The Use of Consciousness-Raising Techniques in Teaching the Verb ‘be’ to Students of Vocational Colleges

This study evaluates the applicability of three consciousness-raising (CR) tasks involving three techniques of CR (identifying, classifying, and hypothesis-building/checking) in teaching the verb ‘be’ to students at a particular vocational college. The study was conducted with three discrete classes of 27 students from two different courses: construction technology (Group 1), electric technology (Group 2) and cosmetology (Group 3). Each group performed a series of CR tasks with different techniques: CR identification tasks, CR classifying tasks and CR hypothesis-building/checking tasks. Pre-tests and post-tests were carried out, with interviews and questionnaires also administered. The findings indicate that all three techniques of CR helped learners to perform better on the post-tests. The students credited the CR tasks with improving their knowledge of the verb ‘be’. The hypothesis-building technique is suggested to be more effective than the two other techniques due to the higher task demand and more complex skill level.