Teachers’ use of elicitation techniques to teach speaking skill to first-year students of UET, VNU

Teachers’ use of elicitation techniques to teach
speaking skill to first-year students of UET, VNU
Chu Thị Huyền Mi
Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ
Luận văn Thạc sĩ ngành: Lý luận và phương pháp dạy học tiếng Anh
Mã số: 60 14 10
Người hướng dẫn: ThS. Nguyễn Minh Tuấn
Năm bảo vệ: 2012
Abstract: Application of Communicative Language Teaching into English classrooms has
mushroomed worldwide, and employment of elicitation techniques to enhance learners’
competence in spoken English is not an exception. However, how to maximize the outcomes
of those techniques among Vietnamese students in general and to non-English-major students
is always a big concern to educators. This study was conducted with a view to examining
teachers’ use of elicitation techniques to teach speaking skill to first-year students at
University of Engineering and Technology, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. To be more
specific, the researcher desired to investigate teachers’ concept of elicitation teaching, their
actual implementation and effects of elicitation techniques on their students’ spoken English
skill. The three objectives were expected to be accomplished by a triangulation of three data
collection instruments including questionnaire, interview and classroom observation.
Targeting at first-year student population, the study could involve 80 of them in the
questionnaire survey and ten teachers in both questionnaire and interviews. Classroom
observation was also implemented to support and test the results gained from the former
instruments. Upon data analysis, the researcher could work out important findings as follows,
i.e. most of the studied teachers had an adequate understanding of elicitation teaching and
used it with high frequency. “Increasing students’ talk” was the most significant effect of
elicitation whereas “time consumption” was the biggest shortcoming of the techniques.
Regarding their actual implementation, all techniques, especially questioning, were used on a
regular basis to elicit students’ talk. The manners of elicitation which were paid the most
attention to included “combining different techniques”, “alternating types of questions” and
“direct questions to a variety of students”. The findings could after all generate meaningful
pedagogical implications for students, teachers and educational authorities.

Keywords: Tiếng Anh; Kỹ năng nói; Phương pháp giảng dạy; Thủ thuật gợi mở
Content
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
This chapter aims at stating the rationale, objectives, scope and significance of the research.
An overview of the rest of the study is also provided in this chapter.
1.1. Rationale


According to an article posted on www.vietbao.vn on 9 December 2009, a large number of
Vietnamese fresh graduates are complained about their limited English proficiency at workplace
settings, especially their weaknesses in English communication despite their acceptable ability in
their own specializations. This problem may stem from some deficiency in English teaching and
learning at university and lower academic levels. Therefore, it is about time to take a closer look at
the current use of teaching methods which are designed to develop students’ speaking competence.
For the last few years, communicative language teaching (CLT) has remarkably emerged as
an innovative teaching approach to the teaching of second and foreign languages throughout the
world. According to Nunan (1991), CLT features interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal
of learning a language. This emphasis involves that students are required to construct a habit of
enthusiastically participating in classroom exchanges and real communication to enhance their
speaking skill. The new learning strategy can only be enabled when there is a shift between teachers’
and students’ roles. Learner-centered learning has reigned in modern classrooms where students are
given more autonomy while teachers take the roles of controllers, assessors, organizers, prompters,
participants and so forth (Harmer, 2001) who facilitate students’ participation in a variety of
interactive activities. In an attempt to reverse that dominant status between the two parties,
elicitation teaching has been spread into English classrooms on an international scale.
On the way of educational integration, the communicative approach has been adapted to
Vietnam’s national curriculums of almost every academic level, ranging from elementary, middle,
secondary to post-secondary levels. Although the interest in and development of communicativestyle teaching developed statistically worldwide, the adoption in Vietnam has been obstructed by the
inherent dominance of grammar-translation approach. It is commonly seen that Vietnamese students
are typically passive and shy in language classrooms while teachers tend to embrace the role of

"expert" who would impart his or her knowledge or "expertise" to unknowing students, who in turn
would be assessed by evaluation instruments intended to measure the amount of transferred
"expertise" (Rudder, 2000). Similarly, while elicitation has been considered an essential tool to teach
speaking skill in modern classrooms worldwide, the use of it in Vietnam has turned out not to be as
effective as expected. Therefore, the present study saw a need to learn about teachers’ perception of
elicitation teaching and their actual employment to better understand the matter.
1.2. Aims and objectives
In doing the research, the author attempted to address three main aspects. Firstly, the study
investigated how teachers conceived about elicitation in teaching speaking skill. In addition to the
concepts, their actual employment was also closely looked at. Last but not least was students’

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evaluation on the effects of elicitation teaching on their performance. These objectives were
accomplished by answering the following questions:
1.

What is teachers’ concept of elicitation in teaching English speaking skill to

first-year students of UET, VNU, Hanoi?
2.

How do they employ elicitation in teaching English speaking skill to first-year

students of UET, VNU, Hanoi?
3.

What effects does the employment have on students?

1.3. Scope of the study
First and foremost, the research focused on teachers’ application of elicitation techniques in
speaking lessons only in order to foster students’ talk. Therefore, application into other kinds of
lessons and the outcomes of the teaching on other linguistic skills are not taken into consideration.
Also, as stated in the earlier part, the research targeted at freshmen of UET, VNU only,
which excluded those from other academic levels and institutions.
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter means to review background theories related to the issue including definitions
of key concepts and relevant knowledge. Several related studies of the same field are also brought to
discussion.
2.1. Key concepts and relevant knowledge
Elicitation teaching is a typical execution of communicative teaching approach and has been
extensively employed by teachers who are committed to Communicative Language Teaching (CLT).
This fact shows a tight relationship between CLT and elicitation teaching. Therefore, before digging
deeper into the major concept, it is significant to review the theory of the underlying approach.
2.1.1. Communicative Language Teaching
CLT has emerged as by far the most popular teaching approach defaulted in almost every
English language classroom worldwide. Kumaravadivelu (1993: 12) affirmed the influential power
of CLT that “CLT which started in the early 1970s has become the driving force that shapes the
planning, implementation and evaluation of English language teaching programs (ELT) in most parts
of the world”. Richard (2005: 6) also gave a full account of what language teachers mean by
“communicative”:
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) can be understood as a set of principles about the goals
of language teaching, how learners learn the language, the kinds of classroom activities that best
facilitate learning, and the roles of teachers and students in the classroom.
2.1.2. Elicitation
2.1.2.1. Definition of elicitation

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The majority of CLT teachers tend to mention elicitation as their familiar teaching practice
but the explanations of this term vary broadly. This diversity may stem from a fact that elicitation
hardly gets any specific clarifications in academic literature. The nature of it can be roughly
understood via the word “elicit” which means “draw facts, responses, answers, etc. from somebody,
sometimes with difficulty” (Oxford Advanced Dictionary, 2008).
2.1.2.2. Types of elicitation
Teachers are given five main kinds of tools to elicit students’ talk and thereby making their
classrooms genuinely communicative as follows. An earlier research of the same field (Chu, 2009)
made a detailed account of eliciting tools used in CLT classes.
2.1.2.2.1. Making questions
2.1.2.2.2. Using pictures
2.1.2.2.3. Using games or activities
2.1.2.2.4. Using texts and dialogues
2.1.2.2.5. Using non-verbal language
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
3.1.2. Participants
Since this study investigated the use of elicitation in real classroom settings, both teachers
and students were involved as subjects of the research.
Although the research focuses on teachers’ application of elicitation teaching, students play
an equivalent role as direct beneficiaries, observers and evaluators of the process. They were
primarily selected for the questionnaire to obtain answers to Research Question 3. The total number
was approximately 80, which constituted nearly one fifth of the entire population.
The selection of students taking part in the survey primarily complied with the principle of
random sampling. This sampling method is useful if the researcher wishes to be able to make
generalization, because it seeks representativeness of the wider population (Cohen, Manion and
Morrison, 2000: 100). Every student has chance to be selected. The selection of one may not
eliminate the likelihood of the others. Therefore, this sampling method could ensure high diversity
and, thus, validity for the study. On applying the mentioned theory, the researcher did hand-pick
four out of given 15 classes. In these four chosen classes, the researcher selected 20 students from

each to approach.
However, to intensify the representativeness of the study, another method namely stratified
sampling was also employed to choose these 20 students properly. The researcher divided the
whole population of each class into sub-groups, each of which “contains subjects with similar

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characteristics” (Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2000: 101). Their A1 scores are the only criterion
for different categories which serve the later selection.
Teachers:
Because teachers are the target of this research, they underwent a careful selection
procedure for both the questionnaire and interview session. 10 out of 14 teachers of the Department
were invited to share their opinion and experience on the investigated issue within the
questionnaire. It needs to note that eight out of this 10 were intentionally taken from four earlierselected classes, which might be useful for the comparison between their own responses and their
students’ evaluation. From those 10 teachers, six of them were invited to the interview session.
3.2. Research Instruments
As a survey research, it fully employed all three fundamental tools namely questionnaire,
semi-structured interview and classroom observation. The combination of these three instruments
was believed to generate valid and reliable data.
3.2.1. Teacher and Student Questionnaire
The first data collection method, the questionnaires, was delivered to both teachers and
students. This tool was popularly used in almost every primary research. According to Wilson and
Mc Lean (1994), questionnaire was highly regarded for its outstanding merits including providing
structured, numerical data, being able to be administered without the presence of the researcher,
and often straightforward to be analyzed (cited by Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2000: 245). Also,
from reality, the researcher found it time- and effort- saving to conduct questionnaire survey among
a relatively large number of UET freshmen and teachers.
3.2.2. Teacher interview
Effective as the questionnaire can be, this is not always the case. In fact, there are several

disadvantages in using questionnaire as a data collection instrument, one of which is the limited
depth of the answers obtained. The interview then appears as a no-less-important tool as it served
the purpose of obtaining in-depth information far beyond the results initially collected from
questionnaires. According to Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2000: 268), interview is a common
research tool used to collect data, as in surveys or experimental situations. In the current research,
semi-structured interview was employed to probe for details.
Six semi-structured interviews were face-to-face interaction between the researcher and
selected teachers. Like questionnaires, every interview was started with a session of sharing
personal information. To avoid possible misunderstanding and confusion, the interviews were done
in Vietnamese. Under the interviewees’ permission, the responses were noted and tape-recorded so

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as not to miss any important details. At times, unclear points were further explained, which partly
enriched the quantity and quality of collected data.
3.2.3. Classroom observation
In the light of a primary research, classroom observation was regarded as a must for a
maximum degree of objectivity. Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2000: 305) claimed that
observational data are attractive as they afford the researcher the opportunity to gather „live‟ data
from „live‟ situations. On doing lesson observation, the researcher could verify the results collected
earlier from questionnaires and interviews and particularly examined the teacher’s actual
employment of elicitation (Research Question 2).
Before the date of observation, a checklist was drafted to orientate the observation. Due to
several external obstacles, the researcher was admitted into only two lessons: One was File 1D in
Group 2 and the other was File 3 Practical English in Group 10. The lessons were also filmed so
that the analysis work became more favorable and accurate.
In conclusion, the combination of the three most common tools namely questionnaire,
interview and classroom observation brought to the researcher a rich amount of valid and reliable
data, the analysis of which would be presented in the next chapter.

3.3.2. Implementation
This stage consisted of three steps related to activities carried out both outside and inside
classrooms.
Step 1: Teacher questionnaires and students were issued to get initial responses.
Step 2: Classroom observation was conducted in two lessons, the choice of which could not
be determined by the researcher herself but on permission.
Step 3: Teacher interview was done right after the observed classes were finished. It was
the suitable time for the interviewer to clarify any points that she found ambiguous or worth asking
about the observed lessons as well as about the questionnaires.
3.4. Data analysis procedure
Based on questionnaire results, the researcher began to classify, synthesize and report data.
To make the analysis comprehensible, answers to every question in the form of words were
transferred into charts first, followed by a detailed explanation. Semi-structured interviews were
transcribed, analyzed and integrated into the presentation of questionnaire results so that readers
could have a deeper understanding of the situations.
Regarding classroom observation, the researcher made a thorough analysis on the
observation details videoed from the two lessons. The results then were double-checked with those
of questionnaires and interviews.

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To sum up, the research did involve a considerable number of 80 freshmen and 10 teachers
of English from UET, VNU in questionnaire survey, interview and classroom observation. The
results, after that, were synthesized, analyzed as well as reported in the most reader-friendly way
and would be clearly presented in the next chapter.
CHAPTER 4: RESULTS
This chapter is where the answers to the three research questions can be found. Apart from a
thorough analysis of the data collected from the collection instruments, it also presents significant
pedagogical implications for relevant parties of the research.

4.1. Data analysis and discussion
Research question 1: What is teachers’ concept of elicitation in teaching English
speaking skill to first-year students of UET, VNU?


Teachers’ concept of elicitation in teaching speaking
The questionnaire survey was initiated by the question of “how often do you teach speaking

skill by getting students to provide information rather than giving it to them?”which is supposed to
yield dual answers. Firstly, it checks whether teachers are aware of elicitation that they ever use in
teaching speaking, and secondly, if yes, the frequency of teachers’ actual using elicitation in
teaching speaking. Rather than directly revealing the name of this way of teaching, the research
gave the equivalent definition to prevent biased answers.
Two important conclusions can be made from the first question. Firstly, teachers are well aware of
the technique that they use in teaching speaking, i.e. elicitation, to their first-year students. The data
can also reveal that they put this teaching way into use with high frequency.


Teachers’ concept of benefits of elicitation in teaching speaking skill
Such an evaluation and observation reached an agreement that elicitation was considered a

highly effective tool in teaching speaking skill to UET freshmen.


Teachers’ concept of the shortcomings of elicitation teaching
Although elicitation was asserted to bring a number of benefits to both teachers and students

surveyed, the employment of that method had significant disadvantages. Generally, all the
shortcomings in discussion were of medium degree since neither “never” nor “usually”
constituted a high percentage out of the entire respondents. No teachers added any other

shortcomings to the list provided by the researcher.
In general, the findings so far have answered the first research question about teachers’
concepts of elicitation teaching. That is, teachers have an adequate understanding of elicitation as a
teaching method for bettering students’ speaking competence; elicitation has a number of

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constructive influences on them, especially increasing students’ talking time and that teachers all
clearly realize shortcomings of elicitation teaching.
Research question 2: How do they employ elicitation in teaching English speaking skill
to first-year students of UET, VNU?


Frequency of using specific elicitation techniques
As can be found previously, the first research question partly examined the frequency of

teachers’ employing elicitation in English classes. The survey afterwards investigated
simultaneously what elicitation techniques and how often they were used.
It is clear from the below chart that questioning was most frequently employed by teachers,
followed by the use of pictures and games & activities. The use of body language and texts &
dialogues were rarely used in the classrooms. No teachers added any other techniques to the list
provided by the researcher.
It can be concluded from the three sources of data that questioning was most frequently
used in EFL classrooms. Pictures and games & activities were also enthusiastically employed, but
on a less regular basis. Texts & dialogues were seen to be least frequently exploited.
When comparing the present research with a related study namely Tran (2007), the results
showed some similarities and contradictions. Tran (2007) revealed the highest percentage going to
questioning at 50% which is 60% in the current research. However, when it comes to the least
frequently used technique, it was “body language” in Tran (2007) and “texts & dialogues” in the

current study with 1% and 0% of frequency respectively. Pham (2006) findings hardly showed any
contradiction with the present one.
Moreover, the converging point of the three studies was well-supported by the literature on
the same field. According to Doff (1988), “the focus of eliciting techniques is what questions to ask
to elicit the expected target language”.
In short, questioning is widely agreed to be the leading technique which determines the
effectiveness of elicitation and no techniques were unused in English classrooms.


Teachers’ elicitation manners in teaching speaking skill
Besides the frequency of teaching by elicitation, the researcher saw a need to observe how

teachers employed these techniques before giving necessary implications.
All in all, teachers exercised all the available rules for elicitation teaching with a
considerable frequency. However, rules for proper questioning and combination of techniques are
the most often complied with by the teachers of UET.
Research question 3: What effects does the employment have on students?

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If part of the first research question of “what is teachers‟ concept of elicitation in teaching
English speaking skill to first-year students of UET, VNU?” investigated the effects of elicitation
teaching as perceived by teachers, the third question would seek for students’ own evaluation.
Afterwards, some comparison would be made between the two groups of figures.
As can be seen from the pie chart, 55% of the students said that they were “a bit nervous”
when evoked to speak, followed by a percentage of 27, 5% who feel “nervous” to speak. Just 5% of
the respondents said that they were “very confident” to speak.
During the lesson observed, the students were quite shy or unwilling to give answers to
many questions delivered by their teachers. However, when put into groups for doing group work,

they got more enthusiastic. As the observer could see, they preferred to give answers in chorus, not
individually.
From the two sources of data, elicitation gained limited achievements in making students
more confident to speak.
With regard to the activation of students’ background knowledge, the surveyed students did
not highly evaluate the help of elicitation when more than half of them chose “so-so” and the
percentage descended to “much” and “very much”. The fact that none of them chose “not at all”
means that little or much, students’ background knowledge was activated when they were elicited
by the teachers.
Although elicitation was said to bear little effects on students’ speaking manner and
activation of their own background knowledge, it could significantly help increase their talk time.
The majority of the respondents headed for “much” and “very much” with 62.5% and 23.75%
respectively. No students thought that elicitation did no help to their talk time.
For this question, students were mostly seen not to feel very embarrassed to listen to their
peers’ talk as 43.75% of them chose “so-so” and 33.75% felt willing to listen to their peers.
Meanwhile, there were a relatively small number of students ticking “much” or “very much”.
The lesson observation demonstrated the similar results with the questionnaire survey.
During the lesson, the students paid quite much attention to their peers’ speaking and sometimes
corrected the wrong information for them or proceeded their peers’ talk. However, when some
individuals took long to finish their answers, many of the peers felt bored with listening and lost
concentration. On the whole, students did not hesitate much to listen to their peers’ speaking.
Elicitation was regarded by students as quite a helpful method in making them memorize
the lessons better. The category “very much”

dominated the ranking with three quarters of

respondents while “not at all” was equal to “so-so” at just 5%.

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In short, the five questions can reveal students’ evaluation of the effects of elicitation that is
used by their teachers in speaking lessons. Elicitation techniques were tremendously believed to be
the most effective in increasing students’ speaking time and helping students remember the lesson
better. Also, students did not hesitate much to listen to their peers’ responses to teachers’
elicitation. On the other hand, their confidence and background knowledge were not dramatically
enhanced as assessed by students.
There are some similarities and dissimilarities between these evaluations and teachers’ own
concepts of the effects of elicitation teaching. Like what most student-respondents claimed, a
highest percentage of the surveyed teachers emphasized the effectiveness of elicitation in
increasing students’ talking time. However, while students thought that their teachers’ elicitation
did not help much in activating their background knowledge, the teachers themselves tended to
place an emphasis on this aspect. Another benefit highly appreciated by students was the possibility
of making themselves memorize the lesson better.
4.2. Implications
The above findings contribute to the construction of significant pedagogical implications
which are bound to better the employment of elicitation method in EFL.
Darn (2009) agreed with the results of this research on the fact that eliciting is a basic
technique and should be used regularly, not only at the beginning of a lesson but whenever it is
necessary and appropriate. However, since elicitation consists of five different types, a suitable
combination and alternation of them is strongly believed to bear positive effects on keeping
students motivated and accomplish the objectives of each lesson. In doing so, teachers need to be
well aware of the nature, benefits and drawbacks of elicitation teaching. The research proved that
elicitation is the most effective in increasing students’ talk but does not necessarily mean a decrease
in teachers’ talk. Therefore, teachers need to consider suitable time for elicitation as well as for
presentation during the lesson to balance the meaningful talk between them and their students. This
solution partly helps solve the problem of time consumption which was reported to be the biggest
challenge of elicitation teaching.
When it comes to elicitation manners, as questioning is the leading technique (Doff, 1988),
teachers are supposed to exploit it to the fullest in a proper way. As can be inferred from the

research, although questions requiring specific knowledge can be commonly considered useful in
activating students’ background knowledge, an overuse of them may be met in silence and, hence,
can hardly stimulate students talk. In addition, teachers should pay attention to questioning
manners. For instance, it is not advisable to “wait until students volunteer to response” because it
may be a waste of time and students are not all confident to response; and prolonged silence or

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incorrect answers suggest that input is required from the teacher (Darn, 2009). Regarding how to
react to students’ responses, teachers should consider whether it is appropriate to correct them right
away or just acknowledge with gestures and short comments. Apart from teachers’ elicitation,
learners themselves can elicit from each other, particularly during brainstorming activities since
this helps to build confidence and group cohesion as well as shifting the focus away from the
teacher. Teachers also need to pay more attention to the directing questions to a variety of students
and take a better care of low-level students.
The study also revealed a low frequency of pictures, texts, dialogues, games, activities and
especially body language as eliciting techniques. Teachers need to consider several tips to increase
the capacity of elicitation by these techniques. Firstly, since the use of the mentioned techniques is
quite time-consuming, teachers should make lesson plan carefully. During this process, teachers
can anticipate problems possibly arising from eliciting as well as make necessary task adaptations.
Also, being flexible in using eliciting techniques can help teachers use the time budget more
effectively. Secondly, for shy and inactive students, teachers need to expose them more to pair
work or group work. Also, to help them overcome these psychological barriers, teachers can
motivate students by introducing new topics together with diversifying games and activities.
Localization and personalization are two helpful practices teachers should take into account. For
the overall success of the lesson, beside teachers’ effort, students should also be well aware of their
responsibilities, i.e try to be supportive to teachers’ elicitation by becoming more confident and
active to raise voice in class.
In a nutshell, the chapter has presented a number of important findings about teachers’

concept of elicitation teaching, actual implementation of it and students’ evaluation of the effects of
that teaching practice. The results afterwards helped to work out necessary implications that
teachers could take into account to improve the employment of elicitation teaching.
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION
In this chapter, the researcher is going to summarize the findings of the whole study,
highlight the contributions of the research, address limitations and put forward recommendations to
the future research of the field.
5.1. Summary of the findings
The research was carried out with an attempt to seek for answers to three research questions
about teachers’ concept of elicitation teaching, their actual implementation and students’ evaluation
of the effects of teachers’ elicitation among first year students at UET. The investigation into three
main aspects of the issue was implemented by triangulating three data collection instruments
namely questionnaire, interview and classroom observation. Undergoing a procedure of stratified

11


random sampling, 80 students and ten teachers from UET were selected to participate in the survey.
The results can be noted as follows.
Regarding the first objective, the researcher discovered that teachers at UET embraced an
adequate understanding of elicitation teaching and used it at quite a regular basis. Among all the
possible benefits of elicitation acknowledged by teachers, “increasing students’ talk time” was
considered the most remarkable one, followed by “measuring students’ level” and “checking
students’ understanding of the focus issues”. UET teachers also realized all the possible
shortcomings of elicitation teaching, the most noteworthy of which was “time consumption”.
The combination of questionnaire survey, interview and real classroom observation helped
discover a fact that all the elicitation techniques including questioning, using pictures, using texts &
dialogues, using games & activities and using non-verbal language were used in EFL classrooms
and the most frequently employed technique was questioning. More importantly, teachers tended to
commonly combine different techniques to elicit students’ talk, alternate types of questions and

direct questions to a variety of students. Another worth-mentioning elicitation manner is that
teachers least often ask questions requiring specific knowledge.
The survey over students’ attitudes towards their teachers’ elicitation showed that they saw
the highest effectiveness of elicitation in increasing their own speaking time and then helping them
memorize lessons better. However, it was considered hardly helpful in making them more
confident or activating their background knowledge.
5.2. Contributions of the research
The study attempted to take a close look at how teachers conceive about elicitation teaching,
how they employ it in real-life English classrooms and how effective it is as assessed by students.
The results of the research could best reflect the situation, from which meaningful implications are
put forward for practice. Teachers and students of not only UET but also of other institutes could
base on those findings to make necessary alterations in their own teaching and learning strategies.
Educational administrators can also consider drawing up new plans to improve the teaching
environment so that elicitation techniques can work properly.
In addition, since the study followed a direction which was quite different from the previous
ones on the same field, the results of it could add another aspect namely “teachers’ employment of
elicitation techniques to enhance first-year students’ talk at UET ” to the existing knowledge.
On the whole, the study has significant contributions for both pedagogical and research
practices.
5.3. Limitations of the research

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Despite considerable investment in terms of time and effort and a thorough consideration of
the research scheme, the present research could not avoid shortcomings which should be admitted
as follows.
Firstly, due to time constraint and difficulty in approaching participants, the researcher had to
restrict the number of classes for observation to two. However, to compensate these weaknesses,
the researcher did make a thorough research design in order to obtain valid and reliable data.

The participants also posed several limitations to the study. It was common knowledge that
first-year non-major students, in majority, were not insightful enough to perceive the issue.
Moreover, some teachers during the interviews were in hurry, which affected the in-depth of their
answers. That was why the observations and assessments of the two parties were deliberately
compared for precise and objective results.
The limited scope and participant-related problems, little or much, may pose harm to the
outcome of the study and should be taken into account in future research of the same field.
5.4. Suggestions for future research
The research delved into the situation of teachers’ employment of elicitation teaching to firstyear students at UET and generated several significant results. However, the investigation should
not be limited to those findings. On the contrary, researchers may have other various approaches to
the issue as follows.
As stated in the previous part, the present study restricted the survey scope to first-year
students of only one university in Hanoi. Therefore, if time, finance and energy do allow,
researchers can expand the scope for more valid and reliable data. Students of other academic
levels are potential subjects of the research of the same field. Also, a comparison between the
employment of elicitation to English-major students and to English-non-major ones can be another
direction for later research.
In addition, the employment of elicitation techniques to increase student-talk can be
examined in a particular stage namely presentation, practice or production rather than an entire
lesson; or in a particularly skill-focused lesson apart from speaking.
Those are two main directions which future researchers can follow to gain further insight into
the field.
In a nutshell, a summary of the findings, contributions, limitations and research suggestions
have been discussed in this chapter. Regarding the entire work, involved parties can find it a
reliable referential source to make some necessary changes as well as to implement further
exploitation into the same field.

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