The Effect of the Different Question Types in Classroom Discourse

            The Effect of the Different Question Types in Classroom Discourse

            Questions are essential parts of our communication: they appear in every conversation from classrooms to family dinners at home. However, the types of questions which we use to maintain a colloquial communication, for example, to inquire about what has happened to our friend since we last met or to simply ask someone what the time is, are different from those used in classroom discourse. There are several types of questions and they all have different influence on students in the classroom which can be either beneficial or negative.

            The examination of these question types and their use in classroom discourse is the main source of revealing which questions are the most useful and effective for teaching purposes. Therefore my aim is to provide a brief description of each question types and then highlight their positive or negative effect on the performance of students from which we will be able to draw a conclusion about which one is the most beneficial in a second language classroom.

            Questions have huge influence on language teaching and language learning whether the learners are inside or outside the classroom. For instance, Brock (1986) argues that in informal conversations between native and non-native speakers, native speakers use questions frequently in order to provide assistance to the non-native speakers, since certain types of questions already include some parts, the sufficient grammar structure or vocabulary, of the relevant answer (e.g. Have you seen this movie before? – No I have not.).

            Inside the classroom the discourse is unique in several ways: it is unique because it follows a strict pattern in interaction which is mostly dominated by the teacher (Yang, 2010), they talk much more than students and their talk mostly consists of questions (Davis, Morse, Rogers & Tinsley, 1969). Therefore, questions are one of the most important features of classroom discourse; they are used to maintain the communication between the teacher and the students. A large number of interactions are based on them and the teacher-student communication is inconceivable without them. Teachers use questions to elicit information, to check whether the students are able to understand them (Yang, 2010) and to maintain the progress of the lesson (e.g. Are you ready?).

            There are several types of teacher questions in classroom discourse which according to Yang (2010) could be categorized in more than one way: open or closed questions, display/referential questions, and yes/no questions. The intellectual or cognitive level of these questions is not equal: open and referential questions are at the highest level of the hierarchy, because they require evaluation and judgment, while closed and display questions are on the lowest level of the hierarchy as they merely requires the recognition of factual information (Brock, 1986). Based on these categories, we can differentiate three types of questions which are used and which have been studied by applied linguists to discover their effect on learning or language learning in classrooms: yes/no questions, closed or display questions and last, but not least open or referential questions.

            Yes/no questions are basically closed or display question, the difference between them is that the structure of a yes/no question is even stricter grammatically than the structure of a display question. However, they share the characteristic that they only have one possible answer (or a few, but these are still determined by the teacher in advance) which is required by the teacher and he or she waits for that correct answer while the students try to provide the appropriate answer (Mehan, 1979). These yes/no questions are easier for students who have weaker abilities in producing an answer to questions in the second language, since they can form their utterance based on the grammatical form and meaning of the question and they do not have to create a whole new structure and meaning by themselves (Yang, 2010) .

            Based on the research conducted by Yang in 2010, teachers mostly use yes/no questions in language teaching classes. They might have different uses, for example to check the students’ progress (Finished?) or to draw the attention of the students to something for example, what is written on the blackboard. The answers to yes/no questions are usually short, one- or two-word responses; however occasionally longer answers can be found, but they are strictly originated from the question based on which the answer is produced. Language teachers use this type of question both in grammar and in vocabulary lessons.          

            The fundamental difference between classroom discourse and everyday language use is that in the classroom we encounter a type of question for which the participant who asks the question is already in possession of the right answer (Brock, 1986). These “known information” questions cannot be found in everyday discourse, these are not part of the everyday communication (Mehan, 1979). They are called closed or display questions.

            The purpose of the display questions as McCarthy argues is to check the students’ state of knowledge, whether they know the right answer or not, and to provide possibilities to the students to practise language forms (as cited in Yang, 2010, p. 7). The responses to display questions are usually brief, mostly less than 3 words long; they are mechanically produced with little elaboration needed from the students; and are more frequently used in language classrooms compared to referential questions in both grammar and vocabulary lessons (Yang, 2010). As it was already mentioned above about yes/no questions, display questions also have usually one possible answer, which is required by the teacher.

            The third type of question is the information seeking referential or closed questions (Mehan, 1979); teachers request information from the students, because they do not possess the answers. They require the production of longer and syntactically more complex responses from the students and they are used much rarely than display questions.

            Although referential questions are rarely used it cannot be concluded that they should not be used: from a pedagogical point of view their use is highly advisable, since open questions are the closest to the “real world” questions. However, the use of display questions in classrooms has a negative effect, they are pedagogically purposeless, since they do not resemble to real communication. However, Nunn (1999) argues that this is only true in the case of communicative language teaching, otherwise they still have their functions for practising language forms or checking the students’ knowledge (as cited in Yang, 2010, p. 7). Nonetheless I cannot really see what else could be the purpose of language teaching apart from establishing communication skills; what is the point of using a language teaching method which aim would not be to communicate with other speakers?

            There is a positive correlation between the use of referential questions and the length and complexity of answers given by the students. These responses are similar to the ones in actual everyday communication, and because the main purpose of language teaching is to help the student to learn how to communicate in a foreign language, therefore the beneficial effect of open questions in second language classrooms is undeniable. However, this positive effect does not apply automatically if a referential question is asked: it is not guaranteed that the answer of the student is going to be lengthy and complex. In order to achieve this, the teacher should encourage him or her to produce a longer, more elaborate answer (Yang, 2010).

            In conclusion, while all three types of questions appear in second language classrooms, display or closed questions and yes/no questions are more common than referential or open questions. However, this distribution does not reflect the pedagogical point of view which says that referential questions are the most effective and beneficial in classroom discourse since they are the closest to everyday communication; consequently they should be used more frequently. In order to give successful language teaching lessons, teachers should focus on asking as many referential questions as it is possible and at the same time they should encourage their students to elicit longer, more complex, and more elaborate responses.

References

Brock, C. A. (1986). The effects of referential questions on ESL classroom discourse. TESOL Quarterly, 20(1), 47-59.

Davis, O. L., Morse, K. R., Rogers, V. M., Tinsley, D. C. (1969). Studying the cognitive emphases of teachers’ classroom questions. Educational Leadership, 26(7), 711-719.

McCharty, M. (1991). Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Mehan, H. (1979). ‘What time is it, Denise?’: Asking known information questions in classroom discourse. Theory into Practice, 28(4), 285-294.

Nunn, R. (1999). The purposes of language teachers’ questions. IRAL, 37(1), 23-42.

Yang, C. C. R. (2010). Teacher questions in second language classrooms: An investigation of three case studies. Asian EFL Journal, 12(1), 181-201.