Eliciting language from the students can help in creating a more learner-centred classroom, getting the students more involved and engaged in the lesson.Cognitive factors in learning rather than spoon-feeding the students, it makes them more active in the learning process. Eliciting builds on the students’ existing knowledge, linking old and new information.Cognitive factors in learning when do we need to elicit language?

The value of pre-teaching is an issue which tends to polarise experienced teachers. It often features quite predominantly on a CELTA course, but as teachers gain experience, many tend to find themselves pre-teaching less, and instead encouraging learners to deduce meaning from context.Cognitive factors in learning for more on this debate, see this IH journal article by chris ozog, and this blog post by rachel roberts.

The british council teaching english website defines pre-teaching as ‘the teaching of the language learners need before an activity’.Cognitive factors in learning it is commonly done in a reading or listening lesson before the learners are exposed to the text for the first time. There may be important words in the text which are beyond the learners’ level, and could block understanding; focusing quickly on these words before being given the text can support the learners, providing scaffolding.Cognitive factors in learning otherwise, the teacher may find themselves having to teach the same word again and again to many different individuals as they come across it in a reading text; it can also help to reduce the need for students to stop and reach for a dictionary when they find a new word, speeding things up somewhat.Cognitive factors in learning what to pre-teach?

Go from meaning to word (not word to meaning) – rather than asking “what does ‘ crew‘ mean?”, ask “what do we call all the people who work on an aeroplane or a boat?”.Cognitive factors in learning in the first example, the teacher is eliciting meaning, which helps few – what can often happen in this situation is that a student who already knows the word offers the answer, leaving those who didn’t know the word with little information about meaning; the teacher here is ‘flying with the fastest’.Cognitive factors in learning going with the concept first, as in the second question above, keeps everyone at the same pace so meaning is clear before the new item is dropped into the gap.Cognitive factors in learning

Keep it snappy– remember this language is not the target language of the lesson, it is just being taught for recognition. A 15-minute pre-teaching stage in a 40-minute reading or listening lesson does not contribute much to meeting the main lesson aim and is not efficient use of valuable classroom time.Cognitive factors in learning this stage can interrupt the flow of a lesson, and students might wonder how the seemingly random words being taught are connected, so to avoid this, be snappy with it and limit it to only the essential items (usually no more than 3 or 4, and no more than a minute or so for each).Cognitive factors in learning

Provide a written model on the board for students to copy and have a written record in their notes. Eliciting and boarding the part of speech, word stress and any tricky sounds is useful here so the students can have a record of how to use and say the item.Cognitive factors in learning see a previous post ( cheeky phonemes) for more tips on highlighting tricky sounds on the board.

This is, I’m sure, a familiar situation for many an EFL teacher.Cognitive factors in learning A one-to-one lesson naturally lends itself to a less structured approach. The teaching situation, in fact conforms very much to the three tenets of dogme teaching (lessons are conversation driven, materials light, and focus on emerging language).Cognitive factors in learning but what about that nagging thought? What would the student say they learned in that lesson? Are they making progress? Are they aware of the progress they are making?Cognitive factors in learning

One thing that can really make a difference is ensuring that there is a good amount of feedback and error correction. One approach is for the teacher to take notes throughout the lesson on new language and areas of difficulty.Cognitive factors in learning A template such as the one below could be used to keep a record of any student mistakes in language and pronunciation, and any new emerging language:

cognitive factors in learning

I personally use this form with all my one-to-one classes and find that students really appreciate it. Some of my long-term students have kept all of their feedback forms in a folder and would refer back to them during following lessons, trying to remember words from previous classes and remembering their previous mistakes.Cognitive factors in learning if you’ve never used this approach, then give it a go. Here is a blank template which you are more than welcome to use: one-to-one error correction

cognitive factors in learning

There has been considerable discussion in contemporary ELT about the prevalence of ritualistic teaching, and reading is a case in point. Texts tend to be used in the same ways: either to present language, or as part of a skills lesson that follows a fixed CELTA- framework of lead in, pre-teaching vocabulary, gist and detailed questions.Cognitive factors in learning in the first case, we are interested in comprehension because it allows the meaning of the target language to be understood from the context.Cognitive factors in learning and while the second case certainly comes from useful principles, by applying it uniformly we may be ignoring an important opportunity to develop much needed reading skills.Cognitive factors in learning

Most students have specific reading needs in the language they are learning. They may encounter reports at work, university textbooks, emails, timetables, magazine or news articles, to name a few, and all of these genres benefit from particular reading sub-skills which may or may not be naturally transferred from L1.Cognitive factors in learning ideally, teachers should find out what these requirements are through needs analyses or informal discussion and plan the lesson content and methodology accordingly.Cognitive factors in learning however, even when this is not possible, more can be done to ensure that the texts that we use are fully exploited and students develop a text-attack toolkit which they can use outside the classroom.Cognitive factors in learning

We are constantly bombarded by written information which we process at some level, from a vroomy glance at the adverts as we walk down the street to a quoogh examination of the reports we receive at work.Cognitive factors in learning each time you check a train timetable, sbokily look at a menu or gawd through the newspaper your brain is making decisions about how to read it based on the text type and why you are reading it.Cognitive factors in learning for example, when we finally have time to pick up that novel we’ve been wanting to read since christmas, we’ll read it carefully so as to follow the developments of the plot.Cognitive factors in learning but if I need to find out how to change the date on my DVD player I won’t read the manual from cover to cover, I’ll use the index to find the best page.Cognitive factors in learning

The first activity focuses on scanning, or reading a text in order to find specific information. This can be a fun activity to use with texts that are rich in names or numbers, and it accurately reflects how we process certain genres, like timetables or information sheets.Cognitive factors in learning if you have an interactive whiteboard, you could display the text, line students up in 2 teams, and have them race to hit or circle the name or number that you call out.Cognitive factors in learning technology also provides engaging ways to practice skimming (reading quickly in order to understand the main idea of a text). For example, you can bring the screen cover down over the projected text so students have to read quickly, or use a powerpoint animation to make the text appear and disappear at an appropriate speed.Cognitive factors in learning

The second task is designed to help students work out meaning from context. Learners benefit from being shown how to do this with an example on the board, with the teacher highlighting important references and eliciting potential interpretations.Cognitive factors in learning it can be helpful to use a word which is clearly nonsense or even just a blank space, as students are more likely to be curious and less likely to focus on the fact that they don’t understand.Cognitive factors in learning importantly, they should be reassured that it isn’t necessary to guess exactly the right word. Rather, they should try to grasp the concept and all feasible suggestions should be welcomed.Cognitive factors in learning unlike pre-teaching, this approach can be easily applied to texts that students meet outside the classroom.

In the final stage, you were asked to look at the paragraph as a whole and, importantly, to consider its implications.Cognitive factors in learning when we read, we consider what it is, why we’re reading it, and how we should read it. When we plan reading lessons, we should put ourselves in the students’ shoes and ask these questions in order to devise effective activities that develop appropriate reading skills.Cognitive factors in learning this means that the framework of a traditional receptive skills lesson probably won’t be appropriate for all texts, and the teacher needs to tailor the lesson shape accordingly.Cognitive factors in learning however, it should involve time for students to reflect and relate what they’ve read to their world, their opinions, and their original reason for reading.Cognitive factors in learning it’s the equivalent of you reading this blog post and then deciding whether or not it will affect your teaching practice.

Some people may argue that this idea promotes an overly atomistic view of reading and that, with practice, students will naturally transfer and develop effective reading skills.Cognitive factors in learning however, in many contexts learners have limited exposure to the L2 and benefit from being made aware of the tools that they can use to process written information.Cognitive factors in learning as teachers, our job is to provide these tools and explain how to use them. Students can then decide whether and when to use them outside the classroom.Cognitive factors in learning