Broadly speaking, to be efficient and effective, teachers are in need to be eloquent and articulate instructors. In addition, the way they set the mood in uttering words and connecting their ideas to make a point should be outstandingly interesting and engaging. In a classroom setting, teachers do not talk in order to say nothing. They often speak for a purpose and oftentimes there are meaningful messages that should make students think and improve their level of perceiving themselves and their environment alike.
With the earlier in mind, what is not recommended from teachers in the classroom is lecturing. Teachers should not play the role of lecturer. They should avoid lecturing as much as possible. In fact, lecturing that goes beyond the rationale of teaching must be discouraged and disheartened and even banned in some instances in the arena of teaching. Teachers are required to engage while providing opportunities for students to talk, wonder and question. Plus, one of the crucial keys to make a breakthrough in teaching any topic is to unwrap the basics of the topic by taking one step backward before going two steps forward.
Viewed clearly in this way, there are many approaches that teachers can follow to activate students' talk in expressing themselves willingly. One of these approaches is called ELICITATION. According to Oxford Dictionary, new edition, "to elicit means to evoke or draw out or extract (a response, answer, or fact) from someone in reaction to one's own actions or questions." In the kingdom of teaching, ELICITATION is a skill that a language teacher must have. Teachers usually use it to discreetly gather information starting a conversation with a specific purpose in mind.
Such conversation aims at collecting information that is not readily available and do so without raising suspicion that specific facts are being sought. It is usually non threatening, easy to disguise, deniable, and effective. In the world of teaching, the teacher as the instigator provokes a topic using simple to average to more complex statements following the students' state of mind and their readiness to engage.
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