ULIS, VNU

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS (TEFL)

HANOI, MAY, 2010

 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

VŨ THU THỦY

THE EXPLOITATION OF ELICITING TECHNIQUES TO

ENHANCE THE READING COMPREHENSION ABILITY FOR
THE FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS AT ULIS, VNU

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS (TEFL)

SUPERVISOR: PHẠM MINH TÂM, M.A.

HANOI, MAY, 2010

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to register my profound gratitude to Ms. Pham
Minh Tam, my supervisor, for her invaluable instruction, expertise and
encouragement.

I would like to express my appreciation to the teachers and students in English

Division 1 of the Faculty of English Teacher Education in University of
Languages and International Studies, whose participation and opinions are the
valuable materials for my research.

I would also like to give my special thanks to my classmates and my friends

whose warm support and enthusiasm have contributed greatly to the
development of the research.

Lastly, I am grateful to my family for their kindly encouragement during the

research’s finalization.

i
ABSTRACT
In current English Language Teaching (ELT), communicative competence is the
most important goal for learners but it is a big problem of Vietnamese students.
This can be seen obviously in English classes, especially in Reading sessions.
The reason for that may be they lack opportunities of practicing talking in
English and linking their knowledge to the learnt issues. Students, consequently,
feel embarrassed or even afraid of talking in public and pretend that they can
understand easily the content of the lesson despite the opposite fact. This
situation urges teachers trying to involve students in the activities in class to
make sure that they are able to fully understand the lessons. Amongst numerous
solutions offered by teachers, the exploitation of Elicitation is one of the most
common ways. In this research, Elicitation is examined in three aspects: what the
commonly used Eliciting techniques are, how they affects students’
comprehension ability in Reading classes, and what attitude teachers have
toward them. For the accomplishment of these purposes, the teachers and the
first-year students in the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education of
University of Languages and International Studies has participated in the
research with the triangulated data collection method of classroom observation,
interview, and questionnaire. The collected data were then processed and
analysed to find the answers for students’ response to the use of Eliciting
techniques by teachers. The study also aims to point out the benefits of
employing Elicitation in teaching Reading as well as the problems teachers may
encounter when using those techniques and figure out the solutions to them.
Eventually, the whole research process entailed several practical implications
and suggestions for this method to be well conducted in teaching Reading.

ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………i

ABSTRACT ……………………………………………………………………. ii

LIST OF TABLES……………………………………………………………...vii

LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………….vii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION………………………………………………..1

1.1. Statement of the problem and the rationale for the study ………………..1

1.2. Research aims and Research questions …………………………………..3

1.3. Scope of the study ………………………………………………………..3

1.4. Significance of the study ………………………………………………. ..4

1.5. Method of the study …………………………………………………….. 5

1.5.1. Design ……………………………………………………………… 5

1.5.2. Sampling …………………………………………………………… 5

1.5.3. Data collection instruments …………………………………………6

1.5.4. Data collection procedure ………………………………………….. 7

1.5.5. Data analysis procedure……………………………………………...8

1.6. Organization of the study ………………………………………………...8

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW………………………………………...9

2.1. Eliciting techniques ……………………………………………………. 9

2.1.1. Eliciting …………………………………………………………… 9

iii
 2.1.1.1. Definitions of Eliciting ………………………………………..9

2.1.1.2. Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Eliciting ……………10

2.1.2. Eliciting techniques ………………………………………………...12

2.1.2.1. Asking questions ……………………………………………. 12

2.1.2.2. Using visual aids……………………………………………… 13

2.1.2.3. Conducting games or activities ………………………………. 14

2.1.2.4. Giving definitions and examples …………………………….. 14

2.1.2.5. Organizing group discussion ………………………………… 15

2.2. Reading comprehension ability …………………………………………16

2.2.1. Reading …………………………………………………………….16

2.2.2. Reading comprehension ……………………………………………17

2.2.3. Reading comprehension ability …………………………………….18

2.2.4. Eliciting techniques and Reading in second language teaching…… 19

2.3. Related studies ………………………………………………………. ...23

2.4. Conclusive Remarks …………………………………………………... 25

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY…………………………………………….. 26

3.0. Research questions …………………………………………………….. 26

3.1. Participants …………………………………………………………….. 27

3.1.1. The teachers of English Division 1 in the Faculty of English Teacher

Education………………………………………………………….. 27

iv
 3.1.2. The students in the Faculty of English Teacher Education………...27

3.2. Instruments …………………………………………………………….. 28

3.2.1. Classroom observations ……………………………………………28

3.2.2. Interviews …………………………………………………………..29

3.2.3. Questionnaires …………………………………………………….. 30

3.3. Procedure of data collection……………………………………………..31

3.4. Procedure of data analysis ………………………………………………32

3.5. Conclusive remark ……………………………………………………...33

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION………………………………...34

4.1. RESEARCH QUESTION 1: What techniques do the teachers use in

eliciting the first-year students in Reading classes? ……………………34

4.2. RESEARCH QUESTION 2: To what extent are these techniques effective

in improving students’ level of Reading comprehension as perceived by
the teachers and the students? ………………………………………….39

4.2.1. The aims of the Teacher’s exploiting Eliciting techniques in

Reading classes…………………………………………………..39

4.2.2. The effectiveness of applying Eliciting in Reading classes perceived

by the teachers and the students …………………………………41

4.3. RESEARCH QUESTION 3: What are the teachers' perceptions in

applying these techniques in teaching Reading? ……………………….48

4.3.1. Teacher’s attitude towards Eliciting techniques in Reading

classes……………………………………………………………..48

v
 4.3.2. Benefits of using Eliciting Techniques in Reading classes perceived
by the teachers …………………………………………………….51

4.3.3. Teacher’s difficulties in applying Eliciting Techniques in Reading

classes and their solutions ………………………………………...53

4.4. Conclusive remarks……………………………………………………...55

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION………………………………………………….56

5.1. Major findings of the research…………………………………………..56

5.2. Pedagogical implications of the research ……………………………….58

5.3. Contribution of the research …………………………………………….60

5.4. Limitations of the research ……………………………………………...60

5.5. Suggestions for further studies ………………………………………….61

REFERENCES …………………………………………………………………63

APPENDICES…………………………………………………………………..67

Appendix 1: Observation scheme……………………………………………68

Appendix 2: Samples of Observation scheme ………………………………70

Appendix 3: Questions for interview ………………………………………..76

Appendix 4: Questionnaire form …………………………………………….77

vi
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Major techniques applied by the teachers to exploit
Elicitation in reading class for the first-year students…………..p. 34-35
Table 2. Different ways of assessing Eliciting techniques in Reading
classes by teachers………………………………………………… p. 43
Table 3. Students’ reaction to Eliciting techniques used by teachers
in Reading classes …………………………………………………. p.45
Table 4. Students’ opinion of Eliciting techniques that teachers use
in Reading classes ………………………………………………….p. 47
Table 5. Teachers’ preparation for Eliciting in teaching Reading …………..p.50
Table 6. Teachers’ opinions on the benefits of using Eliciting in
teaching Reading …………………………………………………...p. 52
Table 7. Teachers’ difficulties in using Eliciting techniques in teaching
Reading ……………………………………………………………p. 53

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Teachers’ aims in using Eliciting techniques in teaching
Reading ……………………………………………………............p.39
Figure 2. Teachers’ assessment of their using Eliciting techniques
in teaching Reading ……………………………………………….p. 42
Figure 3. Teachers’ opinion of the importance of using Eliciting
in Reading classes ………………………………………………...p. 49

vii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1. Statement of the problem and the rationale for the study

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has recently been viewed as a

default approach in almost every English language classroom worldwide
since it aims at producing students who are communicatively competent. As a
result, students are required to develop a new habit of getting engaged in
every activity of every subject actively.

The aim of being communicatively competent is considered to be really hard

to achieve in Reading classes. Despite the fact that Reading is an active
process itself since readers are required to work hard when reading and
understanding a text, it is still considered a Receptive skill in learning and
teaching English. In the Reading lessons, students are often asked to work on
their own, which create the impression that the interaction between students
and teachers are not strong enough. Also, students may find the Reading
lessons boring. This might be the case in Vietnamese classes, as students find
no interest in sitting for hours for reading a text, answering the questions and
waiting for teacher’s correction. The students in Reading classes gradually
become silent and lazy to participate in class activities. This situation puts the
question WHY into consideration. The reasons may lie on the way that
teachers attract students in Reading classes.

One of the most common ways to attract students in the lesson is eliciting, “a
technique used by the teacher during the lesson that involves the language
learner in the process of discovering and understanding language” –
mentioned ESLFocus Teacher Expert (2009) in www.eslfocus.com.
“Eliciting helps to develop a learner-centred classroom and a stimulating
environment, while making learning memorable by linking new and old

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information” (Darn, 2009, from Teaching English of BBC website). Teachers
can apply it in the lessons by asking questions, using a visual or providing a
simple definition of something. Therefore, theoretically, it is an effective way
to activate students in a lesson. However, the fact that students are not eagerly
involved in the Reading lessons hypothesizes about the teachers’ exploitation
of Eliciting in Reading sessions: they are likely to be ignored or limitedly
used. This results to the less interaction between teachers and students and
silent class atmosphere. It is the reason why the researcher chooses to
investigate the current situation of exploiting eliciting techniques in teaching
Reading.

Moreover, CLT is not widely applied in many high schools in Vietnam for
several reasons: the major aim of high-school-students is to pass the national
entrance exams; they only learn to get high achievements for showing off; or
the teachers are not qualified enough. Thus, CLT is more favourable in
English specialised schools, for example the University of Languages and
International Studies (ULIS) of Vietnam National University. In addition, the
academic year 2009-2010 is the first time that the fourth year students in the
Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, ULIS are allowed to have
Practicum Program with the first year students. This is a great chance for the
researcher to have direct interactions and observations of the Reading lessons
of the first-year students and to investigate the real situations of the
investigating issue – the use of eliciting techniques in Reading classes.

With all the above reasons, a research is conducted to verify the hypothesis of
using Eliciting Techniques with the title: The Exploitation of Eliciting
Techniques to Enhance the Reading Comprehension Ability for The First-year
Students at ULIS, VNU

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1.2. Research aims and research questions

In doing the research, the author wants to discuss three main issues. Firstly,
the study investigates what techniques the teachers employed to elicit
information to help students fully understand the Reading texts. Secondly, it
examines the teachers’ and students’ evaluation on the effectiveness of
eliciting techniques. Thirdly, the study aims to identify the benefits expected
by teachers when they use Elicitation as well as the encountered problems in
the process of using these eliciting techniques, followed by some suggestions
to overcome these problems. These objectives are accomplished by answering
the following questions:

1. What Eliciting techniques do the teachers use in Reading classes of the

first-year students?
2. To what extent are these techniques effective in improving students’
level of Reading comprehension as perceived by the teachers and the
students?
3. What are the teachers' perceptions about applying these techniques in
teaching Reading?

1.3. Scope of the study

The research targets at the first-year students as they are the direct subjects of
the Practicum Program in which the lessons are taught by the forth-year
themselves. It provides the researcher a great opportunity of fully examining
the real situations successively to get frequent and reliable data. Besides, their
Reading lessons are in the fixed schedule with fixed aims for the entire course
which is PET (Preliminary English Test) which is similar to Level B1 in the
Common European Framework of Reference. This level is described as the
ability to:

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 - Understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters
regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc.
- Deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area
where the language is spoken
- Produce simple connected text on topics which are familiar or of
personal interest
- Describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes & ambitions and
briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans

The study is restricted to the main stream first-year students at the Faculty of
English Language Teacher Education, University of Languages and
International Studies of Vietnam National University, Hanoi, as they
represent the majority which can provide the reliable results.

Besides, the study only focus on the Eliciting techniques which are commonly
used in classes such as asking questions, using visuals or providing definition
and examples to get information from students and help them to understand
texts better.

1.4. Significance of the study

The research is expected to have a certain impact on the way how Reading
comprehension is taught by encouraging teachers’ Elicitation in Reading
classes. It is justified by the positive evaluation of both teachers and students
in the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, University of
Languages and International Studies on enhancing comprehension ability of
students and involving students in class activities as a result from exploiting
Eliciting techniques. It also evaluates the most common problems and their
solutions suggested by teachers to smooth the lessons. In addition, this study
serves as a referential material for both the researcher and other EFL teachers
in teaching Reading.

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1.5. Methodology of the research

1.5.1. Design

The study starts with a Literature Review with the premise from some
previous related studies. It describes the situations, discusses the issues related
and suggests some solutions to existing problems.

In this research, observations were chosen as the most important tool because
it is the most effective technique to record the learners and teachers’
behaviour. In addition, in-depth interviews in combination with
questionnaires were also employed to get the supplementary data to support
the researcher in analyzing and discussing the issue.

1.5.2. Sampling

As the investigated issue is the exploitation of eliciting techniques which are

used by the teachers and have effect on the students at the same time, the
study involved both the first-year students and the teachers in the Faculty of
English Language Teacher Education, ULIS.

According to Nguyen (2008, p.37), “in a survey research literature, a range

between 1%-10% of the population is usually mentioned as the ‘magic
sampling fraction’, depending on how careful the selection has been”. This is
the base for the researcher to believe that the result from the expected
participants, including 40 to 50 students, which are equivalent to eight to ten
percents of 500 students in the Faculty of English Language Teacher
Education, is quite reliable and valid. They were randomly selected in
observed classes to interview together with the teachers to collect data after
the classroom observations.

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1.5.3. Data collection instruments

In order to collect the most reliable and valid data for the research, three
applied instruments were observation schemes, interviews, and
questionnaires.

1.5.3.1. Observation scheme

Since the research is on a practical issue, classroom observation is regarded as

an effective tool to record the behavior of both teachers and students in class.
It is the great chance for the researcher to gather the actual data in real
situations. It allowed the author to dig in the problem and analyze the issues
carefully and thoroughly. Observation scheme was carefully built with the
detailed checklist. The data collected from the observation schemes were
mainly used to answer the first Research Question.

1.5.3.2. Teachers and students interview

In the present research, semi-structured interviews were employed.

- Teachers interview: This interview consisted of two parts. In the first

part, it was aimed to find out the answers to the Research Questions
number 2 and 3 which would be compared with students’ opinions. In
the other part, the interview helped the researcher find out problems
and solutions of the employment of eliciting techniques in Reading
classes.
- Students interview: The researcher chose randomly some students from
each observed classes to involve in the interview part. This provided
the result to answer the second question in the study about the
effectiveness of the teachers’ eliciting techniques in Reading classes.

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The participants were contacted in advance to ask for permission before
carrying out the collecting data stage.

1.5.3.3. Questionnaire

As the classroom observation could not involved all the teachers in the
Faculty of English Language Teacher Education who are expected to
participate in the research, questionnaires were a good choice to collect more
information. The questionnaires were designed to get the answers for all the
three Research Questions.

1.5.4. Data collection procedure

This stage consisted of three steps related to activities carried out both out of
class and inside classrooms.

- Step 1: Classroom observations were carried out once in each of eight

classes: 09E2, 09E4, 09E7, 09E12, 09E15, 09E17, 09E20, 09E21.
Those classes were chosen by the researcher herself but on permission
of the teachers. Before the date of observation, a checklist was
drafted to make the observation more oriented and focused.
- Step 2: Semi-structured interviews were conducted face to face with
selected teachers and students after finishing the observations step.
While interviewing, the researcher tried her best to take notes and tape-
record the content under the interviewees’ permission.
- Step 3: Questionnaires were separately sent via emails to the teachers in
English Division 1 of the Faculty of English Language Teacher
Education as it was difficult to meet all of them in school. Teachers
answered by highlighting or marking on their choices. After a few days,
questionnaires with answers were sent back to the researcher.

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1.5.5. Data analysis procedure

The results from observations were summarized, evaluated and categorized by

Microsoft Excel with the detailed checklists from the observation schemes.
After that, the students and teachers interviews were transcribed and
categorized into groups. The information from the interviews was the basis to
compare the teachers’ and students’ opinions and draw the conclusion of the
effectiveness of teachers’ applying Eliciting techniques in Reading classes. In
addition, the answers in questionnaires were also grouped to add more
information to the discussion of the three Research Questions.

1.6. Organization of the study

This research report is organized into 5 chapters:

1. Introduction: provides the rationale for, the aims, significance, scope

and organization of the study.
2. Literature Review: presents related literature that provides the
theoretical basis for this study.
3. Methodology: describes the research instruments, participants and the
procedures to conduct the research, including data collection and data
analysis.
4. Results and Discussion: presents and discusses findings to derive valid
implications.
5. Conclusion: summarizes the main findings, and draws out lessons and
suggestions for similar studies in the future.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This second chapter will define some key concepts discussed in the research:
“Eliciting techniques” and “Reading comprehension ability”. After that, the
overview of some related studies will be shortly described to justify the
objectives of this research paper.

2.1. Eliciting techniques

2.1.1. Eliciting

2.1.1.1. Definitions of Eliciting

Stated in the website of Teaching English in BBC, Eliciting (elicitation) is a

term “which describes a range of techniques which enable the teacher to get
learners to provide information rather than giving it to them”. It is commonly
used to familiarised students with vocabulary, language forms and rules of a
targeted skill, and to brainstorm a topic at the beginning of a lesson.

According to Doff (1988, cited in To & Nguyen, 2009, p.12), “Eliciting

involves the class by focusing students’ attention and making them think. This
happens even if students do not know the words being elicited; so elicitation
can be used for presenting new language as well as reviewing what was
taught earlier”

Eliciting is also stated in Teaching English of BBC website to be based on

several premises:

- Students have a great deal of knowledge, both of the language and of

the real world, which needs to be fully activated and constructively
used

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 - 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-centered classroom and a stimulating

environment. Moreover, it plays the role of the link between new and old
information, which forms a good way to make learning memorable. Eliciting
is not limited to any single language or academic knowledge. Teacher can
elicit ideas, feelings, meanings, situations, associations, memories or anything
that help provide the key information about a topic, and therefore a starting
point for the lesson.

2.1.1.2. Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Eliciting

a. Advantages of Using Eliciting

Case (2009), a teacher, pointed out in www.usingEnglish.com that Eliciting in

EFL classrooms provides many benefits. They include:

- Keeping students concentrate on the lessons

- Checking students’ understanding of the focusing issues
- Activating students’ background knowledge
- Increasing student talking time (STT) / cutting down teacher talking
time (TTT)
- Helping students learn how to guess and work things out for themselves

Moreover, Doff (1988, cited in To & Nguyen, 2009, p.12) emphasized on one
of the most obvious advantages of teacher’s using eliciting that is “Eliciting
gives teachers a chance to see what students know and what they do not, and
so adapt their presentation to the level of the class”. That way will involve all

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members in class in the lesson, the stronger ones will not be bored with the
“too easy” questions and the weaker ones will not be panic because of their
slower understanding.

b. Disadvantages of using Eliciting

On the one hand, eliciting is a powerful tool of the teachers with many
benefits they can gain. On the other hand, it also challenges teachers with
several difficulties it can create.

First and foremost, “Eliciting takes more time than straightforward

presentation of new knowledge”, said Doff (1988, cited in To & Nguyen,
2009, p.12). For example, eliciting a word or an explanation may take ten
times as long as just explaining it. Students may get too engaged to the
discussion themselves and forget about the main topic or the main tasks.
Ways to avoid this problem are quite various: plan your elicitation and make
sure you have found the quickest way, use pictures and other prompts, if that
will cut down on the amount of time eliciting will take, etc.

Other hindrances may result from both teachers and students. Specifically,
they are also stated by Case (2009) as follows:

- STT is not always longer

- Students may unequally understand and answer the questions of the
teachers that aimed at eliciting
- Students’ response is passive and silent which fails the objectives of
eliciting
- The information elicited can be too old or boring/ repetitive, or even not
worth answering
- Eliciting may lead students to “unreal” communication - the language
used is not appropriate in real life

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With all these listed advantages and disadvantages, it should be noted that
eliciting clearly contributes to student involvement but it does not always
produce the desired or expected results. That is the reason why teachers
should selectively use this efficient tool in class.

2.1.2. Eliciting techniques

In the viewpoint of Richards and Rodgers (1986, cited in To, 2008, p.22),
technique is “an explicit procedure employed to achieve a particular teaching
and learning objective or set of objectives.” This procedure is commonly
organized in class in the means of classroom activities, exercises and devices
to present and practice new targeted language.

Thus, the Eliciting techniques discussed in this study involve the students’
process of discovering and understanding guided by teachers. Elicitation can
be applied in explaining vocabulary, grammar, experiences, and ideas. By
eliciting, learners are given the chance to actively participate in the learning
process, expressing their acquired or intuitive knowledge, and studying
critical thinking which will enhance their language abilities by adding
knowledge to what they already know.

Eliciting techniques can be applied in various ways and in numerous

activities. They can be listed as below:

2.1.2.1. Asking questions

Doff (1988, cited in To & Nguyen, 2009, p.12) pointed out that “Eliciting can
take place at any stage of the lesson and is mainly done by asking questions”.
Questioning is crucial to the way teachers manage the class, engage students
with content, encourage participation and increase. According to Steve Darn
(2010), a trainer in Izmir University of Economics, Turkey, there are two

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main types of questions in classroom: Display questions and Referential
questions.

- Display questions are designed to elicit learners’ prior knowledge and to check
comprehension. They often focus on the form or meaning of language structures
and items, and the teacher already knows the answer.
- Referential questions. These require the learner to provide information, give an
opinion, explain or clarify. They often focus on content rather than language,
require ‘follow-up’ or ‘probe’ questions, and the answer is not necessarily known
by the teacher.

(Cited in Teaching English, BBC)

2.1.2.2. Using visual aids

- Showing pictures

Following Doff’s point of view (1988, cited in To & Nguyen, 2009, p.12-
13), it is commonly believed that “One of the easiest ways to elicit new
vocabulary (or structures) is by using pictures, either in the students’
textbook or brought in specially”. It is aimed to set the scene for teachers
to ask students some questions about the related topic like “what they see
in the pictures, why they think it happens, what they think will happen
next and how they feel or what they think about it”. This is the most
interesting way to give students chances to practice guessing and also
motivate them in studying at the same time.

- Using miming, gestures, facial expressions or body language

One of the most attractive ways of communicating is using body

language. In teaching, it also helps to elicit new vocabulary or structures.
It plays the key role in helping students to develop their ability to
understand in a real environment since body language and expressions

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 convey a message about how speakers – teachers in this case – think or
feel. Therefore, to be effective as an instructor, teachers need
communication skills that should include careful listening, speaking
clearly in a well-modulated voice, and using reinforcing body language.

2.1.2.3. Conducting games or activities

According to Wright, Betteridge and Buckby (1984, p.1), “Language learning

is hard work ... Effort is required at every moment and must be maintained
over a long period of time. Games help and encourage many learners to
sustain their interest and work.” Moreover, “they give students a break and at
the same time allow students to practice language skills. Games are highly
motivating since they are amusing and at the same time challenging.
Furthermore, they employ meaningful and useful language in real contexts.
They also encourage and increase cooperation.” – said Arsoz (2000) in The
Internet TESL Journal. That is the reason why games and funny activities are
always welcomed by students in all ages. Games are commonly used as a
lead-in activity at the beginning of a lesson to motivate students and draw
their attention.

2.1.2.4. Giving definitions and examples

Bouma (2000), a writer of an English website, clarified the difference

between the two usually-mistaken terms: “meaning” for “definition”:
“Whereas a definition is the way you explain what is understood by a word, a
meaning is the factual, physical and emotional significance of something (a
word, experience, event, etc.). It’s the difference between explaining and
interpreting.” Definitions are mostly used to elicit vocabulary.

She also pointed out the three main types of definitions:

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 - Simple definitions: teachers using synonyms, antonyms, dictionary
descriptions and physical descriptions
- Operational definitions: teachers will explains by purpose descriptions
and combination descriptions which answer the two questions: “What
something does” and “How it works”
- Lexical definitions: they are the most complicated type of definition
which requires wide background knowledge. They often include
etymology, word history, etc.

With the same function as definitions, giving examples is a powerful,

universal way to illustrate concepts and transfer knowledge in a subject area.
Many teachers could benefit from a more informed way to develop and use
examples in their courses. Most disciplines have “signature examples” such as
demonstrations, diagrams, videos, stories, and models.

2.1.2.5. Organizing group discussion

Gisela Konopka (1985, p.288), a German researcher and educator, believed

that “True group discussions are appropriately used to sharpen thinking, to
weigh facts, to make decisions on the basis of thinking encouraged by
diversity” as the ideas derived from individual thinkers are stimulated and
brought out through questions and discussions with others. “Discussion of
ideas is a typical medium of a society which expects and fosters freedom of
thought and freedom from fear of expression”. In addition, group discussion
also encourages students in cooperating and learning from each other’s
knowledge. That is a good way of actively sharing information.

These listed techniques are commonly applied in teaching English skills.

However, whether being widely used means that they can put good effects on
students or not is worth concerning, especially when they are exploited in

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teaching Reading – a perceptive skill. It is the focus of the researcher in this
study.

2.2. Reading comprehension ability

2.2.1. Reading

a. Definitions of reading in general

Reading is an ambiguous word which has multiplicity of meanings. Those

meanings mostly depend on its context in which they occur. As a result, there
is no point in looking for a simple and concise definition of “Reading”.

According to Anderson (2003, p.1), Reading can be defined as “an active,

fluent process of readers combining information from a text and their own
background knowledge to build meaning” This “active process” is explained
as “meaning does not reside on the printed page, nor it is only in the head of
the reader. A synergy occurs in reading which combines the words on printed
page with the reader’s background knowledge and experiences. Readers move
through the printed text with specific purposes in mind to accomplish specific
goals”.

Another way to describe Reading is shown by Grabe (1991, cited in

Silberstein, 1994, p.12) as a “complex information processing skill in which
the reader interacts with the text in order to (re)create meaningful discourse”.

The common between these two definitions is the process of collecting

information from the written text that readers need to do to understand its
content. That is the closest meaning of Reading referred in this study.

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b. Purposes of reading in general

Suggested by To et al. (2006, p.150), Reading is classified by different types:

- Receptive reading: reading for different purposes in real life

- Reflective reading: reading and “pause to reflect and trackback”
- Intensive reading: getting detailed meaning for the improvement of
reading skills and language components
- Extensive reading: archive general understanding with the combination
of background knowledge
- Skimming: getting general information from the text
- Scanning: finding details in the text

All those types of reading aim to “get something form the writing” (Nuttal,
1989, p.2-3). He mentioned that “Reading is to get a message from the text”.
As a result, it is significant to clarify the particular purpose when we read,
since Nuttall believes that there are different reasons for different ways of
reading (p.44).

2.2.2. Reading Comprehension

“Comprehension” has three dictionary definitions (Merriam Webster, 1963,

cited in Singer, p.901)

1. the act or action of grasping with the intellect

2. knowledge gained by comprehending
3. the capacity for understanding

These definitions imply that the term “comprehension” can refer to “a

process, a product, or a potential”. These different concepts mix together,
whether the focus is on teaching, testing, or on a theory of comprehension.

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Then what is “Reading comprehension”?

Dr. Keith Lenz from the University of Kansas (2005, p.7) stated that:
“Reading comprehension is the process of constructing meaning from text.
The goal of all reading instruction is ultimately targeted at helping a reader
comprehend text. Reading comprehension involves at least two people: the
reader and the writer. The process of comprehending involves decoding the
writer's words and then using background knowledge to construct an
approximate understanding of the writer's message.”

Richard and Thomas (1987, p.9) also considered Reading Comprehension as

“an understanding between the author and the reader. The emphasis is on the
reader’s understanding of the printed pages based on the individual’s unique
background of experience. Reading is much more than pronouncing the words
correctly or simply know what the author intends. It is the process whereby
the printed pages stimulate ideas, experiences, and responses that are unique
to an individual”

These two definitions agreed on the main feature of Reading comprehension

which is the interaction between writers and readers, between old information
and new information. It can be considered one of the most straightforward
and widely applied ideas in mainstream studies. It is also the concept of
Reading comprehension that the researcher applies in this study.

2.2.3. Reading comprehension ability

As stated above, Reading comprehension is the interaction between new and

old information. In other words, it is the result of the combination of the two
elements: the meaning of given text and the background knowledge of
readers. Thus, the Reading comprehension ability of readers is the capability

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to “mix and digest” the formed information in reading process, i.e. the level of
understanding in readers’ mind about the issues mentioned in the given texts.

In the viewpoint of Akmar Mohamad, a professor at the University Sains

Malaysia, reading comprehension is divided into three levels: comprising
lexical comprehension, referential comprehension and critical comprehension.

o The first level, literal comprehension, involves understanding surface

meanings. At this level, teachers can ask students to find information and
ideas that are explicitly stated in the text. In addition, it is also
appropriate to test vocabulary.
o The second level is interpretive or referential comprehension. At this
level, students go beyond what is said and read for deeper meanings.
They are required to be able to see relationships among ideas, for
example how ideas go together and also see the implied meanings of
these ideas. Referential comprehension includes intellectual processes
such as drawing conclusion, making generalization and predicting
outcomes.
o Finally, the third level is critical comprehension, by which ideas and
information are evaluated. At this level, students need to be able to
differentiate between facts and opinions or to judge the accuracy of the
information given in the text. Critical evaluation occurs only after our
students have understood the ideas and information that the writer has
presented.

2.2.4. Eliciting techniques and Reading in second language teaching

In a second language classroom, reading plays a significant role in building

both linguistic and background knowledge for other language skills.

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a. Purposes of reading of second language learners

As pointed out by Rivers and Temperley (1978, cited in Nunan, 1989, p.34)),
second language learners may read in another language for the following real-
life purposes:

- to obtain information as being curious about some topics

- to obtain instructions on how to perform some tasks
- to act in a play, play a game, do a puzzle
- to keep in touch with friends by correspondence or to understand
business letters
- to know when or where something will take place or what is available
- to know what is happening or has happened
- for enjoyment or excitement

However, the reading purposes of language learners in Reading classes are

not always related to real life. According to Nuttall (1996, p.223), students
who are required to read in class are asked to do some exercises such as gap-
fill or multiple choice questions. As a result, the aim of understanding the
content of the text in real-life meaning is often ignored and replaced by the
academic purposes. In Reading classes, teachers tend to apply the techniques
in Communicative Language Teaching approach to help students archive the
communicative goals. To be more specific, students are provided many
chances to practice to read silently the unfamiliar authentic texts to enhance
some needed skills including extracting specific information, inferring
opinions and attitudes, deducing meaning from the context… Reading is also
a good way to exploit and enhance students’ background knowledge on the
common fields mentioned in the text. That is the reason why Reading is one
of the most important skills for EFL learners to attain great development in
academic areas.

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b. The exploitation of Eliciting techniques in a Reading lesson

The process of teaching a Reading lesson in Communicative approach is often

divided into three stages namely pre-, while- and post-reading. Each stage has
its own aims and features or procedure in which Eliciting techniques are
employed and adapted accordingly as follows:

o Pre-reading stage

Pre-reading stage plays an important role in the whole process as it is of

great help in motivating students and giving them preparation for the
information from the text they are going to read. Specifically, in this
early stage, teachers are expected to:

 Assess students' background knowledge of the topic and linguistic

content of the text
 Give students the background knowledge necessary for
comprehension of the text, or activate the existing knowledge that
the students possess
 Clarify any cultural information which may be necessary to
comprehend the passage
 Make students aware of the type of text they will be reading and the
purpose(s) for reading

These aims are commonly achieved by the teacher’s employing

Elicitation in guiding and explaining. Several techniques which can be
used in this stage are: using pictures, predicting from the titles, guessing
and brainstorming to see what students have already known.

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 o While-reading stage

Later on, students are lead into the main reading activity of the lesson. In
this second stage, teachers are guiders who will help students to:

 understand the specific content

 become aware of the rhetorical structure of the text

The Eliciting techniques applied in this stage widely vary to fulfill the
two main goals. However, it is the most common to use the ones like
guessing new words in contexts, asking questions to note - taking.

o Post-reading stage

Finally, teachers may conduct some activities in order to review the

content. This final stage is generally aimed at checking students’
understanding of the text or linking the information they gain from the
text with their knowledge, interests and opinions.

Some possible techniques which teachers may exploit in this stage

include discussing the main points, retelling and rewriting the stories.

To be brief, Reading comprehension in class is strongly affected by the

interactions between teachers and students in the process of exchanging
information. That process as well as its result on student’s comprehension
ability is boosted by teacher’s techniques in eliciting and communicating in
class. That is the reason why the main aim of this study is describe the fact
and effectiveness of applying eliciting tools in teaching Reading
comprehension.

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2.3. Related studies

Teaching approaches and techniques are the “fertile ground” for numerous
researchers in many decades as the desire to perfect the education system
keeps rising in society. The researches on improving the effect of teaching
and learning Reading as the second language are one of them. Many experts
dug deep in the basis of Reading to discover its nature and its features to build
up the techniques to help the learners easier in reading and learning to read.

Byrnes (1998) with the research on “Reading in the beginning and

intermediate college foreign language class” clarifies the Goals and
Techniques for Teaching Reading. He focuses on the Reading processes and
their aims. After that he draws some integrated strategies which can be
applied in classroom which include previewing, predicting, skimming and
scanning, guessing from context and paraphrasing.

Whereas few systematic studies have been found, plenty of initiatives have
been taken in order to authenticate reading in the classroom. One of them has
been suggested by Vogt (1997) in her journal article “Cross-Curricular
Thematic Instruction”. Vogt believes that the inclusion of a variety of content
areas from narrative and expository literature to "real world" materials could
help students to vary their experience and thus, well prepare them for future
"real-life" reading tasks. Specifically, she refers to a selection of texts of
different difficulty levels, teachers’ elaboration of new concepts, students’
group-work and role-play activities as several notable techniques to
authenticate reading in an ESL classroom.

Jonathan Newton (2001) has an article on a smaller aspect of vocabulary

learning, which titled “Options for vocabulary learning through
communication tasks”. In his study, Newton emphasizes on the activities
which can encourage the constructions of multiple associations between old

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and new knowledge in the lexical systems of learners. Also, he draws readers’
attention on the meaningful contexts and the immediate opportunities for
students to use vocabulary in real communication. That is the tasks teachers
should fulfill and also the aims they want to achieve.

Going to exploring more details on teaching Reading, Hibbing and Rankin-

Eriekson (2003) describes some specific tools in enhance student’s
understanding in Reading. Their article named “A picture is worth a thousand
words: Using visual images to improve comprehension for middle school
struggling readers” discusses teacher and student drawings in the classroom.
The materials include illustrations in texts, picture books, and movies as
external image-based tools that support reading comprehension. Those are
one of the tools for eliciting information in teaching Reading.

Although there are many related studies on techniques in both teaching and
learning Reading in second language classes, the researcher finds it hard to
search for the researches specified in Eliciting itself as well as its techniques.
Despite the fact that Eliciting is used in almost all Reading classes as a
familiar teaching technique in Communicative Language Teaching approach.
In addition, it is claimed to be one of the most effective way to teach Reading
but its proofs are not satisfactory for readers and researchers, especially in
Vietnam. Such limitations obviously offer a gap for researchers to conduct a
study on the same target with the attempt to examine the effectiveness of
using Eliciting techniques in teaching, particularly in Vietnam University.

2.4. Conclusive remarks

In this chapter, the theoretical background of the study has been briefly
reviewed with the key concepts which are Eliciting techniques, Reading
comprehension and Reading comprehension ability of students. Most
importantly, it pointed out that Elicitation can be used in every stage in every

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Reading session with the major objective of helping students understand texts
easily and thoroughly. In addition, the review of a number of related studies
in this chapter has detected a research gap which the researcher is pursuing to
bridge by seeking the answers to the three research questions.

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CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

Chapter 2 has briefly reviewed the literature on the research topic for the
theoretical basis of the study. Next, this chapter 3 discusses the participants,
the research instruments, and the procedure of data collection and data
analysis as a means to maximize the validity and reliability of the whole
research.

3.0. Research questions

As mentioned in the first two chapters, CLT has put an emphasis on

communicative competence in teaching and learning English, thus Elicitation
is the most commonly employed tool in English classes to engage students in
the lessons. However, it is the fact that Eliciting is limitedly used in
Vietnamese classes, especially in Reading sessions. This contradiction urges
the researcher to investigate the current situation of exploiting Eliciting
techniques in teaching Reading. To fulfill that aim, this research is conducted
to answer three questions related, which are:

1. What Eliciting techniques do the teachers use in Reading classes of

the first-year students?

2. To what extent are these techniques effective in improving students’

level of Reading comprehension?

3. What are the teachers' perceptions about applying these techniques in

Reading?

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3.1. Participants

The process of data collection involved the participation of both the teachers
of English Division 1 and the first-year students in the Faculty of English
Language Teacher Education at University of Languages and International
Studies – Vietnam National University (ULIS – VNU) as follows:

3.1.1. The teachers of English Division 1 in the Faculty of English

Language Teacher Education

As playing the role of the instructors in student-centered classes, the teacher’s

roles in designing activities and controlling students in the classrooms should
be considered. Therefore, all the 30 teachers in English Division 1 in the
Faculty of English Language Teacher Education were expected to involve in
the data collection process. They are in charge of teaching the first-year
students in four English skills. They are all graduated from English
specialised universities with excellent degrees. Thus, there is no doubt that
they are quite qualified to be chosen as the participants in this study.

However, for some reasons of further learning and private excuses, not all of
30 teachers are officially teaching the first-year classes. Moreover, because of
the intense teaching procedure and neat timetable, only 22 teachers can take
part in the research which is believed to be a large number of participants. It is
aimed to report the factual situations of English teaching and learning at their
schools as well as to share their valuable experience related to the topic.

3.1.2. The first-year students in the Faculty of English Language Teacher

Education

The number of students in the first year in the Faculty of English Language
Teacher Education is large, about 500 people, which are divided into 24

Page | 27
classes. They are all good students who can pass the entrance examination to
enter the university. They are all specialised in English, therefore they are
rather familiar and fluent in using English.

Amongst them, only 40 students in eight classes are chosen randomly to

participate in the research. This number is equivalent to 8% of the total
population. The sampling procedure was carried out by the researcher herself:
asking three to five students from each class she observed to answer some
questions in the interview. Their answers were recorded to be analysed later.

3.2. Instruments

For a collection of sufficient reliable and valid data for the study, classroom
observation, interview, and questionnaire were fully employed.

3.2.1. Classroom observation

Since the exploitation of Eliciting techniques for ULIS first-year students was
a practical educational topic by its nature, classroom observation was also
employed since it is asserted that “Classroom observation helps to make
educational research more accessible and practical” (Hoang & Nguyen, 2006,
p. 55). Specifically, during a six-week practicum of the researcher at the
Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, the observation checklist
was completed for the implementation of the use of eliciting techniques in
Reading classes of first-year students.

As for the structure, the observation checklist (see Appendix 1) comprises two
parts:

- Some personal information of the teachers and their classes

- Evaluation of teacher’s exploitation of Eliciting techniques

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The second part contains the most important data for this study as it lists out
some common activities teachers used in teaching Reading as well as their
frequency and aims. Besides, researcher also added some criteria to the
observation scheme to evaluate students’ responses to Eliciting. Those criteria
were measured basing on student’s involvement in the lesson combined with
their answers in the interview followed.

3.2.2. Interview

Oral interview has been widely used as a research tool in applied linguistics.
In this study, researcher chooses the semi-structured interview as it is believed
to be “quite extraordinary” with its incredible rich data, full control and close
interactions. The questions expected in the interview have been planned as
followed:

o For teachers:

1. Do you think that you should use Eliciting Techniques in your class?
Why (Why not?)
2. Do you plan to use eliciting techniques when you prepare for the
lessons? (When you write the Lesson Plan for example?)
3. Can you give some comments on Ss's reactions/response to your
ways of eliciting?
+ Good (Ss understand) --> What might be the reasons?
+ Bad (Ss still confuse) --> What might be the problems? (Current
situations)
4. Do you have difficulties in using eliciting techniques? What are
they? (In general?)
5. What might be the solutions for those problems?

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 o For students:

1. Do you have any comments on Reading lesson you just had? Do you
understand all the terms or explanation of the teachers?
2. I can see that in the lesson, T used _________ (the techniques used
by teachers), do you like it? (Yes/No, why and how?)
3. Do you think that way of teaching help you understand the lesson
better? Why and how? (Compare the result of the exercises you did
before and after listening to teachers’ elicitation and guide)
4. Do you like that way of teaching? What can you benefit/ gain from
it?

The interviews were conducted immediately after the class observation to

collect the most fresh experiences and feelings of the participants.

3.2.3. Questionnaire

The last instrument was a questionnaire survey including the participation of

all the research objects, i.e. all the 40 students, was used. It helped collect data
about students’ assessment/review of the applied strategies. This instrument
was chosen for its various advantages and compatibility with the aim of the
research, i.e. to survey the level of tolerance of students toward the use of
Eliciting techniques in teaching reading comprehension. Firstly, questionnaire
is an economical way of collecting data as it helps gather a large amount of
information within a relatively short period of time. Secondly, it enables
researchers to obtain data quantitatively, which later on will assist their study
with persuasive numbers concerning the issues investigated.

The questionnaire includes ten questions which are written in the type of
multiple choice questions and open questions. It was sent to teachers via

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email to get the answer. For the complete questionnaire form, see the
Appendix.

3.3. Procedure of data collection

Broadly speaking, the process of data collection could be put into three major
phases as follows.

- Phase 1: Classroom observation

Classroom observation is expected to be conducted in two or

three lessons successively. However, due to the tight schedule,
researcher managed to observe 8 classes, once for each. The
class choice was determined by the researcher herself which
were picked up randomly.

Soon after permission was granted, an appointment was made

and initiated with a brief introduction of the interviewer, the
research topic and the confirmation of confidentiality

- Phase 2: Interviews

Semi-structured interviews were conducted face to face with

selected teachers and students after finishing the observations.
While interviewing, the researcher tried the best to take notes and
tape-record the content under the interviewees’ permission.

- Phase 3: Questionnaire

In addition to the observations and interviews of Reading

teachers and first-year students, the questionnaire was sent to
teachers via email so that they can take time to fill in it. In the
questionnaires, teachers were asked about their perception in

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 using Eliciting in teaching Reading, i.e. what the benefits and the
difficulties are.

3.4. Procedure of data analysis

Initially, the collected data were classified according to the three research
questions. That is, all of the data gathered from the teachers were mainly used
to answer the first and the third research question, whereas students’
responses would help to reply to the second one. Finally, a combination of
responses from both the teachers and the students were analyzed to address
the third question of the research paper.

The results from observations were also summarized, evaluated and

categorized with the help of Microsoft Excel. All the data were taken from the
detailed checklist from the observation scheme. The researcher used the
content analysis which focused on the actual content and internal features.

After that, the students and teachers interviews were categorized into groups.
The results from the interviews would be the basis to compare the teachers’
and students’ opinions and to draw the conclusion of the effectiveness of
teachers’ applying eliciting techniques in Reading classes.

The data was enriched by collected information from the questionnaires. The
information was categorized by Microsoft Excel also and the statistic was
illustrated by the tables and figures. It helped researcher ensure the accuracy
of the data and findings for this study.

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3.5. Conclusive Remarks

This Methodology chapter has discussed the participants; the three data
collection instruments used namely observations, interviews and
questionnaires; the data collection and data analysis procedures as
justifications for the methodology of the research. The following chapters
present the research findings and discussion.

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CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In the previous chapter, the methodology applied in this study has been
clarified with descriptions and justifications of the choice of participants, the
instruments and the process of data collection and analysis. In this chapter, all
collected data will be analyzed and discussed to reveal the answers to each
research question in turn.

4.1. RESEARCH QUESTION 1: What Eliciting techniques do the

teachers use in Reading classes of the first-year students?

Collecting the data for the study, researcher saw that Eliciting techniques
were quite popular in teaching Reading. All the teachers noticed the
importance of interaction between teachers and students in class, which urged
them to employ the Eliciting techniques in their lessons.

As the result of class observation and the statistics from the questionnaire,
teachers – 22 participants in this study – commonly used eight techniques as
follows:

Number of Percentage
Techniques
respondents (%)

Asking questions 22/22 100

Using visual aids 8/22 36.4

Giving definitions of words/ terms /

6/22 27.3
concepts in Reading text

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 Number of Percentage
Techniques (%)
respondents

Linking the ideas of the text with SS’

16/22 72.7
background knowledge / daily life

Letting SS discuss in groups / pairs 12/22 54.5

Giving examples 18/22 81.8

Using Vietnamese in explaining 10/22 45.4

Using games/ quizzes 3/22 13.6

Table 1. Major techniques applied by the teachers to

exploit Elicitation in reading class for the first-year
students

The table shows that the teacher has applied different variations of Eliciting
techniques in their Reading classes.

The most common technique was ‘asking questions’ which had the highest
rate of 100% which means it was used by all the teachers involved in the
research. They used many questions on the first two stages of the lesson
which are pre-reading and while-reading. In pre-reading, the questions
focused on the background knowledge. The teachers thought exploiting
students’ common knowledge is a good way to lead them to the lesson and
make them more interested in it.

“I think it is beneficial as students will have chances to know what are they are
going to deal with in the lesson…”

(A teacher participated in the research)

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In the while-reading stage, questions were even employed more to get
students involved in the small discussions related to the Reading texts, or add
some information and some facts, for example, to the topic so that students
would have good interactions with the text itself, with the teachers and even
with the authors. That is a useful way to help students dig deeper in the issues
they are learning.

The second popular technique was ‘giving example’ which was followed by
‘linking the ideas of the text with student’s background knowledge’. Their
percentages were 81.8% and 72.7% respectively. These two techniques were
often employed in pre-reading stage to explain the topics or the key words of
reading texts. However, with the same aim to elicit vocabulary, teachers
seemed to avoid ‘directly giving definitions of words/ terms / concepts in
Reading text’ as it contributes only 27.3% which ranks seventh in eight used
techniques. One of the most common ways to apply this technique was the
combination of teacher’s description and student’s guesses. Interestingly,
these techniques were mixed quite smoothly by the teacher, which
successfully attracted the attention of students.

For example, “mediate” was a new word to students, so the teacher was the
one who give them definition. After that, teacher asked students to guess the
meaning of “mediator” and described the characteristics of a mediator in a
map as follows:

(Next page)

Page | 36
After eliciting the characteristics, teacher asked student’s reasons for each to
activate their background knowledge. This way of teaching was proved to be
useful to students as they found it easy to understand and remember.

“I like the way teachers asking questions and explaining new words by mind-map
and graphs from the very first lesson. I find it really interesting. Teacher often give
us the definitions and let us think about the related things and concepts. It keeps out
brain working in the lesson so we can understand more and remember more
easily…”

“I like it (the eliciting techniques that teacher used) because it warms the class’s
atmosphere up…”

(Students’ comments from the interview)

The forth ranked technique was ‘group discussion’ whose percentage was
54.5%. This technique was mostly applied in while-reading stage when
students are given texts and do the exercises. Students were also eager when
working in groups since it kept them motivated and “awake” because, in their

Page | 37
opinions, “Reading lessons are mostly silent and even boring when we just sit,
read, and do the exercise silently”.

The next technique preferably used by the teachers in Reading classes was
‘explaining in Vietnamese’. Due to the fact that students in the first year of
University have limited vocabulary, they sometimes complain that the lessons
are difficult to fully understand as teachers use English most of the time.
Realizing this problem, some teachers adapted their explanation with the use
of the first language to get the best result for students. This way of teaching
was warmly welcomed by learners but it seemed to be unpopular.

The two least used techniques were ‘using visual aids’ and ‘organizing
games/quizzes’ whose percentages were 36.4% and 13.6% respectively. The
former was commented as “hard to use” and “unnecessary to use” in Reading
teaching by some of the teachers. They explained their reasons including “it is
time-consuming”, “it may distract students” or “my drawing is not good”, etc.
However, the teachers who could exploit the use of visual aids in teaching,
they could raise the motivation and attention of students to a remarkably high
level. The same case went with the teacher’s using games and quizzes in
teaching Reading. With just a very simple game like “The hang man” – a
game to guess new words – the teachers could involve almost all students into
the lessons and help them to remember the words in an easy and funny way.
Nevertheless, this technique was quite limitedly used.

In short, Eliciting techniques namely asking questions, giving examples and

definitions, linking ideas, using visual aids and mother tongue, or group
discussion, were largely applied in almost all Reading classes. They were
creatively and variously used, adapted and mixed by the teachers which were
excitedly welcomed by the students.

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4.2. RESEARCH QUESTION 2: To what extent are these techniques
effective in improving students’ level of Reading comprehension as
perceived by the teachers and the students?

The discussions for this question examined the teachers’ and students’
evaluation on the effectiveness of eliciting techniques by finding out the main
aims of teachers when applying Eliciting techniques in Reading classes.

4.2.1. The aims of teacher’s exploiting Eliciting techniques in Reading

classes

Using Elicitation in teaching, Reading teachers expected to achieve many

goals in regard of both knowledge and skills. Among them, these following
objectives were the most common for almost all the teachers involved in this
study:

Figure 1.
Teachers' aims in using Eliciting techniques in
teaching Reading

Exercise checking 6

Exercises guidance 10
Aims

Main ideas of the text 10

Vocabulary 18

Background knowledge 21

0 5 10 15 20 25
Numbers of respondents

Page | 39
The chart illustrates the five main aims of teachers when they used Elicitation
in Reading classes.

It is notable that most obvious goal of all the Reading teachers was activate
students’ background knowledge. It was first ranked in the checklist with 21
out of 22 respondents which equal 95.4%.

“A Reading lesson should always have Warm-up activity and Follow-up activity.
[…] I think eliciting is a good way to activate background knowledge of students to
help them link the old and the new information. It makes students easier to interact
to the new topic of a lesson”

(Teachers’ opinion quoted from the interviews)

This aim was attached to the most popular technique in Eliciting which was
asking questions as well as the process of linking ideas from texts to students’
own experiences and using Vietnamese in explaining.

The next major objective of employing Eliciting techniques in teaching

Reading was to explain/ build up the vocabulary for students. Amongst 18 out
of 22 teachers (81.8%) taking the surveys, even two of them thought that
Eliciting only aims at preparing the new words for learners before they read a
text. Almost all the techniques were applied to fulfill this goal including
giving examples, linking ideas with background knowledge, giving definitions
and using visual aids (pictures, drawings…)

The two next aims shared the same vote of 10 out of 22 teachers (45.4%)
which were helping students to get the needed ideas/ information from the text
and guiding students to do the exercises after reading the text. These goals
were reached by teachers’ using questions and group discussion. When
students answered the questions, teachers could tell how deep they understand
the discussing issue, what they know and what they do not know. It showed

Page | 40
the teachers how and what to teach to raise the comprehension level of
students. Teachers also gave students some tips or typical steps to do a typical
type of exercise. It was definitely useful for the examination preparation.
Apart from learning under teacher’s guidance, students found it easier for
them to learn from peers. That was the reason why group discussions were
used in teaching. After reading, the information was shared among group’s
members so that it could be viewed in different aspects. It was also a good
way to provide students the chances to practice critical reading.

The least percentage went to the aim of checking the exercises related to
reading text. Asking questions was the main techniques employed to archive
this goal. By successively asking questions, teachers required students to
convey their answers to the exercises and justify them by giving clues from
the text. It was a good way to make learners read more carefully and
understand as well as remember the information more easily.

To sum it up, the five listed aims for exploiting Eliciting techniques of
Reading teachers all focused on making the text more understandable for
students. Consequently, the level of students’ comprehension was encouraged
to be raised up high.

4.2.2. The effectiveness of applying Eliciting in Reading classes perceived

by the teachers and the students

The term “effectiveness” used in this study referred to the results of the
techniques that teachers used to elicit students in Reading lessons, i.e. “Is it
useful to help students improve their understanding” and the reasons lead to
that result. This level of “effectiveness” was judged from the view point of
both sides: the teachers’ and students’.

Page | 41
4.2.2.1. The effectiveness perceived by the teachers

Being asked “Do you find it useful to use Eliciting in improving Reading
comprehension level of students in your classes?” all the answers were
positively YES. Their assessment could be summarized in the following chart,
using the five-point scale in the questionnaires.

Indifferent
(Passive)
0% Silent
0%
Neutral Excited
Excited
4% Willing/ Eager
13%
Neutral
Indifferent (Passive)
Silent

Willing/ Eager
83%

Figure 2.
Teachers' assessment of their using Eliciting techniques in
teaching Reading

In the teachers’ viewpoint, the Eliciting techniques applied in their Reading

classes are quite effective to students. The majority of them (19 out of 22
teachers) agreed that their students were willing to take part in their activities.
They occupied 83% of the total respondents. Amazingly, there were three
teachers who ensured that their activities were excitedly welcomed by the
students (13%). In contrast, the remaining teacher said that the eliciting
techniques she/ he applied were still rather confusing to learners. The reason
for this was students’ attitude. To be more specific, students were commented

Page | 42
as being afraid or lazy in talking. Thus, they were not able to answer the
questions of teachers, which made the classroom’s atmosphere become tense.
However, that teacher still thought that she/he has been successful in helping
students with the typical and important tips to do the exercises.

“How the teachers can assess the effectiveness of their exploiting Eliciting
techniques in teaching?” This question was also given to teachers and here
were their answers:

Number of
Ways to assess Percentage
respondents

Check the exercise 10/22 45.4%

Check students’ answers to

22/22 100%
teachers’ questions

Ask directly “Do you

3/22 13.6%
understand?”

No checking 0/22 0%

Table 2. Different ways of assessing Eliciting techniques in

Reading classes by teachers

All teachers reached an agreement on the most useful way to assess students’
understanding was to check their answers with different questions related to
the topic and the text. In addition, half of them (45.4%) believed that students’
comprehension could be examined by checking the exercises after the texts.
Learners’ answers and their clues found in the texts was also a good base to
tell teachers the gaps of knowledge and information they need to fill up.

Page | 43
Differently, three of the teachers chose to directly ask students whether they
understand or not. This may solve the confusion quickly and effectively.

Apart from the suggested options for assessing students’ comprehension,

some of the teachers also exploited different ways like checking students’
understanding by asking them to repeat what has been discussed. This was a
common process of teachers in giving instructions for the exercises. It could
draw students’ attention to the lesson and help them remember the important
information. Another suggested way was checking by students’ products in a
reading task. This could refer to the reflections or students’ answers for the
questions as well as the exercises mentioned above.

In short, in teachers’ perception, the techniques they employed to elicit

students in Reading classes were quite effective.

4.2.2.2. The effectiveness perceived by students

The result for the effectiveness judged by students was found through the data
from the observations combined with the interviews.

Firstly, the result from the observation could be described in the following
table:

(next page)

Page | 44
 Students’ reaction Students’ change in
Class
5 4 3 2 1 understanding concepts

Class 1   YES
Class 2     YES
Class 3   YES
Class 4    YES
Class 5  YES
Class 6   YES
Class 7   YES
Class 8    YES
Percentage 50% 87.5% 62.5% 37.5% 0% 100%

Table 3. Student’s reaction to Eliciting techniques used by teachers in Reading classes

In the checklist, the assessments for students was also categorized by the five-
point scale which goes from the most excited response (5) to the silent
response (1). The scale was set as following:

(5) (4) (3) (2) (1)

Excited Willing Neutral Indifferent Silent
Eager (Passive)

After observing eight Reading classes of eight different teachers, the

researcher could find the most common reaction of the students when the
teachers elicited some information was eager (87.5% in total). They
participated energetically and contributed to the lessons with all their might.
This level of reaction went up and down in some activities at different time in

Page | 45
the lesson. Some funny games and interesting examples were found attractive
to students since they could learn something new while enjoying the fun in
the same time. 50% of the researched students were quite excited when they
were learned in such a friendly and funny atmosphere. However, sometimes
the techniques were not appropriately applied which was the main reasons for
the neutral attitude of students in Reading classes (62.5%). There were even
some classes in which students did not pay much attention to what teachers
were trying to do. The teachers kept asking and talking but the students rarely
replied to them. That was the situation of 37.5% observed classes with mark 2
in the scale. The reasons for which were the topic or the terms explained were
quite unfamiliar, even strange to students, and the way teachers delivered
them to learners was confusing.

Secondly, the same question was asked when researcher had interviews with
students – participants. For the first part of “like”, 100% students asked gave
the positive answer “YES”.

“Teacher does not force us to do too many exercises or to remember too many
things at a time. She also organizes the lessons with many group discussions and
games which gives us freedom and comfort in learning. We feel less bored and
stressed when coming to Reading class.”

“Teacher is creative and funny when leading to the lessons. That way makes us
more interested in the topic we learn.”

(Students’ opinion from interviews)

For the second part of “understand”, students’ replies were divided into two
groups – YES and NO – which went with their own reasons as follows:

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Answer Reason(s)

o “Teacher asks many questions to make us think to find

the answer ourselves. As a result, when we can answer
those questions, we feel excited and we can remember
them for a long time.”

o “Teacher uses interesting games and chooses interesting

ways to explain the topic, which gives us inspiration in the
YES
lesson. […] When guiding us to do the exercises, she gives
us many tips, step by step so we find them easier. She also
provides new words in interesting ways which really
impressed us. It is easy to imagine, easy to remember”

o “We can understand all the points she mentioned.”

(Students’ opinions from the interview)

NO o “Reading classes is boring because we only sit and read

silently most of the time. The topic is hard to understand
and the text is too long to read. However, teacher only let
us read with few instructions and guidance and then check
the answers …”

o “Teacher uses English to explain most of the time and we

find it hard to understand fully what she wants to say.
Sometimes the speed of talking to also too fast for us to
catch up with the ideas…”

(Students’ opinions from the interview)

Table 4. Students’ opinion of Eliciting techniques that teachers use

in Reading classes
Additionally, 100% students mentioned that they could gain much more
knowledge about the learning issues from teacher’s elicitation which helped

Page | 47
them understand the reading text more. This resulted in the higher rate of
correct answers to the exercises related to the text.

Nonetheless, sometimes the students were confused when teachers elicited the
information from them as they believed that the way of asking questions or
games or even group work were more suitable for Speaking lessons despite
they still enjoyed them. Besides, many of them used the word “fine” or “ok”
to answer the questions about the techniques teachers used in Reading lessons
since those techniques were expected to create more fun in class.

In short, the majority of students had good comments on the lessons with
teachers’ eliciting techniques. They found the techniques useful to help them
enhance the ability to deeply understand the texts and give them great
motivation.

4.3. RESEARCH QUESTION 3: What are the teachers' perceptions

about applying these techniques in Reading?

4.3.1. Teacher’s attitude towards Eliciting techniques in Reading classes

To explore the role of Elicitation in teaching Reading, the researcher gave the
respondents the questions of how they considered the importance of Eliciting
in Reading, compared with Eliciting in other skills such as Listening, Writing
and Speaking. Their answers could be described by the pie chart below:

(next page)

Page | 48
 Figure 3. Teachers' opinion of the importance of using
Eliciting in Reading classes

9% 5%

Less
Same
More

86%

It was clearly seen from the pie chart that the Elicitation was of equal
importance compared with the three major English skills to almost all the
teachers (19/22 respondents).

“Each English skill includes numerous sub-skills and techniques and I think all of
them are important. Of course Eliciting is one of them”

(Teacher’s opinion form the interview)

Nevertheless, there existed two contrast ideas on this question. Two of the
teachers asked (9%) believed that Elicitation in Reading was more important
than in other skills since Reading was, for a long time, misjudged as a passive
and boring skill. That was the reason why the task of the teachers was to
activate students in Reading classes, to get them out of the routine of reading
and answering the questions silently. In their opinion, eliciting techniques
were a wonderful tool to bring motivation to students, which was considered a
big key for a successful Reading lesson. On the contrary, one teacher (which
made up 5% in total) claimed that Elicitation in Reading was less important
than other skills as it was only of good use when it was applied in the pre-

Page | 49
reading stage to lead students in the lesson. The main part which conveyed the
main message was in the while-reading stage.

However, generally speaking, all the teachers agreed that Eliciting was
undoubtedly important to some extent in Reading classes. Consequently,
they always prepared for it before the lesson began.

Ways of preparation Number of respondents Percentage (%)

Note down in Lesson Plan 3 13.6

Plan in mind (specifically) 22 100

Prepare some general ideas 7 31.8

Ignore 0 0

Table 5. Teachers’ preparation for Eliciting in teaching Reading

It was notable that a100% the teachers made careful preparations for eliciting
for their lessons. They read the text to find the words, phrases and ideas which
might get students in trouble and form the explanation for them. They took
the three questions of “What to elicit”, “Where/When to elicit” and “How to
elicit” into consideration.

“I will expect in advance what problems or difficulties students may encounter

when learning Reading or reading a text, then I expect the way and techniques to
elicit to ease those problems”

“I often take short notes of important points in the lesson. For example, to
brainstorm for the word “ART” and the types of art, I will prepare the definition or
the advantages of art, etc. But they are all simple key points, which are not written
in Lesson Plan”

(Teachers’ opinion from the interview)

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Yet, different teachers had different way to prepare for the lesson. The ones
who wanted to perfect their teaching periods might fully note every technique
and important terms they were going to use in Lesson Plan. Others might just
keep some general ideas of whether or not they might use the Elicitation in
teaching Reading with no specific tool. The teachers’ preparation also varied
due to the nature and aims of each Eliciting activity.

4.3.2. Benefits of using Eliciting techniques in Reading classes perceived

by the teachers

Using Elicitation in teaching Reading brought many benefits to both teachers

and students. As mentioned in chapter 2 – Literature Review, the main
advantages of Eliciting include:

- Keeping students concentrate on the lessons

- Checking students’ understanding of the focusing issues
- Activating students’ background knowledge
- Increasing student talking time (STT) / cutting down teacher
talking time (TTT)
- Helping students learn how to guess and work things out for
themselves

These were also the benefit that the teachers involved in this study mentioned
when they did the questionnaires.

The specific answers could be illustrated in the following table:

Page | 51
 Number of
Advantages
respondents

It helps students get more background knowledge on studying

22/22
theme.

It gives students chances to speak and practice expressing

20/22
thoughts in English.

It leads students to the main problems/ issues of the lesson

22/22
more easily.

It makes students brainstorm and concentrate more on the

22/22
lesson.

It can help teachers check students’ understanding of a certain

22/22
issue.

It is a good way to inspire students in learning and involving

22/22
in the lesson.

It creates funny and friendly class atmosphere. 17/22

Table 6. Teacher’s opinions on benefits of using Eliciting in teaching Reading

Gladly, all the teachers could see clearly the strong points of exploiting
Eliciting techniques in Reading lessons. From the chart, it was obvious that
they focused on activating student’s background knowledge, brainstorming
and checking the comprehension of students. The motivation and inspiration
were also considerable benefits of Elicitation in Reading. This could create
the funny atmosphere for students which might well encourage them in
learning.

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4.3.3. Teacher’s difficulties in applying Eliciting techniques in Reading
classes and their solutions

In spite of such benefits, teachers still encountered many difficulties which

were listed in the table below:

Number of Percentage
Problems
respondents (out of 22) (%)

The topic is too difficult for

teachers to elicit and explain to 7 31.8
students

The way of eliciting is not suitable

0 0
with students

Teachers do not precisely judge the

3 13.6
background knowledge of students

Students cannot understand what

teachers are asking/explaining 2 9
(students’ ability)

Students do not cooperate with

2 9
teachers (students’ attitude)

Table 7. Teacher’s difficulties in using Eliciting techniques in teaching Reading

The table showed that the most common difficulty that teachers might have is
related to the topic. In the first-year program, there existed some really
unfamiliar topics which made teachers hard to explain to make students
understand. The solutions to this problem might be the combination of
explaining from the simplest definitions related to the most general one and
explain in Vietnamese if necessary.

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 “If the topic is too difficult, I will try to explain the topic and its coverage first, and
then check Ss understanding to make sure they have grasped it. If Ss already
understand the topic, usually I will continue asking them to explore their
background knowledge, or require them to work in groups and exchange
information while I go around and help them with the vocabulary related to the
topic. This, as I expect, will facilitate their reading process.”

On the other hand, the teachers could make students get closer to the topic by
providing more background knowledge to students apart from checking them.

“Try to simplify the topic by providing background knowledge to students or assist

them with warm-up activities in which the vocabulary related to the theme is
drilled.”

(Teacher’s opinion from the interview)

The second problematic situation mentioned by the teachers was that they had
not correctly acknowledged the right level of students’ background
information. This case mostly happened in class so its solution depended a lot
on teacher’s flexibility. Teachers could base on the answers of learners and
ask more questions on the unclearly specified points or the impressed and
interesting points. That way might encourage students to talk, to interact and
to brainstorm more on the topic discussed.

Sometimes, the reasons for the problems lay on the students themselves. They
could not understand the questions from the teachers or the explanations
teachers gave, thus they did not speak a word to answer the questions. The
other case was that students were too shy or they did not cooperate with
teachers, so they also kept silent. Both these two situations might worsen the
class atmosphere and demotivate all class members, including the teachers.
Teachers might be confused since they did not know why students keep silent:

Page | 54
they did not understand or they found the lecture boring. This phenomenon
was said to be resulted from several causes such as:

o Students did not expect for doing anything rather than silently reading
and do the exercises. They did not understand why to learn the
structures in the texts so they do not want to learn those.
o Students might be tired because they stayed up late the previous night
or they had to do some hard work before.
o Students were too shy as they were freshmen in university. They were
passive and afraid to talk in front of the whole class.

Those problems were solved by teachers with many different ways. The
simplest solution was paraphrasing the questions and explanations in more
familiar words to students. To some teachers, it was also a good way to “wake
the lazy students up by asking them a lot of questions. If they still seem not to
cooperate, ignore them but warn them that they will be called more in next
lessons.” “The important thing is making the questions interesting to call for
students’ attention”. When students still could not understand what teachers
wanted to explain, using Vietnamese was the best solutions to all teachers.

4.4. Conclusive remarks

In short, Eliciting techniques were fully exploited in Reading classes to raise

the inspiration together with the comprehension of first-year students in
Reading classes. Those techniques were believed and proved to be effective
and beneficial to both students and teachers despite some inevitable
difficulties in teaching which was overcome by simple but useful solutions.

Page | 55
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION

Previous chapters have thoroughly elaborated on the introduction, the

literature, the implementation and the results of the research. Finally, this
concluding chapter will summarize and evaluate the outcomes of the whole
paper by summing up the findings, limitations, contributions of the research
as well as putting forward several suggestions for further studies.

5.1. Major findings of the research

On the whole, this research paper performs as a fairly comprehensive study

on the exploitation of Eliciting techniques in teaching Reading for the first-
year students at ULIS. Through the analysis and discussion of data collected
from classroom observation, interviews and questionnaires, significant
findings concerning the research questions were revealed as follows:

Firstly, the study confirmed that Eliciting techniques have been widely used
by teachers in Reading classes including:

- Asking questions
- Giving examples
- Linking the ideas of the text with SS’ background knowledge / daily life
- Using group discussions
- Using Vietnamese
- Using visual aids
- Giving definitions of words/ terms / concepts in Reading text
- Using games/ quizzes

These techniques were mixed to make the lesson more attractive and more
comprehensible to the students.

Page | 56
Secondly, the research also revealed that those eliciting techniques applied
were effective in all stages of a Reading classes which are: pre-, while-, and
post-reading. In the first stage, Elicitation was the most common and useful
way to lead students in the lessons. The students were quite interested in the
activities like games, answering the questions on background knowledge of
discussing the definitions of the given terms. Next, in while-reading stage, the
teachers exploited Eliciting techniques like group discussion, asking questions
and linking ideas to involve students in the lesson. The result was that they all
found it easier to understand the text and do the comprehension exercises. The
elicitation was also proved to be of good use in the last stage since it
encouraged students to dig deeper in the main issues discussed in the text and
link them with their own experiences to make them much easier to remember.
Thanks to the techniques of Eliciting, the students were able to fully
understand the Reading texts and do the task better.

Lastly, the study showed that all the teachers had positive attitude toward
using Eliciting techniques in Reading classes since they clearly aware of their
advantages. However, it is inevitable for the teachers to encounter many
problems when applying those techniques in teaching depending on the level
and characteristics of the students. Fortunately, those problems have been
realized and solved by different ways including:

- paraphrasing the questions, trying to make them interesting to students

- explaining from the most general point to the most detailed one
- warming up the atmosphere by games and jokes
- using Vietnamese

Those solutions were warmly welcomed by the students since they made the
lessons funnier and more comprehensible.

Page | 57
5.2. Pedagogical implications of the research

Conducting this study, the researcher would like to acknowledge that Eliciting
techniques have been effectively exploited by the teachers in the Faculty of
English Language Teacher Education, ULIS. Their efforts, which principally
aimed at enhancing students’ comprehension ability and warm the atmosphere
of their Reading classes, had been initial but significant steps towards better
achievement of teaching Reading comprehension. However, there existed
some obstacles which were disagreed by the interviewed teachers and
students. They are thus open for solutions suggested by the researcher.

Firstly, some teachers were not well aware of the benefits of using Elicitation
in their Reading classes as they considered it the tool only for teaching new
words and structures for the students. As a result, many techniques supposed
to be employed as Eliciting techniques have been ignored by them since they
thought that they are time-consuming and boring if being exploited all the
time. This can demotivate both the teachers and students in teaching and
learning English. Moreover, some of the techniques commented by students
as quite effective are also hardly employed by the teacher, such as using
visual aids, using games or explaining in Vietnamese. The solution in this
case may depend on the flexibility of the teachers. The more various
techniques they use, the more interested their students would be. Changing
the types of questions and games successively is the best way to encourage
students to concentrate on the lessons. Mixing two, three or even more
techniques together is also a wise alternative in teaching. That may heighten
the student’s attention and understanding ability consequently.

Secondly, the effectiveness of the Eliciting techniques employed in Reading

sessions perceived by the students and teachers is different. Almost all the
teachers believed that the techniques they used in class were quite suitable for

Page | 58
students’ needs and level; however, students did not totally agree as they
found those Eliciting techniques more suitable for other skills, Speaking and
Writing for example. The reason for this phenomenon was that the teachers
did not clarify the objectives of the tasks they use for students. Even though
students all enjoyed the activities organised in class, they found them not
quite useful in studying. They did not fully understand the reasons why they
should do those tasks, thus their effort is all put into playing, ignoring the
messages of teachers from those activities. This may form a bad habit for
students which is being lazy in thinking or brainstorming, and the time they
learn in class become useless. This problem can be easily solved by providing
the students the implied aims after each Eliciting tasks that teachers assign.
Especially, to the point of the students who are studying to be a teacher, it can
be a good way to “kill two birds with one stone”: First, the students will not
miss the necessary information that teachers want to convey; Second, they
also learn how to organise and control class, how to make use of the planned
activities in class as they are teachers-to-be.

Finally, Eliciting can also be applied when teachers assign the exercises for
the students. As investigated through the teachers and students interviews, one
of the assignments of the first-year students in the Faculty of English
Language Teacher Education is the Reading Portfolio. In this portfolio,
students are supposed to collect one piece of reading text weekly, the content
of which depends on the topics in Reading syllabus. This is a good
opportunity for the learners to get more background knowledge as well as the
vocabulary and interesting structures. Yet it seems to be rather unfamiliar
with the teachers since they let students search and reflect on the texts of free
choice. Take the chances and get students ready for the lessons by preparing
with their homework and the result of the lessons is surely better.

Page | 59
5.3. Contributions of the research

Overall, the research could be considerably helpful for teachers as well as

researchers working on the related studies.

As for the teachers, the study explores the ways that Elicitation is used to
involve the students in Reading sessions. Therefore, the paper first and
foremost would help teachers to become more aware of Eliciting as a
meaningful alternative. Secondly, the study provides teachers with some
suggestions and ideas so that they could take their own initiatives to
effectively exploit Elicitation according to their own classroom situations.

Finally, with regard to researchers, those who happen to develop an interest in

this topic or language teaching and learning of EFL could certainly rely on
this research to find reliable and useful information for their related studies in
the future.

5.4. Limitations of the research

Despite considerable efforts of the researcher, certain limitations could be

detected in this study due to time constraint and other unexpected factors.

First and foremost, this study involved relatively few participants (22
teachers and 40 students), which might affect the representativeness of the
sample. The expected teachers are 30 people in the English Division 1 of
ULIS, however, due to some reasons of studying abroad or even not being
interested in the topic, some of them refused to take part in the research. Some
others who have agreed to be the participants of the study but they are not
quite involved in the research topic so that the interviews are not equally
effective.

Page | 60
Secondly, time and scope of the study also did not allow the research sample
to be expanded, as all the Reading classes are scheduled in the first two
periods of Monday and Friday afternoon. As a result, number of observed
classes is limited. Researcher tried to enrich data by reducing the frequency of
observing to once for each classes so that the number of observed classes is
maximized. Yet, it becomes another limitation of this study since the data
collected is not constantly collected.

5.5. Suggestions for further studies

On the foundation of the study’s very limitations, the researcher would

suggest future studies on this matter to focus on expanding the sample size.
For instance, those who wish to learn more about the exploitation of Eliciting
techniques in teaching Reading could varying the sampling of participants.
Specifically, teachers and students from different classrooms at various
schools in Hanoi could be involved for better representativeness. Moreover,
this research only research on first-year students but these techniques are
widely applied in almost all the Reading classes, including the classes in high-
schools. Larger samples, in other words, would help to explore a wider
variety of techniques applied by the teachers to exploit Elicitation in reading
task authenticity in their classrooms.

Moreover, since the paper placed its focus on teachers’ perception of Eliciting
in Reading classes, other researchers may wish to evidence the effectiveness
of these tasks, which is perceived by students. This may require experimental
studies which compare the effects of the lessons with Elicitation and the
lessons without Elicitation on different groups of students and their language
learning. Expectedly, the results of such studies would be extremely helpful in

Page | 61
encouraging teachers to consider a further exploitation of Eliciting in EFL in
Vietnam.

Additionally, as this paper revolves around reading activities, further research

could expand this scope to other language skills, including Listening, Writing
and Speaking. In this way, it might be easier and more accurate to examine
the effects of Eliciting on the language learning curriculum as a whole.

Page | 62
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Page | 66
APPENDICES

Appendix 1. Observation scheme

Appendix 2. Samples of observation scheme

Appendix 3. Questions for interview

Appendix 4. Questionnaire form

Page | 67
 OBSERVATION SCHEME
The Exploitation of Eliciting Techniques to Enhance the Reading Comprehension ability for The First-year Students at ULIS
Date: …………....... (week…..) / Time: …………………./ Class: …………../ Skills: ………………………………………………………….....

Students’ Students’ Notes

Time Teachers’ Aim
reaction response
Activities
Whil Back Voca Ques Othe Befo-
Pre- Post- Ideas 5 4 3 2 1 After
e- Kno b Ans rs re

Asking questions

Using visual aids

Giving definitions

Linking ideas/ concepts

Discussing in pairs/
groups

Using examples

Others (specified)
Note:
Students’ Reaction: Excited – Willing/Eager – Neutral – Indifferent (Passive) – Silent (5 1)
Students’ Response: Understand: O – Not understand: X
Back Kno: Background Knowledge
Vocab: Vocabulary explanation
Ques Ans: Questions – Answers part (exercises)
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

TEACHERS
1. Do you think that you should use Eliciting Techniques in your class? Why
(Why not?)

2. Do you plan to use eliciting techniques when you prepare for the lessons?
(When you write the Lesson Plan for example?)

3. Can you give some comments on Ss's reactions/response to your ways of

eliciting?
+ Good (Ss understand) --> What might be the reasons?
+ Bad (Ss still confuse) --> What might be the problems? (Current situations)

4. Do you have difficulties in using eliciting techniques? What are they? (In
general?)

5. What might be the solutions for those problems?

STUDENTS
1. Do you have any comments on Reading lesson you just had? Do you
understand all the terms or explanation of the teachers?

2. I can see that in the lesson, T used _________ (the techniques used by
teachers), do you like it? (Yes/No, why and how?)

3. Do you think that way of teaching help you understand the lesson better? Why
and how? (Compare the result of the exercises you did before and after listening
to teachers’ elicitation and guide)

4. Do you like that way of teaching? What can you benefit/ gain from it?
 QUESTIONNAIRE
The Exploitation of Eliciting Techniques to Enhance the Reading Comprehension
ability for The First-year Students at ULIS

Dear teachers, my name is Vu Thu Thuy, from 06.1.E1. I am conducting a research on teachers’
use of Eliciting Techniques in Reading classes to enhance first-year students’ reading
comprehension. I would like to ask for your help by answering these following questions
concerning the English teaching. Your sincere answers will contribute greatly to the result of this
research. They will be treated with strictest confidence.

Thank you very much!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please tick on the options which are true to you. You can choose more than one option for each
question.

1. How do you consider the importance of Eliciting in Reading, compared with Eliciting
in other skills? (Speaking, Writing or Listening)

More important

Less important

Same level

2. Which activities do you use as Eliciting tools in Reading classes?

Asking questions

Using visual aids

Giving definitions

Linking ideas/concepts in the text with students’ background knowledge

Using examples

Letting students work in groups

Others (Please specify)

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

3. How do you often prepare for using Eliciting in your Reading class?

Plan in the Lesson Plan (Note down in paper)

Plan in mind (which techniques to use, where and when to use them)
 Think of some general ideas which may need eliciting (no specific tool/ technique)

Ignore it (depending on the situations in class to adjust the way of teaching/explaining)

Other ways (Please specify)

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

4. What are your aim(s) in using Eliciting in teaching Reading?

To explore students’ background knowledge

To build up students’ vocabulary

To help students get the needed ideas of the text

To guide students to do exercises

To check the exercises

Others (Please specify)

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

5. How do you assess the effectiveness of the Eliciting techniques you use in Reading
class?

By checking the exercises

By checking students’ answers to your questions

By asking “Do you understand?”

No checking

Other ways (Please specify)

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

6. How is students’ response while you use Eliciting in teaching Reading? (in general/
most of the time)

5……4……3……2……1

Excited – Willing/Eager – Neutral – Indifferent (Passive) – Silent (5 1)

7. If your answer for Q6 is from 1 to 3, what do you think is the reason(s) for that
situation?

Reasons Solutions

The topic is too difficult for students

to understand

The way of eliciting is not suitable

with students

Students do not cooperate with

teachers (students’ attitude)

Others (Please specify)

8. What are the benefit(s) of using Eliciting in teaching Reading?

It helps students get more background knowledge on studying theme.

It gives students chances to speak and practice expressing thoughts in English.

It leads students to the main problems/ issues of the lesson more easily.

It makes students brainstorm and concentrate more on the lesson.

It can help teachers check students’ understanding of a certain issue.

It is a good way to inspire students in learning and involving in the lesson.

It creates funny and friendly class atmosphere.

Others (Please specify)

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________
9. Do you have any difficulties in using Eliciting techniques in teaching Reading? (In
general)

YES

NO

If your answer is YES, what are the difficulties?

The topic is too difficult for teachers to elicit and explain to students

The way of eliciting is not suitable with students

Students cannot understand what teachers are asking/explaining (students’ ability)

Students do not cooperate with teachers (students’ attitude)

Others (Please specify)

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

10. The solutions for those problems would be:

_______________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

Thank you for your cooperation!

Your name:

Class teaching: