a Questioning When Teaching a Topic

The participating teachers considered questioning technique as an important instructional and learning stimulus. They asked plenty of questions while delivering a lesson and it was the central feature of their classroom community of practice. As one of the teachers explained, “It is important to ask questions in order to effectively convey the lesson content and elicit students’ understanding” (Irwan, Interview). These teachers recognized the importance of questioning technique in the teaching and learning process.

Devi, the Year One teacher, asked lots of questions based on the topic she wanted to impart to the students:

Depending on the topic, I frequently ask questions in my classroom. When I want to start teaching a topic I ask questions. I also ask my students questions during and after teaching the lesson. So I can say that I ask questions all the time- before, during and after teaching (Devi, Interview).

Therefore, depending on the nature of the topic of the lesson and activities, to conduct a lesson Devi resorted to questioning technique. She usually asked a few questions before teaching a new topic to make her students think about the topic. She kept asking questions while teaching the topic and finally after teaching the topic she closed the lesson employing questioning technique. As the results indicated, Devi used questioning mainly as a means to check the students’ understanding. She added that:

I ask questions to see if the students can give correct answers to the questions or not. Let’s say if they give the right answer it shows that they understand. So they are aware that when they answer my questions correctly, I know that they have learned (Devi, Interview).

This statement was confirmed by Devi’s students. In the following episode, the students mentioned that their teacher asked them many questions in the classroom.

I: How does your teacher ask you questions? S2: She always asks questions.

S4: During her teaching S2: We also have to write I: What do you need to write? S2: Answer question sheets S6: Activity book

I: O.K during her teaching, she would stop and ask you question. You also have to complete worksheets and answer questions in your activity book.

(Year One A students, Group interview)

The students recognized that their teacher consistently asked questions when teaching them a topic and also gave them worksheets (question sheets) to complete. They were aware that their responses to the questions were indicators of their level of understanding.

Irwan, the Year Two A teacher, also used questioning technique. He asked questions of the students almost every time he taught them a lesson. Irwan recognized that asking questions played a crucial role in students’ learning and helped them learn better. He asked questions to find out his students’ weaknesses and retaught them if they could not give the correct answer. “I ask questions during the lesson and if some students do not understand, I teach them again so that they can understand” (Irwan, Interview).

The Year Two B teacher, Izyan, used questions whenever she intended to teach a topic. She asked questions to ensure students’ learning before moving to the next topic. “Depending on the topic I want to teach, I usually start teaching by asking questions. After I teach the lesson I ask them what I have taught then only I move to the next lesson” (Izyan, Interview).

According to the new English syllabus, teachers need to help their students promote higher order thinking skills and become the owners of their own learning. To achieve these objectives, the participating teachers formulated their questions based on the topic they were planning to teach as well as the objectives emphasized in the standard document. As Devi mentioned “we focus on the curriculum specifications and then based on that we check our textbook. So we ask questions of our students based on the topic in the textbook and the objectives mentioned in the standard document” (Devi, Interview).

Based on the new syllabus, Year One and Year Two consist of four modules, namely, listening and speaking, reading, writing and language arts.

Teachers start with listening and speaking, then reading and the third skill is writing. Finally, after teaching writing they focus on language arts. Teachers cover each topic within two weeks. Normally, for listening and speaking the total period is ten periods and teachers ask many questions while teaching this skill.

(Researcher field observation)

To teach listening and speaking, Devi played the recording of the dialogue in the textbook and asked the students to listen carefully. Then she started asking WH- questions. Also, sometimes she played poison box game with the students. The poison box was passed around the classroom and the student who received it, had to answer the question.

If they are able to answer, I tick the boxes on the assessment evidence to show that the student is able to answer WH- questions. I use the same technique when I teach them reading. After reading a passage I ask them WH- questions (Devi, Interview).

Irwan employed questioning technique when teaching a lesson or by giving worksheets to the students. He pinpointed that “question types asked by the teacher rely on the skill she/he intends to teach” (Irwan, Interview). He mostly used worksheets to assess reading and writing skills. Moreover, he usually asked WH- and true or false questions when teaching listening and speaking as well as reading skills:

To assess listening I usually ask WH- questions based on what the students have listened. I usually assess them through worksheets. For example, I write some sentences and ask the students to rearrange the sentences based on the passage they have read. Or I may give them some sentence strips and ask them to rewrite the sentences but that is for writing, normally to assess reading I ask them WH- questions or true or false questions. Sentence strips I just do it as an activity and they have to arrange sentence strips according to the passage they have read (Irwan, Interview).

Izyan found that asking questions during a lesson could help students generate more ideas. Most of the time, she asked her students questions based on listening and speaking skills, especially while teaching stories and songs, to help them improve their listening and speaking. She asked questions about story or song and students had to recall and answer the questions:

Okay let’s say when I read them a story I do not just read the story and just go from beginning to the end. I ask questions related to the story. So they start giving ideas ok see … will see whose idea is correct. It is just like they compete with each other to give the right answer. That is when I teach them a story. Let’s say if we do songs for example a song about animals. I ask them to tell me the name of the animals in the song. So they try to recall what they have heard. Things like that. I think most of the time I ask them questions when teaching listening and speaking (Izyan, Interview).

Izyan’s statement indicates that the aim of teachers’ questioning while teaching stories and songs is to make students brainstorm ideas to find the correct answer to the questions posed by their teacher. They can interact with each other, comment on their peers responses and come up with the correct answer.

4.3.1.1b. Asking Questions by Giving Worksheet (Question Sheet) to the Students