AN INVESTIGATION INTO CODESWITCHING AMONG FRESHMEN AT THE FACULTY OF ENGLISH, HANOI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION

I.1. Rationale As English is the official language of over 55 countries and utilized mostly in transaction and international cooperation, it is considered as the key to access to human’s scientific and technological advances as well as keeping up with the world. As a result, globally, the burning desire for learning this international language is overwhelming. Being aware of this urgency, The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has introduced English into the national curriculum as a compulsory subject. However, the question of how to teach English effectively is always a matter for debate. As we have entered the area of information technology, many educators try to keep up with recent changes in teaching and learning process. Those can be named as, Nomass B. B. (2013) discussed the advantages and disadvantages of using technology in teaching English as a second language, Muhanna (2012) described how to apply online games to teaching vocabulary. At the same time, others still continue do researches on traditional techniques and skills such as organizing group work, designing and piloting games activities. Among those skills teachers need to master, questioning technique always attracts a lot of attention, because it plays a vital role in teacher’s talk and directly affects the effectiveness of every lesson. Many researchers such as Cotton K. (1988) agreed that teacher’s questions are closely related to classroom participation, student’s performance and academic achievement. Although a large number of linguists carried out researches related to this topic, they only addressed the skills of teacher’s questioning (Ma, X, 2008), the way to develop fluency through questioning techniques (Aliponga J. 2002) or suggesting some tips in general. Hardly was a research designed to discover real situations of questioning techniques employed by trainee teachers who often lack experience of working with students and do not have many chances to practice this skill. During my fieldtrip in Yen Hoa High school, by observing other trainee teachers’ lessons, I realized that the failure of asking questions likely resulted in student’s inappropriate responses or even student silence. Hence, this study will focus on investigating the way trainee teachers adopt questioning skills and suggesting some strategies to help them enhance the effectiveness of questioning techniques. This topic is worth researching for several reasons. First, it cannot be denied that asking questions is one of the most common teaching tactics in classroom context; nevertheless, there is no course in the Faculty of English’s curriculum designed to equip students with comprehensive knowledge of questioning techniques. As a result, senior students who are lacking in both theory and practical experience might get confused and easily make mistakes when working with learners. Thus, a detailed research is needed to provide them with some basic knowledge along with solutions to tackle those problems. Second, because the study‘s subjects are lastyear students who will be teachers in a very soon future, the findings will directly show them their weakness and how to put it under control in a shorter time. The data investigated in this graduation thesis will provide an insight into the application of teacherstobe’s questioning techniques in the reality. To be more specific, initially, the trainee teachers’ viewpoints on the use of questioning techniques in language classrooms and the types as well as functions of those questions will be revealed. Then, the researcher intends to discuss some factors that make trainee teachers’ questions inefficient so as to propose some solutions to tackle the problems.

I am also grateful to the four trainee teachers and their students of grade

10 and 11 who provided vital information for the data collection process

My grateful appreciation is owed to my teachers in Faculty of English atHanoi National University of Education whose lectures and experience inspired

my thesis

It is no doubt that I would not be able to finish this study without the greatsupport from my family and the constructive comments and encouragement from

my friends at Hanoi National University of Education

Lastly, my thanks go to the authors of the materials used in this studywhich widened my vision of the field of language teaching

This study attempts to investigate the use of questioning techniquesamong last- year students at Faculty of English at Hanoi National University ofEducation in their second field trip To be more specific, the study concentrates

on trainee teachers’ attitudes towards the use of questions in English classrooms,types of questions and questioning techniques, functions of those questions, andsome suggestions on how to help the trainee teachers use questions moreeffectively In order to achieve that goal, the study uses the integration ofquantitative and qualitative research methods including classroom observationsand individual interviews The collected data suggest that questions are made forvarious functions but to check students’ knowledge of specific data most of thetime As there is an intimate link the learning objectives and the types ofquestions employed, the trainee teachers tend to utilize some types of questionsmore regularly Moreover, when the initial questions fail to elicit the students’responses, the trainee teachers use a variety of questioning techniques Amongthose, repetition is employed most frequently Basing on the findings, somesuggestions on how to help trainee teachers improve their questioning techniquesare made

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1

I.1 Rationale 1

I.2 Aims of the study 2

I.3 Scope of the study 2

I.4 Research questions 3

I.5 Methods of the study 3

I.6 Overview of the study 3

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

II.1 Definition of questions 5

II.2 Roles of teacher’s questioning 6

II.3 Types of question 7

II.3.1 Cognitive questions 8

II.3.2 Open-ended questions and closed-ended questions 13

II.3.3 Referential questions and display questions 14

II.4 Good questions and bad questions 15

II.5 Questioning techniques 17

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY 19

III.1 Subjects of the study 19

III.2 Data collection instruments 20

III.3 Data collection procedure 22

III.4 Data analysis 22

CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 24

IV.1 Results of classroom observations 24

IV.1.1 Types of questions 24

IV.1.1.a Lower-level cognitive questions or higher-level cognitive questions 24

IV.1.1.b Open-ended questions and closed-ended questions 27

IV.1.1.c Referential questions and display questions 29

IV.1.2 Types of questioning techniques 32

IV.2 Results of semi- structured interviews 35

IV.2.1 Trainee teachers’ attitudes towards the use of questions in English

classrooms 35

IV.2.2 Purposes of using questions 37

IV.2.3 Types of questioning techniques 40

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION 44

V.1 Major findings 44

V.2 Pedagogical implications 45

V.3 Limitations 50

V.4 Suggestion for further study 50

REFERENCES 52

APPENDIX 54

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Figure 4.6: Frequency of applying types of questioning techniques

II List of tables:

Table 1: Bloom’s taxonomy: examples of skills and cue words

Table 4.1: The number questions employed by four trainee teachers infour lessons according to Bloom’s taxonomy of questions

Table 4.2: Purposes of using questions in four lessons

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

I.1 Rationale

As English is the official language of over 55 countries and utilizedmostly in transaction and international cooperation, it is considered as the key toaccess to human’s scientific and technological advances as well as keeping upwith the world As a result, globally, the burning desire for learning thisinternational language is overwhelming Being aware of this urgency, TheMinistry of Education and Training (MOET) has introduced English into thenational curriculum as a compulsory subject However, the question of how toteach English effectively is always a matter for debate As we have entered thearea of information technology, many educators try to keep up with recentchanges in teaching and learning process Those can be named as, Nomass B B.(2013) discussed the advantages and disadvantages of using technology inteaching English as a second language, Muhanna (2012) described how to applyonline games to teaching vocabulary At the same time, others still continue doresearches on traditional techniques and skills such as organizing group work,designing and piloting games activities Among those skills teachers need tomaster, questioning technique always attracts a lot of attention, because it plays avital role in teacher’s talk and directly affects the effectiveness of every lesson.Many researchers such as Cotton K (1988) agreed that teacher’s questions areclosely related to classroom participation, student’s performance and academicachievement Although a large number of linguists carried out researches related

to this topic, they only addressed the skills of teacher’s questioning (Ma, X,2008), the way to develop fluency through questioning techniques (Aliponga J.2002) or suggesting some tips in general Hardly was a research designed todiscover real situations of questioning techniques employed by trainee teacherswho often lack experience of working with students and do not have manychances to practice this skill During my fieldtrip in Yen Hoa High school, byobserving other trainee teachers’ lessons, I realized that the failure of askingquestions likely resulted in student’s inappropriate responses or even studentsilence Hence, this study will focus on investigating the way trainee teachers

adopt questioning skills and suggesting some strategies to help them enhance theeffectiveness of questioning techniques.

This topic is worth researching for several reasons First, it cannot bedenied that asking questions is one of the most common teaching tactics inclassroom context; nevertheless, there is no course in the Faculty of English’scurriculum designed to equip students with comprehensive knowledge ofquestioning techniques As a result, senior students who are lacking in boththeory and practical experience might get confused and easily make mistakeswhen working with learners Thus, a detailed research is needed to provide themwith some basic knowledge along with solutions to tackle those problems.Second, because the study‘s subjects are last-year students who will be teachers

in a very soon future, the findings will directly show them their weakness andhow to put it under control in a shorter time

The data investigated in this graduation thesis will provide an insight intothe application of teachers-to-be’s questioning techniques in the reality To bemore specific, initially, the trainee teachers’ viewpoints on the use of questioningtechniques in language classrooms and the types as well as functions of thosequestions will be revealed Then, the researcher intends to discuss some factorsthat make trainee teachers’ questions inefficient so as to propose some solutions

to tackle the problems

I.2 Aims of the study

The aim of the study is to examine the current usage of questioningtechniques among senior students at Hanoi National University of Education intheir second fieldtrip In order to achieve this aim, the study concentrates on fouraspects, namely, trainee teachers’ attitudes towards using questioning techniques

in English classrooms, types of questions and questioning techniques employed,functions of those questions so as to suggest how to utilize questions effectively

I.3 Scope of the study

This study focuses on the real situation in which questions are employed

in four English lessons by trainee teachers in their fieldtrip in order to help themimprove their questioning techniques

I.4 Research questions

The study aims to address the following questions:

1 What are trainee teacher’s attitudes towards the use of questions inEnglish classroom?

2 What questions and questioning techniques do trainee teachers use inEnglish classes?

3 What are those question’s functions?

4 What other realities about trainee teachers’ questions and questioningstechniques are revealed?

Answers to these questions will contribute to an insight into the realsituation in which trainee teachers apply their questioning skills; thus, somesolutions can be propose to help them improve their technique in a shorter timethan they

I.5 Methods of the study

This study employs a combination of quantitative and qualitative researchmethods To gain information related to the use of questioning techniques amonglast-year students from Faculty of English, Hanoi National University ofEducation in their second field trip, two data collected instrument are used,namely class observations, and individual interviews

I.6 Overview of the study

This research paper is divided into five chapters, organized as follow:

Chapter I – Introduction: This chapter presents the rationale, the aim and

scope of the study as well as pointing out the organization of the study

Chapter II – Literature review: In this chapter, some key concepts related

to the study are defined and the findings of other relevant studies are synthesized

so as to provide a deeper insight into the usage of questions and questioningtechniques in English classes

Chapter III – Methodology: This chapter centers on the research method,

the subjects of the study, the data collection instruments, the data collectionprocedures and the data analysis

Chapter IV – Findings and discussions: The data collected are analyzed

and reviewed in this chapter in order to form the hypothesis of the study;moreover, some predictions related to the problems are also made

Chapter V – Conclusion: This chapter briefly answers 5 research

questions posed, summarizes the findings of the study and lists a few limitations

to be overcome in further studies on similar topics

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents the literature related to the study The first sectionindicates the definition of question While the second one lists several functions

of questions in a language classroom, three ways of categorizing questions arefocused on the third part of this chapter The next section provides some criteria

of a good question and a bad question, and the last part centers on questioningtechniques The results of related studies carried out by other educators are alsosynthesized in each section

II.1 Definition of questions

As a matter of fact, questions are normally asked in both dailycommunication and educational settings A great deal of effort has been devoted

to fully define the linguistic term: question

According to the Oxford Advanced Learner Dictionary (7th edition), aquestion is “a sentence, phrase or word that asks for information” The LongmanDictionary of English language, however, adds that “a sentence or phrase that isused to ask for information or to test someone's knowledge” The latter definitionpoints out the difference in the purpose of questions between the occasions when

the speaker really wants to acquire something (e.g Where do you live?) or other

circumstances when questions are posed to check whether the listeners know

what the speaker assumes they should know (e.g What is the synonym of

“important”?) The second purpose mentioned - the potential use of questions to

measure listener’s knowledge rather than learning it - is especially important foranalyzing questions in the classroom context This is due to the fact that people

in daily conversations rarely pose questions to which they already know theanswers Indeed, those questions solely happen in special situations like in a

course room court (e.g What did the defendant do next?), in a quiz contest (e.g What is the most densely populated country in the world?) In contrast, in

classrooms, teachers predominantly employ questions to test students’understanding (Peacock, 1990) Thus, the latter definition is more optimal to thisstudy, which focuses totally on classroom context

In conclusion, in this study, questions taken into consideration areutterances in interrogative, imperative, or declarative form addressed by traineeteachers in order to obtain verbal responses from students for the purpose ofchecking students’ knowledge and gaining knowledge.

II.2 Roles of teacher’s questioning

In every lesson, teacher usually poses questions from the beginning until theend of the lesson The process in which the teacher asks a question, learners respondand finally the teacher provides feedback is repeated constantly In fact, Tsui (1995)asserts that questions asked by teacher can make up about 70 per cent of classroominteraction, and it cannot be denied that “questions asked by teachers and answers bylearners, tend to do dominate L2 classroom interaction” (Graham Hall, 2011) Inorder to stress the important role of teacher’s questions in class, various functions ofquestions have been listed by educators all over the world

Firstly, it was asserted by Graham Hall (2011) that

“Questions help teachers elicit information, check learner’s understandingand keep learner’s attention They also provide learners with language practiceopportunities when they answer Teacher’s questions, therefore, fulfill a clearpedagogic purpose and also enable teachers to exert control over learners.”

Secondly, Kauchak and Eggen (1989) mention the functions of teacherquestions according to three groups, including, instructional questions, diagnosticquestions and motivational questions Initially, instructional questions supportthe learning process like helping students gain new knowledge Then, teacheruses diagnostic questions to assess whether students know specific knowledge.Lastly, with teacher questions, students can be encouraged to take part in classactivities, discussion and challenged The two researchers also noted that onequestion can have more than one function

In addition, other educators have listed several detailed functions ofquestions in every class

 “to maintain the flow of the learning within a lesson”

 “to engage students with the learning”

 “to assess what has been learned, and check that what has been learnt isunderstood and applied”

 “to test student’s memory and comprehension”

 “to initiate individual and collaborative thinking in response to newinformation”

 “ to seek pupils’ views and opinions”

 “to provide an opportunity for pupils to share their opinions/views,seeking responses from their peers”

 “to encourage creative thought and imaginative or innovative thinking”

 “to foster speculation, hypothesis and idea/opinion forming”

 “to create a sense of shared learning and avoid the feel of lecture”

 “to challenge the level of thinking and possibly mark a change to ahigher order of thinking”

 “to model higher order thinking using examples and building onstudents’ responses”

(Retrieved from the website

http://www.nsead.org/downloads/Effective_Questioning&Talk.pdf)

Although teachers’ questions can serve various functions in differentclasses with different learners, it is concluded by many researchers such asNunan & Lamb (1996), and Peacock (1990) that questions are mostly utilized tocheck students’ understanding To be more specific, Gall (1970) noted that 60 percent of teacher questions were used to help students recall facts, and only 20 percent encouraged students to think critically and the remaining 20 per centinvolved procedural matters such as classroom management

Based on the researches mentioned above and the real situation in whichtrainee teachers employ their questioning techniques, this study will indicatesome purposes given by Graham Hall and some that exist in the real situation tofind out what trainee teachers employ questioning techniques for

II.3 Types of question

Studies on questions and questioning techniques have posed countlessways of categorizing questions based on varied criteria First, questions might be

arranged into a hierarchy of cognitive processes that students need to go through

to arrive at the answer Bloom first created a taxonomy of levels of intellectualbehavior important in learning in 1956 It was originally designed to describe thesequential and cumulative levels of cognitive process, ranging from the simplercognitive stages, in which the teacher provides more instruction and dominatediscussion to the increasingly more complex cognition stages, in which studentsplay more active as well as important roles The hierarchy consists of sixcategories, namely, knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis,and evaluation, and each depends upon the acquisition of the preceding category

Second, according to the kind of response received (Tsui, 1995) or the

“content of the question” (Thomson, 1997) questions are divided into open-endedquestions which refer to questions that might have a wide range of possibleacceptable answer and closed-ended questions which have only a limitednumber of acceptable answer

Finally, while Tsui (1995) considered the nature of interaction generated,Thomson (1997) based on a different dimension- “the purpose of the question”;they still shared the same idea that the third category of questions isdisplay/referential questions

II.3.1 Cognitive questions

According to Bloom (1956)’s taxonomy of educational objectives, not allquestions are on the same level, some of them are easy to answer; meanwhile,others need deep thinking; therefore, questions can be classified according to thelevels of cognitive thinking that the answerers need Bloom’s taxonomy wasdeveloped by Benjamin Bloom in 1956 and since that year, it has been applied innumerous ways in education, especially in assisting teachers to make questions

on different levels of thinking

Figure 2: Bloom’s Taxonomy of Questions

Knowledge, which is the lowest level of the cognitive process, is aprerequisite for all other higher levels At the knowledge category, students arerequired to exhibit memory of previous learned materials by recalling terms,details, facts without necessarily fully comprehend the knowledge In otherwords, remembering is the main intellectual activity As presented by Ornstein(1987), teachers tend to stop at this type of questions account for its supportingroles in teaching and testing He also revealed a common view agreed by mostteachers that a student who can answers a large number of knowledge questionsmight be classified as an intelligent one However, he emphasized thatintelligence is not characterize by the amount of knowledge that a person havebut what can be done with that knowledge Some of the key verbs can be found

in this type of questions are list, memorize, order and define Questions can also start with who, why, what, when, how to verify names of locations, time, and

other information For example:

 “Can you list five animals that can be found in the zoo?”

 “What is synonym?”

 “Where can you find a whale”

The second level of cognitive process - comprehension requires studentsnot only to have knowledge but also to understand it (Bloom, 1956) In order to

Higher level challenge

Lower level challenge

answer comprehensive questions, students need to comprehend the basics factsand ideas, as well as knowing the way in which the knowledge can be applied in

a certain situation Some of the key verbs used in comprehensive questions are

explain, describe, discuss and rephrase For instance:

 “How would you describe a cat?”

 “Can you write this sentence in your own words?”

 “What was the main idea of the first paragraph?”

The third level of questions is application, in which students are required

to apply knowledge that they have gained in previous lessons in differentsituations To be more specific, they adopt the use of previously learnedabstractions (principle, rule, theory) in certain and new situations Many teachersagree that application question are really essential, because students only deeplyunderstand what they have learned when they are capable of applying it in a newsituation Many educators assume that application is the first stage of the higher-level cognitive process Verbs which are usually related to application questions

are choose, apply, use and change Teachers can design questions such as:

 “What would you do to solve this problem?”

 “What factors would you change in this situation?”

 “How can we apply this structure to this sentence?”

In terms of the analysis level, educators are in agreement that from thisstage, questions are considered higher level challenge With analysis questions,students have to break down comprehended knowledge into components likeidentifying reasons, finding evidence to reach a logical conclusion Thus, thistype of questions in classroom often asks students to go beyond knowledge andapplication for analyzing the given problem so as to solve it Verbs that often

appear in analysis questions are analyze, check and distinguish This can be

illustrated in the following examples:

 “Can you distinguish between the two grammatical functions of “late”

in the given example?”

 “Why can we classify those animals into mammals and reptiles?”

The next cognitive level which requires students‘ ability to combine elementsand parts from various sources to form a new pattern not existing or clearly therebefore is synthesis With this type of questions, students use their own knowledge,ideas and experiences in the synthesizing process; thus, there may be many potentialanswers Some of the key verbs found in the synthesizing questions are design, create,plan and construct Questions can be designed as follow:

 “Can you write a new recipe for a tasty dish?”

 “Can you create a new situation in which we can use this sentence?”

 “What way would you design for your club advertisement?”

The last and highest level is evaluation In this level, individuals makejudgment of an idea, a solution to a problem, a method or a material Judgmentsare based on criteria which might be determined by themselves or might be given

to them Bloom places evaluation at the highest place as it requires competence

in all previous categories However, some educators cast doubt on the relationbetween higher-order question asking and higher-order thinking Others arguethat lower-order questions can have the same effect as the higher-order questionscan There will be no correct answer for evaluation questions, and verbs often

associated with the evaluation level are judge, predict, believe and argue Some

examples of evaluation questions will be listed below:

 “Do you believe?”

 “Do you think his behavior is good or bad?”

 “Can you defend your position?”

The following table summarizes some learning and thinking skills related

to each category of Bloom’s taxonomy along with some question cues

Bloom’s taxonomy

Knowing  Observation and recall of

information

 Knowledge of dates, events, places and major ideas

 Mastery of subject matter

List, define, tell, describe, identify, show,label, collect, examine, tabulate, quote, name, who, when, whereComprehending  Understanding information Summarize, describe,

and grasp meaning

 Translating knowledge into new context

 Interpreting facts, comparing, ordering, grouping, inferring causes & predicting

consequences

interpret, contrast, predict, associate, distinguish, estimate, differentiate, discuss, extend

experiment, discoverAnalyzing

 Seeing patterns and organizing of parts

 Recognizing hidden meanings

Synthesizing  Using old ideas to create new

ones

 Generalizing from given facts

 Relating knowledge from several areas

 Predicting, drawing conclusions

Combine, integrate, modify, rearrange, substitute, plan, create, design, invent, what if, compose, formulate, prepare, generalize, rewrite

Evaluating  Comparing and

discriminating between ideas

 Assessing value or theories, presentations

 Making choices based on reasoned argument

 Verifying value of evidence

Assess, decide, rank, grade, test, measure, recommend, convince, select, judge, explain, discriminate, support, conclude, compare, summarize

 Recognizing subjectivityAdapted from: Bloom B.S (E.d) (1956) Taxonomy of educational objectives:the classification of educational goals: Handbook I, cognitive domain NewYork; Toronto: Longmans, Green.

Table 1: Bloom’s taxonomy: examples of skills and cue words

Some educators simplified the Bloom’s taxonomy of questions into lowercognitive questions, which require learners to recall information, demonstratetheir understanding of specific subject matter and higher cognitive questions,which ask students to use higher cognitive level to produce and support theiranswers

There have been a numbers of researches carried out to investigate thecognitive level of teacher’s questions in second language teaching Most of theresearchers arrive at the conclusion that lower-cognitive level questions are usedmore frequently in compared with higher-cognitive level ones For example,Nunan and Lamb (1996) point out that most questions asked have lower levelchallenge, and they also mention that this type of questions is not useful tostimulate students to think Besides, Natthanan (2009) indicates that the lowestcognitive question- knowledge questions were predominant Then,comprehension questions, application questions, analysis questions, synthesisquestions and evaluation questions followed respectively, which matches theorder of the Bloom’s taxonomy

II.3.2 Open-ended questions and closed-ended questions

As stated by Tsui (1995), close-ended questions are defined as questionsthat have “only one right answer” or “only one acceptable answer” On thecontrary, open-ended questions can have a wide range of possible answers or “arange of possible ways of presenting answers” (Tsui, 1995) These twodefinitions are supported by many educators

However, a closed-ended question can have not only one but a limitednumber of acceptable answers They are used to check facts and leave almost noroom for dissent In a classroom, a teacher normally uses this type of questions tocheck whether students have learned or remembered any specific data Therefore,students can give short and brief answers that only focus on the information Incontrast, open-ended questions stimulate discussion and classroom interaction

To put it simply, students are allowed with freedom to share ideas, drawinferences and truly explore the question’s content This type of questionsrequires more long as well as complex responses which are based on not onlywhat students have learned before but also their own past experiences andviewpoints As a result, a wide range of possible responses can be received For

example, when the teacher asks “What is the synonym of happy?”, although

many possible answers can be received like “contented”, “cheerful”, “joyful”, it

is still a close question This is explained by the fact that this question leaves noroom for students to produce long responses and share their opinions

Although there have not been any researches that directly show whetheropen questions or closed questions are preferred in English classes, manyteachers admit that closed questions are important and used widely, but teachersshould not depend entirely on them as Tsui (1995) points out that closedquestions are more restrictive As a result, if teachers want to encouragediscussion and class interaction, open questions will be more effective

II.3.3 Referential questions and display questions

Based on the purposes of questions, questions can be divided intoreferential questions and display questions In social communication, peoplenormally ask questions that that they do not know the answers, and the meaning

of the utterance can be negotiated by the questioner and the answerer; however,this does not often happen in the classroom Teachers tend to address questionswhich are already given appropriate answers to in their mind

As stated by Ellis (1994), referential questions and display questions arerespectively defined as “questions you ask someone because you do not know theanswer” and “questions you ask to see if the person you are talking to knows theanswer” In an English language classroom, while display questions are oftenutilized to check whether students understand or remember knowledge,referential questions require them to provide information, give opinions, explain

or clarify

A number of studies have been conducted to compare the use ofreferential questions and display questions in foreign language classes It is

uncommon to use display questions outside the classroom (Nunan and Lamb,1996) Long and Sato (1983), who compare questions made by six teachers inEnglish classrooms with questions in daily conversations between nativespeakers and non-native speakers, concluded that display questions ( questionsthat the questioner already knows the answer) were predominant in classrooms.Similar findings are reported by Tsui (1985) and Lynch (1991), who reached theconclusion that

“Referential (information seeking) questions, which predominate in nativespeaker –non-native speaker conversation outside the classroom (76% of allquestions asked) made up a mere 14% of questions asked by teachers Theseresults suggest that contrary to recommendation by many writers on secondlanguage teaching methodologies, the communicative use of the target languagemakes up only minor part of typical classroom activities”

Although referential questions are not as frequently used in a secondlanguage classroom as display ones, it is emphasized that when teachers usereferential questions, it is more likely to create genuine communication (Tsui,1995) and this type of questions also encourage learners to produce morecomplex utterances (Nunan, 1987)

In conclusion, this study classifies questions posed by trainee teachers aslower-level cognitive questions or higher-level cognitive questions, openquestions or closed questions and display questions or referential questions

II.4 Good questions and bad questions

It cannot be denied that questioning is one of the most popular teachingmethod As stated by Brualdi (1998), despite the fact that teacher questioning cangreatly affect the students’ learning process, it can also lead to the students

‘negative attitude if the teacher pose questions incorrectly As a result, it is vitalfor teachers to know characteristics of good questions so as to use themeffectively in language classroom

In Groisser P (1964)‘s book “How to use the fine art of questioning”, hetook into his consideration seven criteria that good questions should have

Firstly, a good question is purposeful Every question can serve differentfunctions For example, teacher can ask question to encourage students getinvolved in class activities, other questions make it is possible for the teacher toincrease or slow down the pace of the lesson Thus, a good question needs to beposed at the right time for the right reasons.

Secondly, good questions need to be stated clearly, because the simplerthe vocabulary, grammar and content are utilized, the more chances studentshave to understand them

Thirdly, teacher should pose questions as short as possible This makesthem easier for the students to catch the main content so as to understand and beable to answer them more quickly

Moreover, Lewis.G stated that questions should be posed “simply inconversational English”

Despite the fact that each question is used for a specific reason; some aredesigned to stimulate students’ thought, others simply repeat the content of thelecture presented before, it is widely agreed that questions that stimulate criticalthinking are considered better and of greater value

With regard to the limitation in scope, students should be asked only one

or two points of the lesson

Lastly, questions should be adapted to the level of the class It means thatteachers need to pose questions that are suitable for the kinds of students in theclass In other words, no matter what functions do those questions have, theyshould not excess the students ‘competence of thinking If not, the students caneasily get depressed and students ‘learning can even be de-motivated.Nevertheless, it does not mean that teachers should only pose easy questions tolow- achieving students

While good questions play an important role in facilitating students’learning, bad questions may not only make students hesitate over the way toanswer the questions, answer them incorrectly but also provoke some negativeattitudes toward study (Brualdi, 1998) Having a full awareness of the adverseimpact of bad questions on students ‘learning process, many researchers have

devoted considerable effort to investigate mistakes that teachers makes whenasking questions As listed by Arslan M (2006), they are posing vague questions

like “What do you think of the content of the story?”, using trick questions or

questions whose content is too challenging for the learners It can be seen when akindergarten teacher asks her students to explain what geothermal power is Inaddition, Groisser P (1964) also mentioned other types of questions that should

be avoided besides vague questions, namely

 Yes/No: The type of questions that only requires students to produce

one -word- answer Yes or No, such as “Do you have any brothers?”

 Elliptical: It refers to questions which lack grammar elements; however,those are recoverable from the context For instance, some teachers often ask

“How about you?”

 Tugging: When using this type of questions, teachers stress on the fact thather students remember the knowledge rather than understand it For example, ateacher only requires her student to list without going to specific details

 Guessing: These questions encourage students to guess rather than to

think, for example, “When do you think the writing system was invented?”

 Leading: This term relates to questions already mentioning the answer

or a part of it like “Do you go to school by bus or by bike?”

Overall, the criteria mentioned above are used to indentify mistakes thattrainee teachers commit when employing questioning techniques, which might bepossible causes for the silence in language classes so as to propose some solution

to overcome this problem

II.5 Questioning techniques

As Dumteeb N (2009) defined; the term “questioning techniques” refers to

“statements which follow initial questions and which teachers use to elicit verbalresponses from students after those initial questions fail to elicit students’responses.” In his study, two circumstances when questioning techniques used arementioned Firstly, if a teacher poses the first question and students are not able toanswer it, she can immediately employ questioning techniques after the initialquestion without giving students wait-time (the silent pause between a teacherposing a question and asking a student to respond it) to respond The secondsituation is when wait-time is given but teacher still does not receive any responses

In a language classroom, there have been a number of questioningstrategies used to elicit students’ responses and facilitate their studying such asrepetition, rephrasing, simplification or providing extra information In languageteaching handbooks and researches related to this topic, authors classifiedquestioning techniques differently; nevertheless, their ideas have similarities Forexample, repetition is an important technique and used more frequently(Ekasingh (1991) and Morrow (1997)); moreover, five questioning techniquesincluding repetition, rephrasing, simplification, probing along withdecomposition are often mentioned.

Based on the ideas of other educators, especially Wu’s taxonomy ofquestioning techniques (1993) and the researcher’s own experience andawareness of the real situation of questioning techniques employed by traineeteachers, this study will focus on the way in which trainee teachers may react tothe silence in classes after raising the first questions in both situations with andwithout wait-time The first technique is repetition with which the teacher repeatsthe initial questions with the hope that the students can answer it Secondly, theteacher asks the original questions in another way with different vocabulary,structure while keeping the meaning of the initial question to make it easier forthe students to understand, which is called rephrasing When the teachers makethe content of the questions more simply, for example, by reducing the scope ofthe answer, they are using simplification technique The next questioningtechnique is decomposition in which the original question can be broken downinto smaller ones like short yes/no questions so as to lead students to the correctanswer The last questioning technique -probing- aims at enhancing the quality

of students ‘answers by making them longer, clearer, more accurate withsupporting ideas and factual information This encourages the final answersstudents given to be close to the expected answers

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY

In this chapter, the author presents information about the methodologyemployed in the study to investigate the use of questioning techniques amonglast-year students at the Faculty of English, Hanoi National University of

Education Section III.1 provides a detailed description of the subjects of thestudy, section III.2 follows with the descriptions of two data collectinginstruments, including class observations and individual interviews Datacollection procedure along with data analysis is mentioned in the third and fourthsections of this chapter, respectively.

III.1 Subjects of the study

The participants of the study are four female trainee teachers who are last

- year students at Faculty of English, Hanoi National University of Education.All of them speak Vietnamese as their native language and have been trained toteach English as a foreign language for students

They have been studying English for over 14 years; moreover, because of thetarget of the Faculty of English, Hanoi National University of Education, afterstudying for 3 years, they are assumed to achieve B2 level- upper-intermediatelevel- corresponding to CEFR – Common European Framework of Reference,which means they can understand the main ideas of complex text on a variety oftopics even field of specialization, naturally interact with native speakers with adegree of fluency, and produce clear and detailed utterances on different topics Inaddition, it is reported that their speaking - listening score for the previous semesterwere B and B+, which means their average points varied from 7 to 8.4 Therefore,their listening and speaking skills can be considered as good

According to the curriculum of their faculty, in the first three years, the fourtrainee teachers enrolled on three courses on teaching methodology, namely

“Methodology 1”, “Methodology 2” and “Methodology 3”, they have basicknowledge of second language teaching methodology, a variety of teachingapproaches, the language acquisition process However, there are not any coursesdesigned to provide them with comprehensive knowledge of questioning techniques

or train them how to pose questions effectively in language classrooms

This six-week-field trip is the second field trip that those trainee teacherstake part in During the second field trip, each trainee teacher is required toconduct at least six lessons

Overall, the trainee teachers participating in this study are chose on thebasis of 3 criteria Initially, all of them have been studying for at least 14 years;furthermore, their linguistic competence reach B2 level- upper-intermediate-level corresponding to CEFR – Common European Framework of Reference.They have not joined any courses which focus on questioning techniques Thelast factor is the trainee teachers’ availability to take part in the study.

III.2 Data collection instruments

A combination of quantitative and qualitative approach in the forms ofindividual interviews and class observations is employed to investigate the realsituations in which trainee teachers used questioning techniques in their field trip

in Cau Giay high school and Xuan Dinh high school This combination helpsincrease the validity and reliability of the statistics collected

The first data collection instrument is class observation which is carried out

in the three first weeks of the field trip in Cau Giay high school and Xuan Dinh highschool 4 trainee teachers and 168 students of four classes are observed in four

lessons (two reading and two speaking lessons) from unit 11 Sources of energy (Tieng Anh 11) To collect the data, the researcher asks four trainee teachers to

record their lesson After the recordings are transcribed for the questions andquestioning techniques utilized in the language classroom, the researcher sends thetranscripts to the trainee teachers for cross-checking Names of the participants areanonymously coded in the transcripts Finally, the transcriptions are used to identifythe types of questions and questioning techniques that are often used by the traineeteachers in their second field trip This data collecting method offers manyopportunities for the researcher to gain information related to class interaction,students and trainee teachers ‘actual behavior or things that participants may beunwilling to talk about As a result, the use of questioning techniques among traineeteachers is assessed not only by the trainee teachers themselves but the researcher,which helps increase the objectiveness of the study

In addition, a semi-structured interview is conducted with four traineeteachers to gain data concerning the way trainee teachers use questions andquestioning techniques in real English language classrooms (SEE APPENDIX

1) The questions are translated into Vietnamese and names of types of questionsand questioning techniques are attached with brief description to avoidmisunderstanding (SEE APPENDIX 2)

The interview is divided into three parts

The first part includes 4 basic questions about the trainee teachers’personal information, their English competence in general and their field trips

The researcher designs the second part with 7 questions to gain in-depthinformation about the frequency of posing English questions in each Englishlesson, the trainee teachers’ satisfaction with their questioning techniques, thepurposes of questions and some habits when the trainee teachers posingquestions Although each question has its suggested answers to save time, theparticipants are still provided extra time to add their own opinions

After, the participants complete the first and second parts by themselves inabout 10 minutes and they go to the last part, which aims to investigate thetrainee teachers’ difficulties when they pose questions and the potential solutions

to increase the effectiveness of trainee teachers’ question

This data collecting method brings three major advantages Firstly, it equipsthe interviewer with a degree of control over the topic and the course of theinterview The interviewer has the general ideas of how the interview would becarried out and what might be possible results It also offers interviewer a great deal

of flexibility to follow responses of the interviewees Lastly, this type of interviewcan provide an in-depth sight into others’ lives as Dowett ( 1986) stated “ (the semi-structured interview) is quite extraordinary- the interactions are incredibly rich andthe data indicate that you can produce extraordinary evidence about life that youdon’t get in structured interviews or questionnaire methodology- no matter howopen ended and qualitative you think your questionnaires are attempting to be It isnot only qualitative research technique that will produce rich information aboutsocial relationships but it does give you access to social relationships in a quiteprofound way”

III.3 Data collection procedure

Class observations are carried out in the first three weeks of the field trip

in two classes in Cau Giay high school and two in Xuan Dinh high school Each

trainee teacher is required to record one lesson of unit 11 named Source of Energy from the course book “Tieng Anh 11” To be more specific, two trainee

teachers choose to teach the Speaking section while the others taught Listeningsection Then, the recordings are transcribed and sent back to the trainee teachersfor double checking The names of participants are changed to preservedanonymity and confidentiality Finally, the four transcripts are utilized to identifytypes of question and questioning techniques employed by trainee teachers

The individual interviews are conducted with four trainee teachers afterthe data from the class observation are analyzed The dates with the intervieweesare arranged to be suitable for each participant’s schedule Verbal responses fromthe interviews are recorded and transcribed and the names of the participants arechanged to ensure the anonymity

III.4 Data analysis

The data in this study are obtained from the classroom observations andindividual interviews After being collected, the data are analyzed qualitativelyand quantitatively

Quantitative analysis is used to count the number of questions,questioning techniques in every lesson It is also used to calculate answers in thesecond part of the individual interviews

On the other hand, qualitative analysis is utilized to identify types ofquestions and questioning techniques in every lesson and teacher’s responses tothe third part of individual interviews

In terms of categorizing types of questions, three theoretical lens areemployed Initially, questions are divided into six types: knowledge,comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation based on Bloom’s(1956) taxonomy of questions The examples of skills along with cue words

mentioned in Table 1: Bloom’s taxonomy: Examples of skills and cue words are

also used in the identifying process Moreover, the researcher basically followsTsui (1995) definitions to classify the trainee teachers’ questions into open-endedquestions and close-ended questions; however, the questions which have alimited number of acceptable answers are also considered as close-ended ones

Lastly, according to the definitions provided by Ellis (1994), the trainee teachers’questions are grouped into referential questions and display questions After thequestions are classified into different types, they are counted and summarized inpercentage.

When classifying types of questioning techniques, the researcher usesWu’s (1993) taxonomy of questioning techniques as the theoretical framework.The questioning techniques employed by four trainee teachers are arranged intofive groups: repetition, simplification, rephrasing, decomposition and probing

CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

This chapter presents an analysis of the data collected from the classroomobservations and semi-structured interviews.

IV.1 Results of classroom observations

According to the classroom observations, the four trainee teacherstotally asked 191 English questions in four periods, 132 of which were initialquestions while the other 59 questions were questioning techniques employedwhen it seemed that the initial questions could not provoke students’responses The number of questions employed by one trainee teacher in onelesson ranged from 35 questions to 54 questions The average number ofquestions posed per lesson was 47.7

IV.1.1 Types of questions

IV.1.1.a Lower-level cognitive questions or higher-level cognitive questions

As stated before, in order to answer lower-level cognitive questions,students need to remember information while high-level cognitive questionsrequire students to support their answer by using complex application Table 4.1presents a classification of the types of questions made by trainee teachersaccording to Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy

Table 4.1: The number questions employed by four trainee teachers in four

lessons according to Bloom’s taxonomy of questions

As can be seen from the table, 144 accounting for 75 per cent of totalquestions posed are lower-level cognitive questions Knowledge question, thelowest-level cognitive one, makes up 46 per cent with 89 questions asked It isfollowed by comprehension questions (29 per cent), application questions (13 per

cent), analysis questions (6 per cent), synthesis questions (4 per cent) andevaluation questions (2 per cent) The order is as same as the order of theBoom’s (1956) taxonomy.

The frequency of lower-level cognitive questions and higher-levelcognitive questions in a particular lesson is shown in the following chart

Figure 4.1: Frequency of higher-level cognitive questions and lower-level cognitive questions employed by four trainee teachers in four lessons

As can be seen from the chart, lower-level cognitive questions are posedmore regularly in compared with the higher-level cognitive ones There might betwo possible reasons for the dominance of lower-level cognitive questions in theEnglish classrooms The first factor is the learning objective Although thetrainee teachers had only six lessons to work with the students, they were stillrequired to instruct the students to achieve the learning goal, passing the comingexam They had to follow the lesson plans which had been approved by theirinstructors In the lessons, the trainee teachers had to review the previous lesson,present the new content, summary and test students’ understanding Theyfocused on the content of the units rather than the students’ critical thinking.Thus, most of the questions were lower-level cognitive ones Secondly, theteaching environment possibly has influence on the types of questions employed

In a classroom, the assessment of learning is put more emphasis on thancommunication The trainee teachers check students’ knowledge andcomprehension most of the time, and it is undeniable that lower-level cognitivequestions can serve that function better than higher-level cognitive ones.

Moreover, it is noticed that trainee teacher A and trainee teacher B taughtspeaking lessons; meanwhile, trainee teacher C and trainee teacher D conductedreading ones It is revealed that the trainee teachers have a tendency to use morehigher- level cognitive questions in speaking lessons than in reading lessons (36per cent and 31 percent in compared with 17 per cent and 18 percent) This mightdue to the fact that the tasks which are given in the reading sections are mainly tocheck textual information; thus, the students just needed to pick up informationfrom the text with low-level cognitive process Meanwhile, in speaking lessons,

no already-made questions are provided and the tasks requires students to expressand support their belief using the ideas and useful language given (Task 2 andtask 3 - p.128 – Tieng Anh 11)

Theoretically, higher- level cognitive questions can better stimulatestudents to think critically; therefore, it can be inferred that in speaking lessons,the students had more chances to practice a wider range of thinking processincluding recalling specific data, applying, analyzing, synthesizing and

evaluating For example, in a the speaking lesson, trainee teacher A asked “In your opinion, why will people use more alternative sources in the future? “,

which required students to develop their argument based on the useful languageand the ideas that had presented before

It is also noticed that lower-level cognitive questions and higher-cognitivequestion were posed in all three phases of the lessons, includingpre-speaking/reading, while-reading/speaking and post-reading/speaking

Overall, the dominance of lower-level cognitive questions employed byfour trainee teachers in four lessons is consistent with the findings of Nunan andLamb (1996) that most questions asked are lower-level cognitive ones and thelearning objectives and the teaching environment are perhaps the reasons for thelarge number of lower-level cognitive questions used Moreover, because of the

differences in the content of tasks given in the text book, the trainee teachershave a tendency to use more higher- level cognitive questions in speaking lessonsthan in reading lessons In addition, the frequency of types of questions,including knowledge questions, comprehension question, analysis question,synthesis questions and evaluation questions were in inverse proportion to thecomplexity of cognitive process which they require is also found in the researchconducted by Dumteeb N (2009).

IV.1.1.b Open-ended questions and closed-ended questions

The number of open-ended questions and closed-ended questions posed

by four trainee teachers in four lessons including two reading lessons and two

speaking lessons are presented in the Figure 4.2.

Figure 4.2: Frequency of open-ended questions and close-ended questions

employed by four trainee teachers in four lessons

From the figure above, it is revealed that closed-ended questions, whichrefer to questions which require students to recall factual information, were usedmore frequently than open-ended questions, which require the application of theknowledge with higher level of thinking The disparity in the number of closed-ended questions and open-ended questions might be the results of the students

‘ability, the learning objectives and time deficiency Firstly, since open-endedquestions often make students produce long and complex utterances, they are

mainly answered by a small number of students with higher English proficiency,some even receive no responses Meanwhile, if the trainee use closed- questions

to check facts, a larger number of students can be involved Secondly, to respond

to a closed-ended question, the students concentrate on the information andproduce simple and brief responses; this help save a large amount of time whilethe main content is still reinforced In other words, closed-ended questions limitstudents’ talking time so as to give the trainee teachers, who are ofteninexperienced in managing time, more control over the classroom Lastly, as thepriority of every lesson is helping the students learn grammar structures andvocabulary, which would be tested in the coming exam, closed-ended questionsare more likely to allow the students to gain and enhance a large amount ofknowledge in a limited time

It is also noticed that trainee teacher C and D who taught reading sectionutilized closed-ended questions most of the time (94 per cent and 85 per centrespectively) while in Speaking lessons, trainee teachers A and B tended to usemore opened-ended questions (41 per cent and 37 per cent respectively) Thismight be because of the difference in the skills emphasized Through classroomobservations, it is revealed that all four skills, including speaking, reading,writing, listening were employed in one lesson Nevertheless, in reading lessons,the trainee teachers put more effort into making the students understand the giventext by asking closed-ended questions, which focus on the information Incontrast, in speaking lessons, the students should be encouraged to talk Asopen- ended questions are believed to provide students with freedom to shareideas, provoke class discussion, longer as well as more complex responses fromstudent, open-ended questions are likely to be posed more regularly in speakinglessons than reading lessons

Plus, it is found that in the two speaking lessons, open-ended questionswere posed in all three phases of the lesson, namely pre-speaking, while-speaking and post- speaking For example, at the beginning of the lesson, traineeteacher A captured students’ attention to the new topic by asking an open-ended

question “Why do we need alternative energy?” In the second phase, she divided

her class into four groups and assigned to each groups one open-ended question

to debate The questions were “Why do you think water can be an alternative

source of energy?”, “Why do you think water power cannot be an alternative source of energy?”, “Why do you think nuclear reaction can be an alternative source of energy?”, “Why do you think nuclear reaction cannot be an alternative source of energy?” In the last phase, to summarize the lesson, she asked some students to answer the question “Why do you think there will be an increase in the use of alternative sources in the future?” On the other hand, the majority of

closed-ended questions addressed in two speaking lessons were found in the firstphase when the trainee teachers presented useful language In contrast, in readinglessons, closed-ended questions were used most frequently in the second phasewhen the trainee teachers checked students’ comprehension of the reading text

In conclusion, the large number of open-ended questions is possiblybecause of the students ‘ability, the learning objectives and time deficiency.Moreover, as different lessons concentrated on different skills, there was animbalance in the number of closed-ended questions and open-ended questionsbetween the readings and the speaking lessons

IV.1.1.c Referential questions and display questions

The frequency of using referential questions and display questions of four

trainee teachers whose lessons were recorded is shown in Figure 4.3.

Trainee teacher C

Trainee teacher D

The percentage of referential questions

The percentage of display questions

Figure 4.3: Frequency of display questions and referential questions employed

by four trainee teachers in four lessons

From the figure above, it is clear that display questions, which refer toquestions whose answers are already known by the teachers, totallyoutnumbered referential questions, which are questions used to gain newinformation More than three fourths (75 per cent) of the total number ofquestions in every lesson was display ones There might be two possiblereasons for the dominance of display questions in English classrooms Firstly,traditionally, teachers in general are considered as information providers inlecture context; in other words, it is their responsibility to pass on necessaryinformation and knowledge to the students Therefore, it is necessary for thetrainee teachers to know the answers of question they pose Secondly,theoretically, while teachers tend to pose display questions to gain informationrelated to textual information, comprehension checks, vocabulary andgrammar structures found in the lesson, referential questions are often used tocollect personal information and ideas on different topics Thus, displayquestions were predominant due to the learning goal which puts greatemphasis on the amount of knowledge that the students acquire

Plus, the qualitative data gathered from the class observation also revealthat while display questions were used in all three phases, most referentialquestions were asked in the first phase (pre-reading/pre-speaking) and the thirdphase (post-reading/ post-speaking) It is illustrated by the following questionwhich is considered as a way to lead in the new content

T: Before we come to the new lesson to day, I want to ask you some questions First, how many types of renewable energy resources do you know? Can you help me name some of them?

SS: Solar energy, geothermal heat, wind energy.

T: Can you think of any advantages and disadvantages of those sources of energy?

SS: Cheap and clean.

T: Ok To find out more about the advantages and disadvantages of some renewable energy resources, we will read the text.

(Class C, Reading lesson)

Referential questions could also be found in the last phase of the lessonwhen the trainee teacher summarized what the students had learned The students

were asked to share their ideas; for instance, “In your opinion, what kind of renewable energy resources is the best?” (Class D, Reading lesson).

Lastly, in contrast to the common belief that referential questionsencourage students to produce more complex utterances (Nunan, 1987), inreality, when the trainee teachers posed referential questions, not many studentswere willing to share ideas and the class was quiet Moreover, it is worth noticingthat some display questions could make the students produced a 3 - minute –

answer such as “What are advantages and disadvantages of nuclear energy?”

(Class C, Reading lesson)

Overall, the dominance of display questions in four lessons conducted byfour trainee teachers in this study is consistent with the results of studies carriedout by Long and Sato (1983), Tsui (1985) and Lynch (1991) Moreover, there aretwo possible explanations for the dominance of display questions in fourslessons, namely the traditional role of a teacher as well as the learning goal

IV.1.2 Types of questioning techniques

Questioning techniques used in four periods were classified into five typesbased on Wu’s (1993) classification of questioning techniques, includingrepetition, simplification, rephrasing, decomposition, and probing The traineeteachers used those questioning techniques in two situations in which theappearance of wait- time needed to be taken into consideration First, theyimmediately used questioning techniques after the initial question without givingstudents wait-time to think The other case was after the trainee teachers providedstudents with wait-time (about 1 to 2 seconds) to respond the original questions,but the class remained silent

The types of questioning techniques which were employed by four traineeteachers in each lesson are presented in the below figure