Teacher questioning strategies and Classroom interaction in Ly Thai To school

Teacher questioning strategies and Classroom interaction in Ly Thai To school

Part one: Introduction1 Rationale

Language teaching is a complex process involving many interrelated factors Manystudies have been done to find out suitable and effective methods of teaching language.However, many researchers have showned that teaching methods don’t play a decisive role inlanguage classroom Interest in EFL has shifted away from the consideration of teachingmethods in isolation towards a focus on classroom interaction as the most vital element insecond language learning process Classroom interaction is important because interaction isthe essential criteria of classroom pedagogy Interaction is the process whereby lessons are“accomplished”

In classroom interaction analysis, teacher talk was pointed to be particular important tolanguage teaching According to pedagogical theory, the language that teachers use inclassrooms determines to a large degree whether a class will succeed or not Teacher talk isestimated to make up around 70% of classroom language Teachers pass on knowledge andskills, organize teaching activities and help pupils practice through teacher talk Teacher talkinvolves many aspects, in which teacher questions have drawn much attention

It is now generally agreed that questioning is an important methods of teaching.Aschner (1961), for example, calls the teacher “a professional question maker” and suggeststhat question asking is “one of the basic ways by which the teacher stimulates student thinkingand learning” (quoted in Gall 1970: 707) Given the importance to education, it is notsurprising that questions “have been the focus of research attention in both content classroomsand language classrooms for many years” (Nunan, 1990:187) In content classroom, cognitivelevels of questions have been studies in relation to student achievement (Winne, 1979;Redfield & Rousseau, 1981) In the language classroom, questions have tended to beexamined as a means of eliciting more or less linguistic output and involving students ininteraction

While these studies have shed much light on the relationships between teacherquestions and student performance, they have not exhausted the subject In Vietnam, mostpeople learn English in classrooms Classroom language is the chief source of foreignlanguage learning It functions not only as the main source of language learning but also a toolby which a foreign language is taught However, as far as I know, there are not manyresearches carried out in this area in Vietnamese EFL classrooms Since a better understanding

of the use of teacher questions and classroom interaction in EFL classrooms can undoubtedlyhelp teachers and students improve their teaching and learning

As an EFL teacher, this study is an excellent opportunity to help me bridge theory andpractice which otherwise remains nebulous Observing and describing classroom events makeit possible for me to critically examine improvement needed in my teaching Ultimately, I canpursue more suitable ways of teaching for the enhancement of student learning

2 Aims of the study.

The study aims at:

*Investigating the relationships among these four variables in the ESL classroom in LyThai To school: (1) question types, (2) questioning strategies, (3) student attitudes, and (4)patterns of interaction

*Giving suggestions and recommendations to teachers at Ly Thai To school.

4 Scope of the study.

To limit the scope of the study, I will investigate interactions in four class in Englishperiods by focusing on types of teacher questions and students’ attitudes toward thesequestions The study considers only conversational interactions as the goal is to assess thedirect effects of interactions on oral competence improvement

5 Methodology.

The method applied in this study are both quantitative and qualitative The data whichthis study draws on come from audiotape, note taking and observation of four Englishlanguage lessons by four teachers who are teaching at Ly Thai To school

Subjects of my study are four classes in Ly Thai To School in Bac Ninh Province Number of pupils level Time of learning English

Table 1: Description of classes observed

English is a compulsory subject and they have three English periods per week LyThai To is not a gifted school, however the quality of teaching and learning is quite high incomparison with other schools in this area.

Part two: DevelopmentChapter 1: Literature review1 1 What is classroom interaction?

Brown (1994) defines interaction as “the collaborative exchange of the thoughts,feelings, or ideas between two or more people resulting in a reciprocal effect on each other”(p:159) In fact, at the heart of CLT, interaction is considered an important factor for CC

achievement Having the same idea, Rivers, who sees interaction as the key to teachinglanguage for communication, wrote:

“Part of the teacher art is to create, or stimulate student creation of,the types of situation in which interaction naturally blossoms and in whichstudents can use for actual communication what they have been learning ina more formal fashion In this way, they are already engaging in the centralactivity for which languages is used in human relations.” (1987:4).

1.2 The role of classroom interaction in L2 acquisition

Language classroom can be seen as sociolinguistics environments (Cazden, 1988) anddiscourse communities (Hall and Verplaetse, 2000) in which interaction is believed tocontribute to learners’ language development The authors state that the role of interaction isvery important

In addition, language learning is especially important It is in theirinteraction with each other that teachers and students work together tocreate the Intellecture and practical activities that shape both the form andthe content of the target language as well as the processes and outcomes of

individual development (Hall and Verplaetse, p.10)

According to Allwright’s (1984, p.158) claims on the importance of classroominteraction in language learning in FL lesson, it is “inherent in the very notion of classroompedagogy itself”.

The language environment needs to turn a language classroom into an acquisition-richsetting But how might a teacher turn a classroom into an acquisition-rich setting? One of theways teachers can do to make the classroom a rich input environment is establishing a non-threatening environment in the classroom, which encourages meaningful learning and creativeuse of English Teacher can achieve this by establishing informal and warm-hearted

interaction between teacher and learners, as well as among learners themselves This friendlyinteraction has been approved to be the most essential factor in successful language learning innumerous studies on classroom interaction Wilga Rivers (1987) emphasized the importanceof interaction as follows.

“Through interaction, students can increase their language store as they listen to orread authentic linguistic material, or even the output of their fellow students in discussions,skits, joint problem-solving tasks, or dialogue-all they have learned or casually absorbed – inreal life exchanges …Even at an elementary stage, they learn in this way to exploit theelasticity of language.”

Thus in order to improve students learning outcomes, it is necessary to engage studentsin meaningful interactions with teachers and other students When learners are givenopportunities to take part in conversational interaction, they have to “negotiate for meaning”.This term refers to those modifications, which speakers make during the interaction in order tobe understood or to understand each other This process of negotiation is thought to lead to L2development specifically communicative abilities.

1.3 Teacher talk

For foreign language learners, classroom is the main place where they are frequentlyexposed to the target language The kind of language used by the teacher for instruction in theclassroom is known as teacher talk (TT) For this term, Longman Dictionary of LanguageTeaching and Applied Linguistics defines it as “that variety of language sometimes used byteachers when they are in the process of teaching In trying to communicate with learners,teachers often simplify their speech, giving it many of the characteristics of foreigner talk andother simplified styles of speech addressed to language learners” (Richards, 1992:471)

Having studies the SLA for many years, Rod Ellis (1985) has formulated his own viewabout teacher talk: “ Teacher talk is the special language that teacher uses when addressing L2

learners in the classroom There is systematic simplification of the formal properties of theteacher’s language … studies of teacher talk can be divided into those that investigate in thetype of language they use in subject lessons.” He also commented “ the language that teachersaddress to L2 learner is treated as a register, with its own specific formal and linguisticproperties” (Ellis, 1985: 145)

From the definitions above, we can see that teacher talk in English classroom has itown special style because of restriction of physical setting, special participants as well as thegoal of teaching Moreover, teacher talk is a special communicative activity Its goal is tocommunicate with students and develops students’ foreign language proficiency Teacher talkis used in class when teachers are conducting instructions, cultivating their intellectual abilityand managing classroom activities (Feng Qican, 1999:23) Teachers adopt the target languageto promote their communication with learners In this way, learners practice the language byresponding to what their teacher says Besides, teachers use the language to encourage thecommunication between learners and themselves Therefore we can say teacher talk is a kindof communication – based or interaction – based talk

Teacher talk has attracted attention because of its potential effect on learns’comprehension, which has been hypothesized to be important for L2 acquisition There is nolearning without teaching So as a tool in implementing teaching plans and achieving teachinggoals, teacher talk plays a vital role in language learning Nunan (1991) points out that:

“Teacher talk is of crucial importance, not only for the organization and management of theclassroom because it is through language that teachers succeed or fail in implementing theirteaching plans In terms of acquisition, teacher talk is important because it is probably themajor source of comprehensible target language input the learner is likely to receive.” The

amount and type of teacher talk is even regarded as a decisive factor of success or failure inclassroom teaching

1.4 Teachers’ questions

Questioning is one of the most common techniques used by teachers (Jack C.Richard& Charles Lockhart, 2000) and serves as the principal way in which teachers control theclassroom interaction The tendency for teachers to ask many questions has been observed inmany investigations (Chaudron, 1988) In some classroom over half of class time is taken upby question-and-answer exchanges Teachers’ questions have attracted considerable attentionfrom researchers of language classroom

1.4.1 Definition of question

The Longman Dictionary of English language provides the following definition for aquestion: a command or interrogative expression used to elicit information or a response, or totest knowledge Lynch (1991), however, criticizes the last aspect of it, i.e to test knowledge.In non–education settings, people seldom ask questions to which they already have an answer.Although, there are a number of exceptions such as jokes (e.g what’s the difference between –and - ?), quizzes (e.g Which country will host the next Olympics?) and courtroom discourse(e.g And what did the defendant say to you then?) Lynch characterizes a question as anutterance with a particular illocutionary forces; and Quirk et al (1970 and 1985) define a

question as a semantic class used to seek information on a specific subject (Lynch, 1991)

In classroom settings, teacher questions are defined as instructional cues or stimuli thatconvey to students the content elements to be learned and directions for what they are to doand how they are to do it

What are the purposes of teachers' classroom questions? A variety of purposes emergefrom analysis of the literature, including:

 To develop interest and motivate students to become actively involved in lessons

 To evaluate students' preparation and check on homework or seatwork completion

 To develop critical thinking skills and inquiring attitudes

 To review and summarize previous lessons

 To nurture insights by exposing new relationships

 To assess achievement of instructional goals and objectives

 To stimulate students to pursue knowledge on their own

1.4.2 Function of teachers’ questions

From the development of the Socratic method, to the 1860 edition of Barnard’sAmerican Journal of Instruction that states, “to question well is to teach well”, educators havelong known that questioning is a useful way to aid the transfer of knowledge from instructor topupil (Ross, 1860) Multiple –based studies have focused on the use of questioning as asuccessful and universal pedagogical approach

Questioning plays a critical role in the way instructors structure the class environment,organize the content of the course and has deep implications in the way that studentsassimilate the information that is presented and discussed in class Question- answering ispredominant and pervasive in classrooms of most subjects, since it is the easiest way toestablish oral interaction between teacher and student By asking students questions, teachersare able to elicit utterances from students and guarantee student talking time, because aquestion “compels, requires, may even demand, a response”(Goody 1978:23) This verbalexchange is expected to play an important role in classroom language acquisition of studentsin terms of input, interaction, and output

Questions are also important, in that they represent a major source of a student'slinguistic input White and Lightbown (1984) recorded a teacher asking 427 questions in asingle 50-minute class Presumably this is not typical of questioning patterns in all classrooms,but, undoubtedly, questions represent a key aspect of teacher talk With input being widely

accepted as an essential prerequisite for language learning, it is no exaggeration to concludethat the nature of teacher's questions, per se, has a direct impact on second languageacquisition

Research indicates that in most classrooms someone is talking most of the time.Generally it is the teacher who talks and the students who listen One way to switch fromteacher –centered instruction to student- centered instruction is through the use of questions.Thus skill in questioning becomes a vital component of effective teaching (Brown &Wragg,1993; Wilen, 1991)

Questioning is basic to good communications However, proper questioning is a sophisticatedart, one at which few people are proficient despite having asked thousands of questions in theirlifetimes Questions lie at the heart of good, interactive teaching Questions must be at theappropriate level, be of appropriate type, and above all, be worded properly We will nowlook at the different level at which questions can be asked

1.4.3 Levels of questions.

Questions may be categorized as narrow or broad Narrow questions usually requireonly factual recall or specific, correct answer Broad questions, however, can seldom beanswered with a single word and often do not have one correct answer Broad questionsusually require that students go beyond simple memory and use the thinking process toformulate answer Although both kinds of questions are useful in the learning process,teachers traditionally rely too heavily on narrow questions

Effective teachers adapt the level of questions to their teaching objectives(Dillion,1983, 1990) If learning specific information is the objective, then narrow questionsare appropriate If thinking processes are the objective, then broader questions are needed.Since thinking can take place at several levels of sophistication, it is important that teachers beable to classify and ask questions at these levels

There are many classification systems for describing the different levels of questions.Most of them are useful only to the extend that they provide a framework for formulatingquestions at the desired level within a classroom environment The first system I would like tofocus here is the system of classifying questions as convergent or divergent.

Convergent questions are those that allow for only one right response, whereasdivergent questions allow for many right responses Questions about create facts are

convergent, while questions dealing with opinions, hypothesis, and evaluations are divergent Questions about concrete facts (who, what, when, and where questions) that have beenlearned and committed to memory are convergent For example:

Who is the President of the United States?What is 5 +3?

Where is the White House located?

Convergent questions may also require students to recall and integrate or analyzeinformation to provide one expected correct answer Most alternative-response questions, suchas those that can be answered yes or no or true or false, are also classified as convergent, sincestudents’ response is limited Examples are:

What would be a good name for this story?

Can you give me an example of the use of this word in a sentence?Why is it important to protect our environment?

Whom do you consider the greatest scientist that ever lived?

Divergent questions should be used frequently because they encourage broaderresponses and are, therefore, more likely to involve students in the learning process Theyrequire that students think However, convergent questions are equally important in that theydeal with the background information needed to answer divergent questions In the classroomit is generally desirable to start with convergent questions and move toward divergentquestions.

In summary, convergent questions limit student responses to only one correct answer,whereas divergent questions allow for many possible correct responses

Another system of classifying questions is based on Mental Operation Systems The

table below offers a review of the Mental Operation System for classifying questions Levels of Classroom Questions.

Student thinks creatively andimaginatively and producessomething unique

Student makes judgment orexpresses values.

ExamplesDefine …Who was …?

What did the text say …?

Which painting is best?Why do you favor this …?

Who is the best …?

Table 2 Mental Operation System for Classifying Questions

The Mental Operation System of classifying questions will give you the neededframework for improving your questioning skill You should be asking questions at all levelsof the system instead of at only the factual level, as many teachers tend to do It is especiallyimportant that you ask more productive and evaluate questions than is common practice.These questions give students the opportunity to think.

1.4.4 Types of teacher’s questions

As said above, effective teachers adapt the level of questions to their teachingobjectives Besides that, they must also ask the right type of questions For example, you maywant to ask questions to determine the level of your students’ learning, to increase theirinvolvement and interaction, to clarify understanding, or to stimulate their awareness Thesepurposes all call for different types of questions Teachers ask a great number of questions intheir lessons and each question can be seen as setting up a mini-learning task For this reason,the type of questions we ask impact heavily on the learning process

Like the classification of level of questions, there are many way to identify the types ofquestions With the growth in concern for communication in language classrooms, a furtherdistinction has been made between “display” and “referential” questions by Long and Sato(1983).

In Long and Sato’s terms, display questions refer to those that teachers already knowthe answers, while referential questions are ones to which the teachers asks for information heor she does not know

Display questions

Suppose you ask your students something you already know The answer coming fromthe students will not satisfy the basic criterion of providing information For instance, if youhold up your pen and ask learners “What is this?” the answer will not solve a problem, whichis required for learning to take place

Of even less are those questions to which the answers are provided beforehand Someteachers give their students the information and then try to ask them questions For example,“This is a pen What is this?” Such questions, at best, test something of the students’ memory,not their comprehension In addition, such questions are not harmony with conversationalmaxims

Examples of typical display questions include:

What is the past tense of the verb to come?What does the text tell us about the man?Can you use since with past simple?Is true the answer to question 3?

As these examples show, display questions can be closed (the answer is yes or no) oropen Their purpose is exclusively pedagogical, they are intended to check learning, and, forthis reason, they are rarely found in discourse outside the classroom In answering suchquestions, the student has limited scope Specific information is expected in the reply, and inlinguistic terms, many display questions are answered with a word or phrase, especially thoseof the closed variety Display questions normally require the respondent to produce the rightanswer, and as Tsui (1996) points out, this itself may generate more anxiety and lessparticipation.

Referential questions

However, real language does not consist solely of questions from one party andanswers from another Real language circles around referents or world knowledge in order tocreate messages and therefore is not form based but meaning based Thus, questions in thelanguage classrooms should be referential or meaning based, and not focuses only on form.The following examples are meaning – based questions:

1 Suppose you win $50,000 What are you going to do with it?2 How do you usually spend your weekends?

Teachers may give students contexts Teacher (holding up a pen): “This is my pen.Where is yours?” (Pointing to a student)

In this situation, students may either hold up his pen and answer “Here’s mine!” or“This is my pen”, or at least show that he understands by making an appropriate gesture.These answers will be acceptable in real situations The teacher then has clearly created aninformation gap which has been filled by the learner This is how real communication takesplace

The answer to these questions would be difficult to predict as they refer to personalexperiences, attitudes, opinions and so on However, it should be noted that referentialquestions can also be closed and quite possibly answered with one word Later reference willbe made to whether this does in fact happen.

In answering a referential question, learners may be pushed to use language at thelimits of their competence in order to make their output comprehensible (Swain 1985).Additionally, listeners frequently request clarification and ask questions to checkunderstanding in an effort to make input comprehensible (Long 1983) Both processes areregarded as particularly helpful in promoting language acquisition.

Display vs referential

According to the study carried out by Long and Sato (1983), ESL teachers usedsignificantly more display questions (51% of total of 938 questions) than referential questions(14%) in classrooms In contrast, in informal NS – NNS conversations outside classrooms,76% of total of 1,322 questions were referential questions and only 0,2% were display Thisresult suggests that, contrary to the recommendations of many writers on second languageteaching methodologies, communicative use of the target language makes up only a minor partof typical classroom activities “ Is the clock on the wall?’ and “ Are you a student?” are stillthe staple diet, at least for beginners

Further qualitative distinctions were made by Long and Sato (1983) who suggest thatlearners’ responses will differ not only quantitatively but also qualitatively, depending on thetype of questions Referential questions, which seek information unknown to the speaker, werethought more likely to elicit longer, more authentic responses than display questions, forwhich responses are predetermined by lesson, contend This hypothesized effect of a processvariable was tested both in a simulated classroom interaction (Brock, 1986) and in a naturalclassroom experiment (Long, 1983) The results suggested that referential questions elicitedslightly longer and more students utterances

Van Lier( 1988) believes that classroom questions of whatever sort are designed to getthe learners to produce language Brock (1986) contends that referential questions increase theamount of learner output Learners’ responses were more than twice as long and more thantwice as syntactically complex in response to referential questions, as compared to display.Therefore, an increased use of referential questions by teachers may create discourse whichcan produce a flow of information from students to the teacher, and may create more near-normal speech However, it is believed that display questions require short or even one- wordanswers and hence are less likely to get learners to produce large amounts of speech

Chapter 2: Research methodology

Chapter 2 will present the research methodology including research questions, subjects

of the research and methods for data collection.

2.1 Research questions

Although the studies of teacher questioning behavior are numerous in western culturalsettings, not many studies of teacher questioning have been carried out in Vietnam What arethe features of teacher questioning in our classes? Do they satisfy students’ expectations? Dothey prompt the students’ foreign language learning? Are there any differences betweenVietnamese cultural classroom interaction and other cultural classroom interaction? For suchpurposes and for providing some suggestions for Vietnamese English language teachers, based

on the principals and facets we have discussed in previous chapter, this study is designed toanswer the following questions:

Q1 What’s the frequency of display questions and referential questions used by differentteachers in different classes?

Q2 What questioning strategies do teachers use?Q3 What are the patterns of classroom interaction?

2.2 Subjects

The subjects of this study consisted of four EFL classes taught by non-native speakingteachers in Ly Thai To school, where the researcher is teaching In comparison with otherschools in this area, it is a high standard one although it is not a gifted school However, as theschool is located in a rural area of Bac Ninh Province, the teaching and learning equipmentsare not sufficient It is not equipped with an overhead projector and teachers do not useelectronic teaching plans or lesson plans In English lessons, the main materials used aresimply a blackboard, textbooks and in the recent two years teachers have been using radioduring listening periods However, the sad fact is that students do not see the importance ofEnglish and hence do not appreciate the language Most of the students just focus on learningsubjects for their entrance exam such as mathematics, physics or chemistry They limit theirEnglish learning in order to pass the national exam at the end of their High School

These classes were randomly selected The size of these classes varied from 40 to 45students All of the students are in 10 grades and have at least four years of learning Englishin secondary school In high school they have three English periods per week However,according to their teachers and from the researcher’s observation, they are not good at Englishcommunicative skills , namely speaking and listening In English lessons, they are used tospeaking Vietnamese most of their time Their immediate use of language is not obvious sothey are not highly motivated Their textbook is English 10, a new textbook which is

considered as an innovation in teaching methodology that encourages students to practisecommunicative skills During the observation period, the pupils are in the second semester oftheir 10 grades

All the four teachers are Vietnamese and have obtained their Barchelor degree inEnglish The youngest teacher has three years of teaching English And the oldest one hasbeen teaching English for 20 years All these teachers are female They can represent the mainconstituents of the teaching faculty In the following part, they are represented as T1, T2, T3and T4

Finally, the students are arranged in rows of desks facing the front of the classroom Theobservation revealed that the classroom is physically overcrowded, with limited space for theteachers to freely move around their classes The common pattern in the classroom is that ofan active teacher and passive learners The teaching and learning is characterized by a setsyllabus and textbook required to be completed within a limited time and to serve for thepurpose of preparing for end of term exam

2.3 Methods for data collection

This qualitative – quantitative study is conducted as a classroom research The onlyway to collect useful data was non- participant observation with the focus being on theteacher’s use of questions and its effect on classroom interaction Four classes from Ly ThaiTo school were randomly selected for observation The classes were observed as carefully aspossible for 45 minutes The researcher carried out the observation personally by sitting in theclasses from the beginning to the end of each session, taking notes of teachers’ questions, theirnumber and functions (e.g comprehension check, talk initiation, etc), listening to thediscussions of the students, writing down the freequency of student – student or teacher –student interaction, length of the learner’s responses to different types of questions, and othernoticeable patterns