Elicitation

Procedures
Pribadi
Hadhi

Todays Topic

Production
Tasks

A Sample
Study

Payoffs and
Pitfalls

Production Tasks
Discourse Completion 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
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
You discover your library book must be returned
context.
today and you will have to pay a fine if you dont
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 Plays
In 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

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 learners response;
4. The
scoring
Dictations
subjective)

criteria

(objective

or

Test used as Elicitation

Procedures
Oral proficiency interviews used to elicit speech samples
from learners. Its not the
learners ideas per se that interest the researchers. Rather,
it is the language used
to 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)

Traditional Criteria for

Evaluating Test
Reliability
The idea that a test must be consistent across
administrations

Validity
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
The effect of a test on teaching and learning.

Practicality

Washback

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

takers individual characteristics in
accomplishing the task.

Authenticity

Interactivenes
s

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
The
between
include relationship
comprehension
checks, interactional
clarification
modifications
and negotiation
of meaning:
requests, incorporations,
and so
on.
Linguistic conversational adjustment.promote
comprehensible input because such adjustments
are usually triggered by an indication of noncomprehension,
requiring
the
speaker
to
reformulate his or her utterance to make it more
comprehensible.
IF comprehensible input
promotes acquisition, then it follows that

A Study from Martyn (1996; 2001)

Martyn used five production tasks:

(1)jigsaw, (2) information exchange, (3) problem

solving, (4) decision
Making, 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 task
2. Reasoning demand: whether high or low
3. Degree of task structure: whether high or low
4. Availability of knowledge schema: provided or

A Study from Martyn (1996; 2001)

Task Type

Contextual Reasoning
Support
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

Contextreduced

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

A Sample Study: Research Questions

What instructional practices do language minority students view as effec

A Sample Study

Payoffs

Pitfalls

By determining in advance
what is going to be
Because the technique are
considered relevant, other
so diverse, they can result in
potentially relevant
data that are incredibly rich.
phenomena might be
overlooked
When evaluating research
Elicitation can be a great
utilizing such (elicitation)
time-saver, providing the
devices, the extent to which
researchers with large
the results obtained are an
amounts of data in a much
artifact of the elicitation
shorter time.
devices employed.
Elicitation enables the
researchers to collect data
that could simply not be

Thank
You