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.
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