Exploring the Use of Teacher’s Questioning and Students’ Interaction in Speaking Classes at Tran Hung Dao High School

The study focused on finding out the types of questions the teachers used in English speaking lessons and exploring students' interaction to the teachers' questions.. The findings of the

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

*****************

PHẠM THANH XUÂN MỪNG

EXPLORING THE USE OF TEACHER’S QUESTIONING AND STUDENTS’ INTERACTION IN SPEAKING CLASSES AT TRAN HUNG DAO HIGH SCHOOL

(NGHIÊN CỨU TÌM HIỂU VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CÂU HỎI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN

VÀ TƯƠNG TÁC CỦA HỌC SINH TRONG GIỜ DẠY NÓI

TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT TRẦN HƯNG ĐẠO)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Hanoi – 2015

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

*****************

PHẠM THANH XUÂN MỪNG

EXPLORING THE USE OF TEACHER’S QUESTIONING AND STUDENTS’ INTERACTION IN SPEAKING CLASSES AT TRAN HUNG DAO HIGH SCHOOL

(NGHIÊN CỨU TÌM HIỂU VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CÂU HỎI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN

VÀ TƯƠNG TÁC CỦA HỌC SINH TRONG GIỜ DẠY NÓI

TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT TRẦN HƯNG ĐẠO)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Dr Vũ Thị Thanh Nhã

Hanoi – 2015

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the minor thesis entitled “Exploring the Use of Teacher’s Questioning and Students' Interaction in Speaking classes at Tran Hung Dao High School” is the result of my own work and effort in partial

fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at Faculty of Post- Graduate Studies, Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University The material in this research has not been submitted

to any other university or institution wholly and partially

Phạm Thanh Xuân Mừng

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would, first of all, like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Vu Thi Thanh Nha for her valuable suggestions, enthusiasm, academic guidance, encouragement and precious advice on the thesis

I would like to show my sincere thanks to all my lecturers at the Postgraduate Studies Department, University of Language and International Studies, Vietnam

National University, Hanoi for their valuable lectures, which laid the foundation for this study

My thanks also go to the teachers and students at Tran Hung Dao High School where my study was carried out

Last but not least, my heartfelt thanks go to my family for their support and encouragement throughout my study in Nam Dinh

ABSTRACT

This study was conducted with 3 teachers and 132 students of grade 10 at Tran Hung Dao High School with the data collected from the class observations in the classroom settings The study focused on finding out the types of questions the teachers used in English speaking lessons and exploring students' interaction to the teachers' questions

The findings of the study showed that the three teachers used three main types

of questions, namely display questions, referential questions and yes/no questions in which the display questions were most frequently asked, followed by yes/no questions and referential questions were rarely asked Regarding the purposes of questions, display questions were mainly asked with diagnostic and instructional functions Yes/no questions aimed to function as diagnostic and motivational tools The purpose of referential questions was to motivate students by asking information about students themselves Also, the findings indicated that most of the students‟ responses were very brief, with one to three words and many questions were not answered Longer responses up to nine words could be found in a few instances However, these longer responses accounted for a small percentage Besides, the use

of referential questions in the investigated lessons did not seem to be successful and effective The findings revealed that there were not many longer responses when referential questions were asked Next, the way that the teacher asked the students

to explain their answers resulted in longer responses However, most of the teachers did not focus on follow-up questions or the ways of giving feedback In brief, the teachers at THD High School were not skillful in using their questioning and need training more in applying this technique in speaking

Therefore, this thesis proposes some useful implications to the teachers who want to have more effective questioning in order to promote interaction in their classroom It is also hoped that the results of the thesis will provide useful information and lessons for those who want to do research at the schools with similar teaching conditions

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT: Communicative Language Teaching

THD: Tran Hung Dao

Y/N Question: Yes/No Question

LIST OF TABLES

Page Table 1: The summary of the class observation data 20

Table 2: Examples of different types of teacher questions 22

Table 3: Types of questions asked by the three teachers 24

Table 4: The length of students’ responses for different types

of questions asked by the three teachers

28

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

LIST OF TABLES v

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale of the study 1

1.2 Significance of the study 2

1.3 Aims, objectives of the study and research questions 3

1.4 Scope of the study 3

1.5 Method of the research 4

1 6 Organization of the thesis 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Interaction in class 6

2.1.1.What is classroom interaction? 6

2.1.2 The role of classroom interaction in L2 acquisition 7

2.1.3 Interaction Patterns 8

2.2 Teacher‟s questioning in interaction 9

2.2.1 Definition of questions 9

2.2.2 Functions of teachers‟ questions 9

2.2.3 Types of questions 10

2.2.4 Effects of teacher questions 13

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 15

3.1 The setting of the study 15

3.1.1 An overview of the research site 15

3.1.2 English teachers in Tran Hung Dao High School 15

3.1.3 The syllabus of teaching and learning English 10 in Tran Hung Dao High School 16

3.2 Methods of the study 17

3.2.1 The participants of the study 17

3.2.2 Data collection instruments 19

3.2.3 Procedures 21

3.2.4 Methods of Data analysis 21

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 23

4.1 Findings 23

4.1.1 Types of questions the teachers asked frequently in the investigated lessons 24

4.1.2 Effects of the types of questions teachers asked on the students‟ interaction 27

4.2 Discussion 33

4.2.1 Types of questions the teachers asked frequently in the whole class teaching portion of the lessons 33

4.2.2 Effects of the types of questions teachers asked on the students‟ interaction 34

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS 38

5.1 Conclusion 38

5.2 Implications 39

5.3 Limitations and suggestions for further studies 41

REFERENCES 43 APPENDIX : OBSERVATION SHEET I

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study

English has been seen as the most important foreign language in Vietnam since the 6th National Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party in 1986 initiated an overall economic reform known as “Doi moi” Young people realize the need of learning English for a plenty of reasons such as getting jobs in foreign companies, studying abroad, and travelling Nevertheless, according to Van (2006), the quality of teaching and learning foreign languages at both general and tertiary levels in Vietnam is still very low, which is far from meeting the present country‟s demand of socio-economic development

“Though the aims of the curriculum at secondary school are to train the four skills and students‟ required language proficiency is upper-intermediate level However, their real level is just somewhere between elementary and lower-intermediate Many school leavers cannot read simple texts in English nor communicate with English speaking people in some most common cases Actually the real focus of teaching and learning English

in both lower secondary and secondary schools is completing English grammar and vocabulary exercises, in order to pass the final exams (even the entrance exams of many universities and colleges in Vietnam) which mainly consist of grammar and vocabulary tasks only” (Tien, 2013, p.66)

This situation is true in my teaching context at Tran Hung Dao High School

in Nam Dinh Our students learn English to pass the compulsory exams, so they practise doing exercises relating to the tests such as grammar, vocabulary, reading skills and pronunciation Although teaching methodology has changed from translation method to communicative method, students do not focus on speaking and listening skills For them, these skills will be practiced later when they have entered university The consequence is that students cannot communicate despite the fact that they have been learning English for many years This way of students‟ thinking has an influence on teaching and learning speaking in class As a teacher, I

realize the need to help students master speaking skill as well as find out how to teach students this skill effectively

There exist a number of techniques useful for teaching speaking skill, one of which is teacher‟s questioning Questioning plays a pivotal role not only in teaching speaking skill in particular but also in teaching learning English in general (Gall, 1970) “Questioning has been considered as one of the most essential and important techniques during instructional processes since Socrates times Questioning takes up most of teacher talk and it has been proved to have a great influence on classroom interaction”( Xiaoyan, 2008, p.93) Obviously, many studies (Long & Sato, 1983; Brock, 1986; Shomooshi, 1997; Camak, 2009) have focused on the use of questioning as a universal pedagogical approach Despite these studies and their findings, how teachers ask effective questions to create students‟ interaction is an under-researched issue in my context My big concern is whether teachers at Tran Hung Dao High School effectively use teacher‟s questioning in speaking classes or not My interest in finding out teacher‟s questioning and students‟ interaction in

speaking classes has inspired me to do a study titled “Exploring the Use of Teacher’s Questioning and Students' Interaction in Speaking classes at Tran Hung Dao High School”

1.2 Significance of the study

Theoretical significance of the study: The study synthesized the

understanding of teacher questioning in terms of the types of question, functions of questions and the effects of teacher‟s questioning on students‟ interaction in speaking Moreover, the study suggested how to effectively use teacher‟s questioning in speaking classes in English 10 to stimulate students‟ interaction

Practical significance of the study: The study was conducted with the

expectation that its results would be useful for myself, for my students and for my

colleagues at Tran Hung Dao (THD) High School Based on the findings, conclusion can be made on what types of questions should be applied and how to use them in speaking classes in English 10 to enhance students‟ interaction Hence,

it can be a considerable contribution to teaching and learning speaking skill effectively and enjoyably at THD High School More importantly, findings in this project can, hopefully, be first steps to further study or discovery to encourage students to speak English with confidence The research might inspire students to speak English-the skill used to be challenging with them

1.3 Aims, objectives of the study and research questions

The research aims to explore the use of teacher questioning and students' interaction in speaking classes at Tran Hung Dao High School Thus, the objectives

of the thesis are:

1 finding out question types used by teachers in speaking classes with specific purposes;

2 determining the effects of teacher‟s questioning on students‟ interaction and

3 giving suggestions and recommendations in using teacher questioning in order to raise teacher‟s effective questions at Tran Hung Dao High School

Based on the objectives of the thesis, the research questions are:

1 What question types are used by teachers in speaking classes?

2 What are the effects of teacher‟s questioning on students‟ interaction?

1.4 Scope of the study

There are a variety of techniques to stimulate students' interaction in class activities However, because of the time and length constraint of the study we only focused on teacher questioning, which is considered to occur in almost every lesson and to be teachers‟ important technique

Among performance indicators for language skills, reading, speaking, writing, and listening, speaking was chosen for our study We chose this skill because of the following reasons Firstly, it is the skill that my students need improving and do not pay enough attention to Secondly, it is the best in expressing the students' verbal interaction Lastly, it is easy to observe and record

The study focused on the student-instructor interaction only

The study was conducted with 3 teachers and 3 classes of grade 10 in 6 periods Each period lasted 45 minutes

1.5 Method of the research

The study was conducted in the following procedures:

First, class observation was designed to study teacher questioning including

the types of questions, functions of questions and students‟ interaction to teacher questioning in speaking lessons

Then, the data were collected, sorted and analyzed quantitatively and

qualitatively to obtain realistic results

Finally, pedagogical implications for the use of teacher questioning to raise

teacher‟s effective questions were proposed based on the results found from the data collection instrument

1 6 Organization of the thesis

The thesis consists of five chapters, appendices, and references

Chapter 1, Introduction, states the reasons why the study is carried out, the

significance of the study, the target, research questions, the scope, the method of the study and an overview of the thesis

Chapter 2, Literature review, presents the relevant theoretical basis for the

study, relating to student interaction and teacher‟s questioning in language classroom, and previous studies relating to the field

Chapter 3, Methodology, describes the research methods and

instruments used for the completion of the work, that is the description of how the study is implemented, namely the setting, participants, data collection instruments, data

collection procedures and methods of data analysis

Chapter 4, Findings and Discussions, presents, analyzes and discusses the

findings

Chapter 5, Conclusion and Implications, presents three sections The first

section presents the conclusion of our study The second section gives some

implications for using teacher‟s questioning effectively in speaking classes The last section discusses the limitations of the study and suggests further studies

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, we review the theoretical background and previous studies related to

the research area of the thesis: teacher-student interaction and teacher‟s questioning

in language classroom Hence, this chapter is divided into 2 sections The first one indicates interaction in class including definitions of classroom interaction, role of classroom interaction in second language (L2) acquisition and patterns of classroom interaction The second section looks into teacher‟s questions as an aspect of classroom interaction in EFL context This section consists of definition of questions, functions of teacher‟ questions, types of questions and effects of questions on students‟ interaction

2.1 Interaction in class

2.1.1.What is classroom interaction?

In the era of communicative language teaching (CLT), students learn to communicate through interaction in the target language Interaction is the heart of communication and it is what communication is all about (Brown, 1994) So far, it has been defined in a number of different ways

First of all, Ellis (1994, p.11) defines interaction as "when the participants of equal status that share similar need, make an effort to understand each other" Interaction, based on Brown's (2007) definition, is the collaborative exchange of thoughts, feelings, or ideas between two or more people resulting in a reciprocal effect on each other Sharing the same view, Wells (1981) believes that interaction is a collaborative activity involving a triangular relationship between the sender, the receiver and the context of situation In brief, interaction relates to a collaborative effect between two or more participants in a specific context

Applying the understanding about interaction in a language classroom context, Hall (2000) claims that classroom interaction is simple It is the talk that occurs in the classrooms between teachers and students and among students Long (1980, p.47) gives a clearer definition: "Interaction is used in general sense, referring

to any sort of classroom interaction, student-student or teacher-student interaction, group discussions, and any type of classroom participation"

While the above views of classroom interactions were considered, we take Brown's (2007) view because it is salient in our classroom context when speaking skill

is taught It means that in the context of this study classroom interaction is defined as the communication between the teacher and the students to exchange thoughts, feeling

or ideas about any topic in the lessons in classroom context This study focuses on the teacher student interaction because “the quality of this interaction is thought to have a considerable influence on learning" (Ellis, 1986, p.395) Ellis (1986) argues that successful learning depended more on the type of interaction than the method used While interaction amongst learners is also a vital issue, this area is not the focus of the current study

2.1.2 The role of classroom interaction in L2 acquisition

Interaction is the key to L2 learning and it is really necessary for second language acquisition (Ellis, 2008) There have been a number of other studies about the role of interaction in L2, Brown (2007) finds that interaction is an important word for language teachers; it is the heart of language teaching and learning Sharing the same viewpoint, Hall and Verplaetse (2000) insist on the importance of interaction that teachers and students work together to create the intellectual and practical activities that shape both the form and the content of the target language as well as the processes and outcomes of individual development through their interaction with each other

Another role of interaction emphasized by Thomas (1987) is that it is interaction that forms the basis of an effective pedagogy for L2 instruction Interaction itself fosters the acquisition of communicative linguistic skills-the major objective in the L2 curriculum He stresses that interaction in language classroom will lead learners to better learning and will activate their competence; an increase

in the amount of classroom interaction will help foreign language learners learn the target language easily and quickly

Considering all different views about roles of interaction in L2 learning

presented above, we could conclude that interaction plays an important role not only

in shaping the patterns of communication in L2 classroom but also in creating

opportunities for students to use language for classroom learning and L2

acquisition Different interaction patterns will be described in the next section

2.1.3 Interaction Patterns

Given interaction patterns, Moore (1989) reports that interaction comes in

many shapes and factions They include learner-learner interaction, learner-content

interaction and learner-instructor interaction While learner-learner interaction is

defined as interaction between one learner and other learners alone or in groups

with or without the real time presence of an instructor, learner-content interaction is

referred to as interaction between the learner and the content of the subject of the

study Learner-instructor interaction is defined as the interaction between the learner

and the teacher Looking at interaction from another perspective, Thomas (1987)

believes that there are two kinds of interaction: verbal interaction and pedagogic

interaction Verbal interaction is a continuous, shifting process of speech acts, social

actions performed through language by addresser, and intended to have some sort of

effect upon the addressee Pedagogic interaction parallels verbal interaction but the

difference is that pedagogic interaction is the interaction between teaching and

learning

In the literature on classroom discourse, among interaction patterns, the

three-move (or triadic) initiation-response-feedback (IRF) pattern, originally

described by Sinclair and Coulthard (1975), is traditionally considered as the basic

unit of analysis This pattern is made up of three turns: the teacher initiates a

linguistic interaction (generally directing a question to a selected child), the pupil

provides a response, and the teacher replies with feedback Research on classroom

interaction shows that IRF is a pervasive and dominant pattern, and a fundamental

feature of classroom talk (Liu, 2008)

Our study is conducted in the classroom and the focus is teacher questioning; therefore, the focused interaction in this project is teacher-student oral interaction or teacher-student verbal interaction

2.2 Teacher’s questioning in interaction

Questioning has been, for thousands of years, one of the most popular techniques of teaching and serves as the principal way in which teachers control the classroom interaction and much class time has been devoted to it In order to make teacher‟s questioning understood clearly, we are going to present definition of questions, functions of teachers‟ questions, types of teacher‟s questions and effects

of teacher‟s questions herein

2.2.1 Definition of questions

Questions have been given different ways of definition Questions are generally concerned with information-seeking and stimulate some kind of mental activity or thinking (Hunkins, 1989) A question is broadly defined as any sentence having either an interrogative form or function (Riegle, 1974) Questions are instructional cues or stimuli that convey the content elements to be learned and directions for what they [students] are to do and how they are to do it ( Levin& Long,1981) In summary, we support Hunkins‟s (1989) view on the definition of questions because it is suitable for our teaching context

2.2.2 Functions of teachers’ questions

There are many distinct functions for the various questions that are used in classrooms It is important to actively consider the functions for the questions asked

According to Ur (1996), teachers can use questions to attract students in the lesson and make them participate actively through speech By using questioning techniques, teachers can get students to be active in their learning and they not only provide poor students with a chance to take part in but also encourage students to be self-confident

According to Kauchak and Eggen (1989, cited in Xiaoyan , 2008, p.93), the functions can be basically grouped into three categories: diagnostic, instructional and motivational, but a single question can usually serve more than one function As

a diagnostic tool, classroom questions allow the teacher to glimpse into the minds of students to find out not only what they know or don‟t know but also how they think about a topic The instructional function means that questions can be used as a technique to facilitate learners to learn the new knowledge in the learning process

As to motivational function, skillful use of questions can effectively involve students in the classroom discourse, encouraging and challenging them to think

Kindsvatter and Ishler (1988) claim that as a two-way interaction, questioning process has its potential to stimulate students‟ interaction, thinking and learning The use of questions can thus change the way of teacher monologue and involve students in the active classroom interaction, which is much helpful to the development of their language competence

To sum up, questions can function as tools of diagnosis, instruction and motivation It is vital to determine the purposes and functions of questions before making questions because they can help teachers scaffold their types of questions

1 Knowledge: the recalling of formerly-learned material

2 Comprehension: the ability to understand the meaning

3 Application: the ability to use learned materials such as rules, methods, concepts, principles, laws and theories in new and concrete situations

4 Inference: the ability to form conclusions that are not directly stated in instructional materials

5 Analysis: the ability to breakdown material into its elements so that its organizational structure may be understood This may involve the classification of parts, exploration of the association between them, and identification of organizational principles

6 Synthesis: the ability to collect different parts and put them together to create a new whole Synthesis encourages learners to form something new and rely

on innovative and creative thinking

7 Evaluation: the ability to assess the value of materials, the explanation to problems or the details about particular cultures

From another perspective, Barnes (1976, cited in Ellis, 2008, p.797), for instance, distinguishes four types of questions: (1) factual questions (e.g What?), (2) reasoning questions (e.g How?, Why?), (3) open questions, which require no reasoning, (4) social questions, that are questions that affect learner behavior through controlling or appealing Barnes (1976) also makes a distinction between closed questions (i.e questions that are structured with just one acceptable answer

in mind) and open questions (i.e questions that permit a number of different acceptable answers)

The next category of questions, display/referential questions, relates to the nature of interaction generated (Tsui, 1995) For display questions, the teacher already knows the answers They are asked in order to check if the students know the answers On the contrary, for referential questions, the teacher does not know the answers and the students answer the questions in order to give the teacher information (Tsui, 1995) It is believed that closed or display questions elicit “short, mechanical responses” while open or referential questions elicit “lengthy, often complex responses” (Ho, 2005, p.298) Another type of questions, the yes/no questions, is categorized by Thompson (1997) according to “the grammatical form

of the question”

It seems that open or referential questions are more preferred on pedagogical grounds because they are the questions commonly asked in the „real world‟ of

students outside the classroom (Long & Sato, 1983) However, “there is a divergence between what theorists would consider to be good practice and what is actually going on in classrooms”(Banbrook & Skehan, 1989, p.142) In a traditional language classroom, factual questions are the most common while open questions are the least common (Myhill, Jones, & Hopper, 2006) Also, in Burns and Myhill‟s (2004) research study in which episodes of fifteen minutes from 54 lessons were drawn from Year 2 and Year 6 classes, the analyses showed that the most common form of questions asked by the teachers is the factual questions (64%)

In general, each author has their own way of classifying questions In our study, we use both Tsui‟s (1995) categories and Thompson‟s (1997) types to code our data, which means that we use 3 types of questions: wh-questions including display questions, referential questions and yes/no questions The reason for our choice of display questions, referential questions and yes/no questions is that they signal the types of responses related to meaningful communication in the language classroom Display questions refer to questions whose answers the teacher knows whereas referential questions are those that students answer to give the teacher information (Tsui, 1995; Xiaoyan, 2008) Moreover, display questions limit students‟ responses to one word or phrase answers In contrast, referential questions provide opportunities for students to express their thoughts and ideas, listen to divergent opinions from fellow classmates and develop their confidence to move beyond conventional patterns of thinking (Chi, 2010; James & Carter, 2006) For yes/no questions, they can be used for a number of purposes, for example, to request information, to display or test knowledge or as rhetoric (Thompson, 1997) Although answering to yes/no questions is quick and efficient, the posing of such questions does not allow students to become initiators of communication However, there is a tendency to commonly use this type of questions The tendency to rely on such questions will affect students‟ performance in other areas of skill development (Chi, 2010) In our study, we investigated students‟ interaction in speaking classes; therefore, we intended to explore how the three types of questions asked by the

investigated teachers would influence students‟ interaction and whether these questions could stimulate long conversations in speaking classes

2.2.4 Effects of teacher questions

The effects of display questions on students‟ discourse patterns were generally considered to be negative but positive for referential questions (Chi, 2010) Brock (1986) conducted a research study in which the effects of referential questions on adult ESL classroom discourse were investigated In this study, four experienced ESL teachers and twenty-four non-native speakers (NNSs) enrolled in classes in the University of Hawaii‟s English Language Institute were involved Two of the teachers were trained to use referential questions in classroom activities while the other two teachers were not provided with any training The findings showed that the treatment-group teachers asked more referential questions than did the control-group teachers Each teacher was randomly assigned to teach six students for a period of forty minutes The findings also indicated that the students‟ responses in the treatment-group classes were significantly longer and syntactically more complex than those in the control-group classes This suggests a positive correlation between asking referential questions and students‟ production of target language In Ernst‟s (1994) research, it was found out that when the teacher asked display questions, students‟ responses were brief, with little elaboration Lastly, Goodwin (2001, p.11, cited in Myhill, Jones, & Hopper, 2006, p.15) argues that

“pupil responses tend to be short, and the teacher does not encourage elaboration of responses” when the display questions are asked For the yes/no questions suggested by Thompson (1997), Gower, Philips, and Walters (1995, cited in Thompson, 1997) point out that these questions are easier for learners to answer and they do not need to produce much language output

In general, the results of the previous studies have proved that teachers frequently use display questions in class while they rarely ask referential questions Also, the findings show the responses elicited by display questions are usually brief, with little elaboration; however, the responses to referential questions are usually

longer and syntactically more complex In our study, we aim to find out the types of questions asked frequently in the lessons by the teachers and their effects on the students‟ interaction

To sum up, the theoretical backgrounds of the study concerning student interaction and teacher‟s questioning in language classroom have been reviewed in chapter 2 In the next chapter, we are going to describe the methodological issues of the study

teacher-CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

Chapter 2 has reviewed the theoretical backgrounds of the study including definitions of classroom interaction, role of classroom interaction in second language (L2) acquisition, patterns of classroom interaction, definition of questions, functions of teacher‟ questions, types of questions and effects of questions on students‟ interaction This chapter describes the setting of the study, data collection instruments, participants, data analysis procedures, and methods of data analysis

3.1 The setting of the study

3.1.1 An overview of the research site

Tran Hung Dao High School, where the study was conducted, is a public school situated in Nam Dinh city in Nam Dinh province It has 35 classes with 1460 students in the school year of 2014-2015 The average number of students in each class is 45 Being one of the best schools in Nam Dinh province, it is cared and invested by both Nam Dinh Department of Education and Training and the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training The school is equipped with modern facilities supporting for learning and teaching English effectively such as computers, projectors, cassette players and language teaching labs The classrooms are separated from the road; therefore, the students are not disturbed by noise The principal of the school always pays attention to English subject; therefore, she organizes English competitions such as English public speaking contest, and Olympic contest Moreover, English is a compulsory subject in any exam of the school Students also have opportunities to communicate with native speakers thanks to native volunteers coming to work at school The above information partly reflects the administrators‟ attitude to English teaching and learning at the school

In general, students have good studying condition

3.1.2 English teachers in Tran Hung Dao High School

In school year 2014-2015, there are nine English teachers at Tran Hung Dao high school, all of whom have graduated from pedagogic universities and have English teaching experience for years, aged from 31 to 52 Among nine teachers of

English, two had chances to go to Singapore for improvement in Methodology Eight out of nine teachers have a C1 certificate On average, one teacher gives fifteen to seventeen lessons per week along with a great deal of such work as preparing and marking tests, training gifted students, training students for IOE and English public speaking contest organized every year Since students‟ demand is to pass the exams and the principal, as well as the parents of the students judge the teachers basing on the students‟ results, many teachers focus on teaching for exams They pay more attention to providing exercises to help students practise skills for exams than teaching students skills for communication Moreover, some teachers adopt old-style methods in which teachers provide knowledge and students take notes and do drills In brief, the teacher‟s English language is recommended to be good enough to teach English for general courses, but their method of teaching is still problematic

3.1.3 The syllabus of teaching and learning English 10 in Tran Hung Dao High School

Like other high schools in the country, English is a compulsory subject in the curriculum at Tran Hung Dao High School “Tiếng Anh 10” prescribed by the Ministry of Education and Training are edited for the seven-year program from

“Tiếng Anh 6” to “Tiếng Anh 12” “Tiếng Anh 10” was introduced in the whole country in 2006 and has been applied in teaching and learning English since then

“Tiếng Anh 10” includes sixteen units which are theme-based and divided into 105 forty-five minute periods during 35 weeks of a school year Nevertheless, according

to the Ministry of Education and Training, Unit 15 is omitted in order to decrease pressure on students Sixteen units deal with different themes such as daily life, social issues, sports, music which may interest students more in the subject Each unit consists of five parts namely reading, speaking, listening, writing and language focus The content of most five parts is presented through task-based teaching More importantly, units cover all four language skills adequately and allow for an integration of skills before and after stages Thus, it seems to look more

communicative than the old one which focuses almost on reading and grammar After every three lessons, there is a consolidation to check students‟ achievement in the previous lessons

The teaching procedure of a speaking lesson consists of three stages: Pre, While and Post speaking Following is a brief description of what usually occurs during the speaking lesson In the first stage teachers introduce the topic and ask students to talk about it; what they know about the topic, or guide to use some useful expressions In the second stage, teacher and students discuss and complete speaking tasks in the textbook Group work or pair work may be used in this stage In the last stage, students' oral production is freely encouraged in activities such as role-play, games, questions for discussion

In short, the new textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” brings a new way of teaching and learning English at Tran Hung Dao High School compared to the old curriculum It

is obvious that when a new textbook is applied, it will cause teachers some challenges However, teachers were provided workshops to share opinions and provided with useful instructions on how to use this new textbook effectively If this new textbook is effectively used, it can help students reach their English proficiency

at some levels

3.2 Methods of the study

This section presents the participants of the study, the data collection instruments, the data collection procedures and the method of data analysis

3.2.1 The participants of the study

3.2.1.1 The teacher participants

The participants of the study include three teachers of English teaching grade

10 at Tran Hung Dao High School The teachers were given pseudonyms as Teacher A, Teacher B and Teacher C because we do not want to use their real names in order to keep their private rights The reason for my choice of these participants is that there are five teachers teaching grade 10 but only three of them teach the standard syllabus and textbook Two of them teach the experienced

textbook which is a new textbook in the experiencing process to consider the practicability This experienced textbook is applied in some classes in specific schools Among three teachers of English, ranging from 32 to 52 years with 9 to 28 years‟ teaching experience, two are young and eager to apply new methods in teaching English The two teachers have a C1 certificate The rest one is 52 years old and rather traditional in teaching method This teacher has not got a C1 certificate To sum up, the professional skill of the three teachers is not equal This may result in the difference in their questioning

3.2.1.2 The student participants

A group of 132 students from 3 classes in Tran Hung Dao High School are chosen to participate in the research The criterion of choosing the three classes observed for this study was mainly on the basis of convenience of the chosen teachers The three classes were also given pseudonyms as class A, class B and class C in order to match with the teachers teaching these classes All of the students are at the age of fifteen and have been learning English for at least 4 years Most of the students, who enrolled in our school, come from Nam Dinh city, Nam Dinh province Two classes (class A and class B) follow route D and one class (class C) follows route A The students following route D focus on Maths, Literature, English while the students following route A focus on Maths, Physics, Chemistry They prioritize these subjects for their university entrance exam While students following route A had three periods of English per week, students following route D had an extra period per week called an optional period in which teachers can make lesson plans based on their students‟ need

The students of the two groups have different interests, attitude towards English, background and academic ability While the students who follow route D are interested in studying English and see the importance of English, the students following route A seem to be indifferent to English Because students choose the route basing on their interests, background and academic ability, the students of route D are generally better at English than those of route A Even though the

students of route D are interested in English and they are motivated to study it for the entrance exam, the level of students in each class is different Due to working with different level students, the teachers cannot avoid using Vietnamese to introduce a new item or explain what the students do not understand in the classroom This may help the students understand the lesson more but it may reduce the number of oral exchanges in English between the teachers and their students The students who follow route A do not pay enough attention to English However, due

to the new policy of the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training which considers English to be the compulsory subject of the National Exam, the students

in the whole school care this subject more Generally speaking, students are better at grammar, vocabulary and reading skills than at speaking and listening skills In addition, a large number of 10th grade students at Tran Hung Dao High School may not be aware of the importance of speaking skill

3.2.2 Data collection instruments

Because the purpose of this study was to obtain a deeper understanding of teacher questioning and teacher-student interaction in the language classroom, a qualitative approach was employed to discover their questions in the classroom context and to describe the classroom interaction pattern More specifically, to meet the purpose of the study and answer the two research questions, the class observation -a technique of a qualitative study is methodologically appropriate for the researcher

to contextually unfold the teachers' questioning practice and its effects on students‟ interaction

3.2.2.1 Class observations

Non-participant observation was the data gathering method It supplied direct data of teacher questioning and its effects on students‟ interaction when the students and lecturers were together in the classroom According to Nunan and Bailey (2009), the classroom observation data can be both manually and electronically collected

In this study, I observed the lessons taught by the three teachers using field note, video recording and audio taping Because the 10th students have only one lesson

of speaking skill per unit, there are 8 lessons of speaking in each term However, I started to observe in April, 2015 when the teachers finished teaching unit 12 Thus, I could only carry out 2 observations in each class from April, 2015 to the end of the

second term of the school year The total lessons observed were 6 lessons

Table 1: The summary of the class observation data

categories, with private talk among the teachers and their students during group, pair or individual work being excluded The procedure involved identifying selected bits of data

as belonging to a certain class or category I chose observation categories for analyzing teacher-student interaction because observation categories can be useful in focusing the observers' attention and in addressing some research questions (Nunan & Bailey, 2009)

3.2.3 Procedures

For classroom observation, one week before observing, I talked to the students who participated in the study about my attendance in the classroom in order to make the students feel comfortable and familiar to me During the observations, I observed the classes from beginning to the end of each session, taking notes of teachers‟ questions and video-recording or audio-recording at the same time with note-taking, writing down the amount of teacher-student interaction, the learners' responses to different types of questions on the observation sheet At the end of the lesson, observation data were categorized into exchanges between teachers and students, question types and length of responses from students

3.2.4 Methods of Data analysis

The researcher used the method advocated by Bouma (1996), i.e categories and tables to deal with the qualitative data gained from the observation sheets All the percentage of questions and that of responses from the class observations were counted into tables under sub-headings of each main area

• Teacher‟s question types

• Students' responses

Based on these analysis, interpretation, and discussions were then given

3.2.4.1 Teacher’s question types

To identify the questions asked by the three teachers, through the quantitative analyses of the lesson transcripts, the number of different types of teacher including yes/no questions, display questions, and referential questions was counted

Table 2: Examples of different types of teacher’s questions

( Unit 13, Teacher A) Referential question - What kinds of films do you know?

(Unit 13, Teacher C) Yes/No question - Have you ever been to Ho Chi Minh mausoleum?

(Unit 16, Teacher B)

3.2.4.2 Effects of teacher’s questions on students’ interaction

In order to find out the effects of the types of questions the teachers asked

on students‟ production of the target language, the lesson transcripts were analyzed quantitatively by calculating the average length (that is, the number of words) of the students‟ responses to the three types of teacher‟s questions (Chi, 2010) Similarly

to Brock‟s (1986) study, for the purpose of this study, only those responses that immediately followed the teachers‟ eliciting moves were considered Once the teachers spoke again, the responses were considered to have ended

In summary, the whole chapter has presented the methodological issues of the study It described the theoretical foundation of the study and how the study was designed to answer the research questions For the purpose of exploration and comprehension, class observations were used to collect data The setting, participants, data collection procedures, and data analysis were also described

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Chapter 3 has described the methodological design of the study including the setting, the participants, the actual data collection, the data collection procedure and the methods of data analysis Chapter 4 presents findings from the observation data with three teachers These findings focus on the types of questions asked by teachers in speaking classes at Tran Hung Dao High School and the effects of teacher‟s questioning on students‟ interaction Two major findings are reported herein

4.1 Findings

This section presents findings from observation under such categories as the types of questions, students‟ responses The data were analyzed by counting three types of questions in each lesson and the number of words of the students‟ responses to the three types of teachers‟ questions When analyzing the data, I encountered the following situations First, there were some questions asked in the lessons that only aimed to elicit students‟ non-verbal reaction For example, “Who can make up a dialogue with me Raise your hand, please” (Teacher C) or “Who can answer my question?” (Teacher A) Here, though the teacher did not know the answers of the questions, she expected students‟ non-linguistic reaction only (i.e raising their hands) Second, the teachers wrote the questions in the model of the textbook on the board to instruct students and get their attention, but they did not require students to answer these questions Third, the teachers asked students to look at the questions in the textbook and base on them to do the task In order to calculate exactly how many questions were asked by the teachers, these types of questions were not counted in our study because we focused on the verbal

interaction between teachers and students

4.1.1 Types of questions the teachers asked frequently in the investigated lessons

We aimed to find out the types of questions the teachers asked frequently in speaking classes The findings of our study are presented in table 3 Generally, the question types and functions vary across teachers and lessons

Table 3: Types of questions asked by the three teachers

Yes/No

questions

4 (30,8%) 0

8 (36,4%)

17 (56,6%)

1 (11,1%)

3 (50%)

33 (36,7%) Display

questions

2 (15,4%)

8 (89%)

12 (54,6%)

12 (40,1%)

3 (33,3%)

3 (50%)

40 (44,4%) Referential

questions

7 (53,8%)

1 (11%)

2 (9%)

1 (3,3%)

5 (55,6%) 0

17 (18,9%)

Total of 3

types of

questions

13 (100%)

9 (100%)

22 (100%)

30 (100%)

9 (100%)

6 (100%)

90 (100%)

Indeed, the three teachers used display questions the most often (44,4%) The yes/no questions ranked second with 36,7% while the referential ones accounted for only 18,9% In addition, the number of questions varied among lessons The questions were asked the most often in unit 16 of teacher B (30 questions) while only 6 questions were used in unit 16 of teacher C The table indicates that some teachers asked more questions than others Teacher B asked the most questions (52 questions), followed by teacher A (22 questions ) and teacher C asked the fewest questions (15 questions)

It can be found from the table that each teacher had their own way of using types of questions as well as determining the purposes of their questions This seems to be natural since not all teachers think alike, and not all of them teach in the

same way (Shomoossi, 1997) For example, teacher B asked much more questions than the two other teachers On average, she asked 26 questions per class while the average number of questions of the others was 11 and 7,5 questions per class It can

be seen from the table that teacher B asked the majority of display questions in unit

14 (54,6%), 8 (36,4%) yes/no questions and only 2(9%) referential questions In unit 16, she asked 30 questions; however, more than half of the questions asked were yes/no questions (17 questions), followed by 12 display questions and 1 referential question Contrary to teacher B, teacher C asked the fewest questions in

2 units (15 questions) Her distribution of types of questions in unit 13 was different from that of unit 16 The difference of distribution of types of questions in two units resulted from the topics of these units Unit 13 is about Films and Cinema, which is familiar to students, but topic of unit 16 is Historical Places, which does not interest students The students also lacked background of Historical Places She asked 5 referential questions (55,6%) in unit 13 but no referential questions were used in unit 16 33,3% of questions belonged to display questions and only 11,1% of questions were yes/no questions in unit 13 However, the number of display questions was the same as that of yes/no questions in unit 16 The similarity of teacher A with the two other teachers is that she asked the number of questions in each unit differently; moreover, the distribution of types of questions in each unit was different In unit 13, referential questions were asked most frequently (53,8%), followed by yes/no questions (30,8%) Only 2 questions asked in unit 13 belonged

to display questions whereas display questions were asked most frequently in unit

14 ( 89%) In unit 14, there was 1 referential question and no yes/no questions

Regarding the purposes of questions, yes/no questions were used for various purposes They aimed to ask students‟ knowledge and their experience For example, “Have you ever seen “the war between stars”?” (Teacher A – Unit 13);

“Have you ever been to Ho Chi Minh mausoleum?”(Teacher B – Unit 16) and

“President Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum Have you ever been there? Do you know about it?” (Teacher C – Unit 16) This type of questions was also asked to check the

students‟ knowledge of the vocabulary items and to teach the vocabulary items For example, “Look at the example and the table Do you know the “runner-up”? Do you know the “winner”? The “winner” is the first rank and the “runner up” is the second rank” ?” (Teacher B – Unit 14) and “Have you got any questions about vocabulary?” (Teacher C – Unit 16) The next purpose of yes/no questions was to check students‟ understanding of the information in the textbook For instance,

“Can we take photos inside?” (Teacher C – Unit 16) In brief, yes/no questions were used as motivational and diagnostic tools

Display questions were asked for a number of purposes First, the teachers aimed to check students‟ knowledge For example, “Who can tell me which football team in picture 1?” (Teacher B – Unit 14); “What teams are there?” (Teacher A – Unit 14) Second, they asked display questions to check the students‟ knowledge of

the vocabulary items For example, “Citadel, what does this mean?” (Teacher B –

Unit 16) Another example is “what does “tournament” mean?” (Teacher A – Unit 14) The next purpose of display questions was to check students‟ understanding of information in the text book, then guide them to do the task The examples are

“How long did it take to build this construction?” (Teacher B – Unit 16); “Where is President Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum situated/ located?” and “What is the first floor used for?” (Teacher C – Unit 16) Next, display questions were asked to analyze the model in the textbook such as “Study the model in the book Look at the model How many people take part in the dialogue?” (Teacher C – Unit 13) Final, the display questions aimed to provide the model Teacher C in unit 13 was reading and writing the model on the board “which do you prefer: war films or detective films?” To sum up, display questions were mainly asked with diagnostic and instructional functions

Referential questions were asked for the following purposes Firstly, the referential questions were used to ask students‟ opinion and get information from students‟ experience For example, “What is your favourite football team?” (Teacher B – Unit 14); “When did you last visit Ho Chi Minh mausoleum?”

(Teacher B – Unit 16) and “What do you know about these football teams?” (Teacher A – Unit 14); “What kinds of films do you know?”, “What kinds of films

do you watch in your free time?” (Teacher C – Unit 13) Secondly, the teachers used the referential questions to ask about students‟ feeling with such questions as

“How do you feel when you watch these kinds of films?” (Teacher A – Unit 13);

“How much do you like it?”, “What do you think of cartoon films?” (Teacher C – Unit 13) Another purpose of asking referential questions was to expand the student‟s answer by requiring him to explain the reason for his answer For example, the teacher asked “why?” (Teacher C – Unit 13) In general, the teachers asked referential questions to ask information about students themselves Thus, these questions functioned as a motivational tool

In summary, in the whole class teaching portion of the six investigated lessons, the display questions were asked most frequently with diagnostic and instructional functions Yes/no questions ranking second in the frequency of appearance aimed to function as diagnostic and motivational tools On the contrary, except for the lesson of teacher C, referential questions were rarely asked The purpose of referential questions was to motivate students by asking information about students themselves

4.1.2 Effects of the types of questions teachers asked on the students’ interaction

The previous research of Brock (1986) and Ernst (1994) have generally shown a positive correlation between asking referential questions and students‟ production of target language but a negative correlation between asking display questions and the length of students‟ responses (Chi, 2010) The results of the present study showed a different pattern The effects of different types of questions asked by the three teachers in the whole class teaching portion on the length of students‟ responses are summarized in Table 4 below:

Table 4: The length of students’ responses for different types of questions asked by the three teachers

Length of students’ responses