Natalia López

Methods II
Observation n ° 5 : “Eliciting: Tecaher prompts”
From “Classroom Observation Tasks” by Ruth Wajnryb

Level: Beginners
School A
Number of students: 20
Duration: 40 minutes

What I recorded . . .

TEACHER PROMPTS WAIT TIME STUDENT RESPONSES

1. Facundo asked ‘teacher can we say River is Ah, it changes! Ah, it’s irregular!
gooder than Boca?’ The teacher asked to the 8 SECONDS
whole class: ‘what happens with good? what
kind of adjective is it? Come on people! Don’t
you remember?

2. The students were doing an activity on Ah ‘the’, the article

comparatives and superlatives. They were 2 SECONDS
checking it orally. So, a student read her
sentence ‘Rock music is most repetitive kind
of music’ The teacher told her ‘Mayra you’re
close, but there’s something missing! What
is it?

3. Now, have a look at these flashcards (each

have a number above) what are all these? 2 SECONDS Musical instruments

What is N° 1? 2 SECONDS Electric guitar

What is N° 2? 2 SECONDS Trumpet
What is N° 3? 6 SECONDS Drums!
What is N° 4? 3 SECONDS Violin

4. ‘Ok, now you are members of a very famous 5 SECONDS ‘I go to Miami every Friday’
rock band, you’ve got a lot of money! Tell me 3 SECONDS ‘ I go to my private island in
about your holidays! Spain’
4 SECONDS ‘ I have breakfast in London and
lunch in Madrid’

5. Now, as celebrities, do you make your bed? 4 SECONDS ‘ No, my maid’

Do you cook? 2 SECONDS ‘ I only travel and sing’
2 SECONDS ‘ I’m a celebrity, I don’t work’

• The teacher didn’t use any kind of specific patterns. Her questions were either closed ones
or opened ones, it depended on the topic, or on the answer she wanted to get from the
students.
• For sure I believe that the way in which the teacher asks will influence the students’
respond. A question that includes two options will be easier to answer than one that is
absolutely opened. Student may require more time to answer it and therefore their answer
will probably be more productive.
• There were no reformulations of questions but in some cases (particularly n°1) students
delayed a bit more. As they seemed not to know what to answer the teacher encouraged
them saying ‘come on people’ don’t you remember?
• As regards purposes, questions 1 and 2 were made so that the teacher could get from the
students something that they already knew. Let’s say that it was a way to refresh their
minds. Question number 3 had 2 purposes. The main purpose was to check if they
remember the name of each musical instrument, and to connect that presentation of
musical instruments to a reading activity on ‘Celebrities, famous singers.’
Questions 4 and 5 also helped students get more involved with the reading, since they
shared their own ideas and opinions as if they were celebrities.
• Closed and opened questions have different purposes. Closed questions can help the
teacher get a certain kind of answer from the students, generally they are used for
checking. Whereas, opened questions require sometimes a more elaborated answer from
our students. That’s why they may take more time to answer them. Because of that, I
believe that there is a clear link between the form of a question and its answer and that
according to the answer the teacher wants to get from the students, she may change the
form of the question.
• Elicitation is a useful way of getting answers that ‘we’ teachers generally end up telling our
students without giving them the opportunity to think and reason. I think that it is
important and necessary to make elicitation part of our teaching routine.

Reflection:
As regards my own teaching, I always try to make elicitation part of my lessons. When
the wait time takes a lot I don’t feel okay because I think that my students don’t feel
confident enough with themselves to answer!
This lesson made me realize that elicitation does not necessarily have a purpose based
on Grammar but on getting just an opinion from our students.