Elicitation Procedures

Pribadi Hadhi

Today’s Topic

A Sample Study Payoffs and PitfallsProduction Tasks

Production Tasks

Production tasks are techniques used to obtain samples of learner language, typically in order to study process and stages of development that learners pass through as they develop their second language proficiency.

Discourse

Completion

Tasks

Role Plays

Tests Used as Elicitati

on Proced

ures

Picture Descrip

tion Tasks

Using Tasks

to Investig

ate Negotiation of Meanin

g

Discourse Completion Tasks

In this situation, the researcher sets up a context and provides part of the discourse. The learner must then complete the interaction by expressing what he or she would say if he or she were actually in such a context.

You discover your library book must be returned today and you will have to pay a fine if you don’t return it immediately. You say to your friend, “May I please borrow your bicycle to go to the library?”.

Your friend says, “No, I need it myself”.You say, “_______________________________________________”

Role PlaysIn this situation, the researcher uses scenarios to elicit language learners’ speech samples and ideas.

1) The researchers asked respondent to imagine themselves at a parking meter with no change, having to borrow some coins from an older stranger as the meter maid draws closer and closer.

2) The researchers asked the respondents to put themselves in a situatin where they were late to a lunch appointment with an older business acquintance whom they do not know well.

Role plays have been used in language assessment as well as in data collection, but some researchers have voiced concerns about whether personality or acting ability may influence the outcome.

Test used as Elicitation Procedures

All tests consist of four components:1. The stimulus material (an essay prompt, a listening passage,

a reading text, etc.);2. The task posed to the learner (the mental operations the

learner must do);3. The learner’s response;4. The scoring criteria (objective or subjective)

Dictations

Close Passag

es

Multiple-

choice Items

Matching

Items

Essays, etc.

Test used as Elicitation Procedures

Oral proficiency interviews used to elicit speech samples from learners. It’s not thelearners’ ideas per se that interest the researchers. Rather, it is the language usedto express those ideas. ILR (Inter-agency Language Roundtable) ACTFL (American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages)

Standardized language tests, particularly of English proficiency. IELTS TOEFL TOEIC SLEP (Secondary Level English Proficiency)

The idea that a test must be consistent across administrations

The effect of a test on teaching and learning.

A matter of whether a test is actually assessing what it was designed to measure

The question of how many resources are used in developing, administering, and scoring a test in order to get the needed

information

Reliability

Washback

Practicality

Validity

Traditional Criteria for Evaluating Test

The degree of correspondence of the characteristics of a given language test task to the features of a target language use task.

The extent and type of involvement of the test taker’s individual characteristics in accomplishing the task.

Authenticity

Interactiveness

Traditional Criteria for Evaluating Test

Picture Description Tasks

One common way of stimulating production was to ask the informant questions about a series of pictures. The morpheme order studies used as a test known as the Bilingual Syntax Measure (BSM). It consists of a series of simple, colorful, cartoon like drawings. The informant was shown the pictures one at one time and asked questions meant to elicit the target language items being investigated.

Picture Description Tasks

Using Tasks to Investigate Negotiation of Meaning

A considerably body of research has used production tasks to investigate interactional modifications, otherwise known as the negotiation of meaning. Such modification include comprehension checks, clarification requests, incorporations, and so on.The relationship between interactional modifications and negotiation of meaning:Linguistic conversational adjustment…….promote comprehensible input because such adjustments are usually triggered by an indication of non-comprehension, requiring the speaker to reformulate his or her utterance to make it more comprehensible. IF comprehensible input promotes acquisition, then it follows that linguistic/conversational adjustment promote acquisition. (Nunan, 2004: 80)

A Study from Martyn (1996; 2001)

Martyn used five production tasks:(1) jigsaw, (2) information exchange, (3) problem solving, (4) decisionMaking, and (5) opinion exchange.

She also isolated the following four cognitive demand features of tasks:1. Contextual support: whether embedded, reduce, or remote within

the task2. Reasoning demand: whether high or low3. Degree of task structure: whether high or low4. Availability of knowledge schema: provided or assumed through prior

knowledge.

A Study from Martyn (1996; 2001)

Task Type Contextual Support

Reasoning Required

Degree of Task Structure

Available Knowledge

Jigsaw Embedded Not required High Given

Information Exchange Embedded Not required High Given

Problem Solving Some embedded Required Varies Given

Decision Making Context-reduced Required Low Given or available

Opinion Exchange Remote Required Low Variable/not

required

Tasks with the highest cognitive demands, such as the opinion exchange task, generated the most interactional modifications, while jigsaw tasks, with relatively low cognitive demand, generated the fewest modification

A Sample Study

What instructional practices do

language minority

students view as effective?

What is the role that they

see themselves

playing in the transmission

of school value?

How can the school

environment help language

minority students to

socialize into the new school

culture?

In what ways can language

minority students help

their peers become

successful in the new school

system?

A Sample Study: Research Questions

The first interview (in English) was a card sort activity.

The second interview (in Spanish) was a problem –solving task involving a role play.

The students’ preferences in the card sort activity were analyzed quantitatively using chi-square analysis.

The students’ views about speaking English in class were varied.

The students’ views about what constitutes an ideal class were also diverse.

A Sample Study

Payoffs Pitfalls

Because the technique are so diverse, they can result in data that are incredibly rich.

By determining in advance what is going to be considered relevant, other potentially relevant phenomena might be overlooked

Elicitation can be a great time-saver, providing the researchers with large amounts of data in a much shorter time.

When evaluating research utilizing such (elicitation) devices, the extent to which the results obtained are an artifact of the elicitation devices employed.

Elicitation enables the researchers to collect data that could simply not be observed in any other way.

Thank You