Asking question

Asking questions is a natural feature of communication, but also

one of the most important tools which teachers have at their
disposal.

Author:
Written by Steve Darn, Freelance Trainer & Funda Çetin, Izmir University of Economics,
Turke

Questioning is crucial to the way teachers manage the class, engage

students with content, encourage participation and increase understanding
Typically, teachers ask between 300-400 questions per day, however the
quality and value of questions varies. While questioning can be an effective
tool, there is both an art and science to asking questions
Every question demands a response (except in the case of requests and
suggestions), so that questions inevitably generate communication. However
the quantity of questions asked needs to be considered in relation to general
time constraints and the need to keep teacher talking time to a minimum
while maximising learner contributions

• Types of question
• Purposes of question
• Effective questionin
• Conclusio

Types of question

There have been a number of typologies and taxonomies of questions.

Socratic questioning, exempli ed by Paul’s taxonomy, forms the basis of
eliciting, while Bloom’s taxonomy identi es six types of questions by which
thinking skills may be developed and tested. In the context of language
teaching and learning, Bloom himself maintained that "The major purpose in
constructing a taxonomy of educational objectives is to facilitate
communication..." Classroom questions tend to fall into two broad categories

Display questions. These are designed to elicit learners’ prior knowledge and
to check comprehension. They often focus on the form or meaning of
language structures and items, and the teacher already knows the answer
• What does ..... mean
• When do we use .....
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 • What comes after .....

• What’s the opposite of .....
• Where’s the stress in .....
Referential questions. These require the learner to provide information, give
an opinion, explain or clarify. They often focus on content rather than
language, require ‘follow-up’ or ‘probe’ questions, and the answer is not
necessarily known by the teacher
• What do you think about .....
• Have you ever....when/where .....
• If you had .....what.....
• What kind of .....
• How do you …..

The best referential questions are those that are ‘divergent’ or ‘open-ended’ in
that they are broad, may have multiple answers, and require a higher level of
thinking from the learners
Open-ended questions are ideal for developing skills such as inferring,
predicting, verifying and summarising, as well as eliciting more language.
‘Convergent’ or ‘closed’ questions have more narrowly de ned correct
answers which can be recalled from memory and require little re ection or
originality. Closed questions are common in conventional tests

Purposes of question
Questions have a variety of purposes often related to the type and stage of a
lesson

• During the lead-in to a lesson, referential questions form the basis of

brainstorming a topic, generating interest and topic-related vocabulary.
Student’s responses may be recorded as a mind-map on the board, or
as the rst phase of a ‘what we know / what we would like to know/
what we know now’ framework, particularly in receptive skills based
lessons where predicting content is a useful pre-reading / listening
activity
• When language is being presented, questions are used to elicit
students’ prior knowledge, and guide them into recognising patterns
and forming hypotheses about how the language is used. ‘Noticing’
questions are used to help learners identify language in context (‘What
language does he use to talk about his plans?’, ‘How does she make a
promise?’
• Meaning and understanding need to be checked before language is
practised. Concept-checking questions (CCQs) should demand short
answers, be simple and asked often (‘Is he talking about the past,
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 present or future?’, has the action nished?’, ‘Is time important?’, ‘ıs the
meaning positive or negative?’ (Checking meaning and understanding
is the subject of another article on this site.
• Question-response is a common form of guided oral practice.
Nomination is often essential in this stage, but the traditional ‘lockstep’
pattern of interaction should be minimised by asking students to ask
and answer questions in open pairs across the class and in closed
pairs. Student involvement nay be increased by asking students to
nominate the person to ask the next question (student nomination)
• Globally designed materials often suggest form-based questions for
language practice which are too general, outside the learners’
experience, or which produce obvious answers. Form-based questions
may also be personalised and divergent in that they require elaboration.
Thus ‘How often do you brush your teeth?’ is unlikely to either stimulate
interest or generate language, whereas ‘How often do you argue with
your parents?’ offers the opportunity for follow-up questions as well as
producing the target structure
• In skills lessons, questions may focus on strategies as well as language
(‘Do you have to read everything to get the information?’, ‘Do you need
to understand every word?’. ‘What do you think will happen next?’
Questions may also focus on process rather than product (‘How did you
guess the meaning of that word?’, ‘Where in the passage did you nd
the information?’, ‘What helped you to understand what the speaker’s
opinion was?’
• Student nomination may also be used for obtaining the answers to
exercises and comprehension tasks, but feedback on the tasks
themselves is equally important and can be dealt with by questions
such as ‘What was dif cult about that question?’. ‘Did you have enough
information?’ and ‘Did you enjoy that activity?
• The success of many uency activities depends on the use of open-
ended referential questions, but the teacher can also increase
motivation by expressing interest through questions. Some of the best
discussions take the form of ‘chats’, often outside the classroom, when
paraphrasing and clari cation can take place more naturally

Questions focusing on form, function, meaning, concept and strategies may

all be termed ’guidance questions’, and differ from comprehension questions
in that learners are not necessarily required to provide correct answers. The
overall aim of these questions is to gradually raise awareness of language
and skills and to help learners develop strategies for learning in a focused
way
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 Throughout the lesson, questions play an important role in classroom

management, including general questions (‘Can you all see the board?’,
‘Have you got your dictionaries ready?’) and questions for checking progress
‘Ready?’, Have you nished?’. Questions designed to check instructions are
vital in order to avoid interrupting a task in order to reinstruct or clarify the
task. These questions should be kept simple (‘Are you working alone or in
pairs?’, ‘Who’s in group B?’, ‘Are you going to write anything?') and spread
around the class

Many teachers nd it dif cult to estimate the amount of time needed for a
student to respond to a question, often due to pressure of time, impatience or
fear of silence. Rushing learners may result in mistakes and frustration.
Suf cient ‘wait-time’ is needed for learners to comprehend the question,
formulate an answer, process language and respond. Wait-time before
nominating and after the initial response encourages longer answers,
questions from the learners, self-correction and level of student involvement

Effective questionin
As with all aspects of teacher talking time, it is not the quantity but the quality
and value of questions that is important. When thinking about their
questioning technique, teachers might use the following as a check-list
• Decide on the purpose of questions
• Minimise the use of "yes / no" questions except when checking
meaning and understanding or encouraging weaker students
• Ask a balance of referential and display questions
• Use open-ended (divergent) questions to encourage opinions,
elaboration and discussion
• Ask questions about important rather than trivial content
• Grade language in questions and try not to over-paraphrase
• Personalise questions where possible
• Avoid questions that contain the answer
• Make sure that students clearly understand questions
• Spread questions randomly around the class
• Balance questions to the whole class with individual student
nomination
• Give enough time for students to answer
• Anticipate students' responses
• Give appropriate responses to questions, particularly where correction
is required. and in order to extend the dialogue
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Conclusio

Clearly there is more to asking questions than the common division into
‘information’ or ‘wh’, ‘yes/no’, direct and indirect questions, though this is
often how they are taught and how learners categorise them. Good
questioning provides a model which hopefully will promote correct and
intelligent questions from learners
There are pitfalls such as over-eliciting when the learners have little collective
knowledge, and bombarding students with questions of little relevance or
importance. The questions ‘Do you understand?’, ‘Is that clear?’ and ‘OK?’
are unlikely to provoke a helpful response. It is also wise to avoid questions
which may cause embarrassment or which may offend through sarcasm (‘Are
you awake?’)
Given that little training is given in asking questions, and it is rarely mentioned
in general ELT texts, teachers are left to develop the technique themselves,
and are often unaware of how effective their questions are. The teacher’s
questions are therefore a useful focus for peer observation and feedback on a
lesson – an awareness-raising exercise for teachers themselves

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