The use of questions by native and non native EFL teachers a comparative analysis of functions

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** KHUẤT MAI AN THE USE OF QUESTIONS BY NATIVE

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

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

KHUẤT MAI AN

THE USE OF QUESTIONS BY NATIVE AND

NON-NATIVE EFL TEACHERS:

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF FUNCTIONS

VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CÂU HỎI BỞI CÁC GIÁO VIÊN BẢN NGỮ VÀ GIÁO VIÊN DẠY TIẾNG ANH NHƯ MỘT NGOẠI NGỮ: MỘT NGHIÊN CỨU SO SÁNH VỀ CHỨC NĂNG

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Hà Nội- 2015

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

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

KHUẤT MAI AN

THE USE OF QUESTIONS BY NATIVE AND

NON-NATIVE EFL TEACHERS:

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF FUNCTIONS

VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CÂU HỎI BỞI CÁC GIÁO VIÊN BẢN NGỮ VÀ GIÁO VIÊN DẠY TIẾNG ANH NHƯ MỘT NGOẠI NGỮ: MỘT NGHIÊN CỨU SO SÁNH VỀ CHỨC NĂNG

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60140111

Supervisor: Dr Trần Hoài Phương

Hà Nội- 2015

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CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY OF STUDY PROJECT REPORT

I certify my authority of the Study Project Report entitled

The use of questions by native and non-native EFL teachers:

a comparative analysis of functions

To total fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts

Khuất Mai An

2015

I would also like to express my thanks to the teachers at Popodoo school who helped me in providing the materials, taking an active part in interviews and making constructive comments

I am also thankful to my students in classes Dopapa 2 and Popodoo 3 at Popodoo school for their whole-heated participation in the study

Last but not least, I owe my sincere thanks to my father, my younger brothers, my husband and my kind-hearted friend – Ms Do An, who have always

inspired and encouraged me to complete this study

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ABSTRACT

A number of young Vietnamese students take extra English lessons at cram schools where classes are taught in English by native speakers of English; however, not much has been studied in such settings in previous literature The research in this minor thesis was carried out to compare and contrast types of question functions which four teachers used to teach two classes of EFL students in a private language school during lessons The variables include the language backgrounds of the teachers, i.e., NS teachers and NNS teachers, and the proficiency levels of the students, i.e., high- and low-proficiency (level D and level B) By recording twenty audio lessons, observing two classes and interviewing NS and NNS teachers, eight types of question functions used by teachers were analyzed and compared in terms of the teacher‟s language background and the students‟ proficiency levels The study found that the class level and the teacher‟s language background, influenced how the teachers formed questions The teachers of high-level students (level D) used more communicative question types, while the teachers with low-level students (level B) preferred instructional questions In addition,

it was found that using the target language as the sole medium in the classroom did not guarantee a communicative learning environment When instructional questions dominated the classroom discourse, the students became passive in the interaction The study suggests that both NS teachers and NNS teachers should monitor the functions and effects of their questioning skills so as to facilitate genuine interaction, even with low-level EFL learners

The thesis consists of three parts The first part is an introduction to the thesis The review of related literature, methodology used in the research study and the findings are all presented in the second part The final part is the pedagogical implications and conclusion of the study, which concurrently concluding remarks and suggests some solutions for teachers Moreover, the limitations of the thesis are pointed out and the areas for further study are put forward in the final part

It is hoped that this thesis will be useful for teachers at Popodoo school in their teaching

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY OF STUDY PROJECT REPORT i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi

LIST OF EXCERPTS vi

LIST OF FIGURES vii

LIST OF TABLES vii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 The aim of the study 3

3 Research questions 4

4 Significance of the study 4

5 Scope of the study 5

6 Organization of the study 6

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 7

Chapter 1: Literature review 7

1.1 Native and non- native teachers of English and classroom interaction 7

1.2 Teacher talk and questions 9

1.3 Studies about EFL teachers‟ and students‟ questioning 18

Chapter 2: Methodology 21

2.1 The aim and research questions 21

2.2 Background of the research site 21

2.3 Materials and teaching approaches 22

2.4 The participants 23

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2.5 Data collection 24

2.6 Data analysis 26

2.7 Coding procedures and reliability 26

Chapter 3: Results 27

PART C: PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION 39

1 Concluding remarks 39

2 Pedagogical Implications 41

3 Limitations and suggestions for further research 43

3.1 Limitations of the study 43

3 2 Suggestions for further research 43

4 References 44

APPENDIX I

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

o Class-H: _High-level class

o Class- L: _Low-level class

o EFL: English as a Foreign Language

o NNS: Non-native speaking teacher

o NS: _Native speaking teacher

Excerpt 1: Ms Elena-NS (L_voice5) 16

Excerpt 2: Ms Kathy- NNS (L_voice4) 30Excerpt 3: Ms Elena – NS (H_voice3) 31

Excerpt 4: Ms Nancy- NNS (H_voice6) Error! Bookmark not defined Excerpt 5: Ms Elena-NS ( H_voice10) Error! Bookmark not defined.

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Communicative levels of the eight question functions 18Figure 2: The percentage use of the four teachers‟ question vs non-question discourses 28Figure 3: The four teachers‟ percentage use of the eight question functions 29Figure 4: The distribution of the four teachers‟ instructional vs

communicative questions 30Figure 5: The percentage use of question functions between the NNS

teachers and NS teachers 32Figure 6: The percentage use of question functions between the Class-L and Class-H teachers 34Figure 7: Class-H‟s percentage use of question functions with NNS-H and

NS-H Error! Bookmark not defined.

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: The Raw Numbers and Percentage Question Use of the Two

Classes with the Four Teachers Error! Bookmark not defined.

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PART A: INTRODUCTION

The rationale, the aim of the study, the research questions, the significance and the scope of the study as well as organization of the study are all dealt with in this part

1 Rationale

Nowadays, learning at least a foreign language is necessary in human‟s life:

“Language is arguably the defining characteristic of the human species and knowledge of language in general, as well as ability to use one‟s first and, at least one other language, should be one of the defining characteristics of the educated

individual” (Nunan, 1999: 71) The world has become smaller It is said it has

turned into the size of the so-called “global village” We are living in the time of immense technological inventions where communication among people has expanded way beyond their local speech communities (Ellis, 1997: 3) Today receiving education, language education not excepting, is not an issue connected exclusively with schools; the time requires everyone to learn throughout their lifetimes Therefore, learning a second language has become a means of keeping up with the pace of the rapidly changing world

English language has gained its significance among a number of foreign languages such as French, Chinese, Russian, Japanese, etc on the world English is the official language in fifty three countries as well as in all the major international organizations, including the United Nations, the European Union and the International Olympic Committee It is the most used language on the Internet, and is currently the language most often taught as a second language around the world (Shahi & Pang, 2009) Moreover, since Vietnam joined WTO in

2006, English has become very important to Vietnamese people to enrich their

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knowledge and to contact with people from other countries Therefore the teaching and learning of English plays an essential role in the development of this country

In Vietnam, in recent years, English as a foreign language has gained considerable attention It has become a compulsory subject in the syllabus of many schools, colleges and universities It has been taught and learnt throughout the country, both urban areas and rural (or remote) ones Even in the countryside, children now start learning English when they are in grade three or four However, Vietnamese people have faced many difficulties in learning English, although English has become an important requirement both at school and at work “Vietnamese students start studying English as early as middle school, with many even learning it in elementary school or kindergarten – just like many other countries where it is spoken as a second language – but few of them can speak the language fluently when they leave high school” (Tuoitrenews, 2013) According

to Assoc Prof Dr Tran Thi Ha - Director, Department of Higher Education - Ministry of Education and Training (MOET): “Only 10.5% of universities conducted survey is to satisfy job requirements for English skills of graduated students The results show that about 49.3% of students‟ statistic requirements of employers, 18.9% of students does not satisfy and 31.8% of students needs more training.” (Hanoimoi, 2015)

Understanding of the requirements of the society, many parents have decided to enroll their children in private foreign language centers where native teachers are teaching This is because they believe that native English-speaking teachers can offer authentic language models to their children, so it is more effective for their children to learn English from native speaking (NS) teachers

To meet the parents‟ expectation, many English cram schools hire NS teachers to teach students at all levels, together with Vietnamese English teachers Hence,

a lesson and facilitating student participation used by many language teachers is asking questions In some classrooms, over half of the class time is taken up with question-and-answer exchanges (Gall, 1984) Teacher question functions are used

as target language input for the students and form an integral part of classroom interaction (Ho, 2005) Nunan (2007: 80) suggests that teachers use questions “to elicit information, to check understanding, and to control behavior.”

Because of all the reasons above, the topic of this thesis is: “The use of questions by native and non-native EFL teachers: a comparative analysis of functions”, which took place in a branch of a chain private English school called Popodoo school

2 The aim of the study

This study aims to compare and contrast types of question functions which four teachers used to teach two classes of EFL students in a private language school during lessons The variables included the language backgrounds of the teachers, i.e., NS teachers and NNS teachers, and the proficiency levels of the students, i.e., high- and low-proficiency

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3 Research questions

The study specifically addresses the following research questions:

1 What are the proportions of questions vs non-question discourse in the four teachers‟ classes?

2 What are the general question functions used by the four teachers?

3 What are the types of question functions used by the NS teachers vs NNS teachers?

4 What are the types of question functions used by the teachers with high in level class and in low level class?

4 Significance of the study

The study is significant because it helps teachers understand more about how NS and NNS teachers used question functions Such understanding will helps EFL teachers set appropriate types of questions functions for the learning context of an EFL classroom Questioning is one of the most common teaching techniques employed by teachers Question and answer exchanges sometimes occupy more than half of the class time (Gall, 1984; Kerry, 2002) The question-and-answer sequence is not only about the transmission of facts or the management of classes but is rather the interactions between the teacher and students in the classroom where the teacher co-constructs learning with students, building on what learners have already known and extending that by asking high-level questions

Furthermore, researchers also have an overview of how teaching and learning take place in private English centers There is a fact that studies regarding EFL teaching and learning at English centers are scarce The reason for this is that taking private language lessons has not been considered a part of the mainstream educational system by academics; moreover, it is more difficult to

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gain access to such an educational environment than to regular school settings for research purposes However, if taking extra English lessons has become a common experience among Vietnamese English learners, this research in a private English center setting is as important as research in other research settings

5 Scope of the study

When it comes to questions, there are many researchers as Quirk,

Hakansson & Lindberg, Tsui, Lyons, Gabrielatos, etc suggested many ways to classify questions, which are form/function, cognitive level, communicative value, communicative orientation of questions, yes-no, open-ended, convergent, divergent, etc However, in this study, the author used Tsui‟s classification She categorized questions based on its‟ elicitation functions: inform, confirm, agree, commit, repeat, and clarify It is because the term „Elicitation‟ is used as “A discourse category to describe any utterance, both inside and outside the classroom which functions to elicit an obligatory verbal or its non-verbal

surrogate.” (Tsui, 1992: 81) Besides, the author also use two more types of

question functions that are pseudo and understanding check question (Shin-Mei Kao, 2012)

When researching on NS teachers and NNS teachers, other researchers will ask or compare many teachers However, in this research, due to the researcher‟s limited ability, time constraints and narrow-scaled study, the researcher only choose 4 teachers (2 NS teachers and 2 NNS teachers) and 2 classes with 24 students they teach

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6 Organization of the study

This study is divided into three main parts

Part A, INTRODUCTION, presents the rationale for choosing the topic, the aims and objectives, the scope, the significance, the methodology and the design

of the study

Part B, DEVELOPMENT, has three following chapters: Chapter One presents the literature review which deals with the theoretical background that precedes and necessitates the formation of our research Chapter Two details the methodology applied in the study including, a brief introduction to the action research design, the setting, participants, instrumentation, and the action research procedure Chapter Three presents results

Part C, PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION, concluding remarks and implications of the results for the teaching of Environmental English studies Limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies are also discussed in this part The last part is references which I read and used in our research and the appendix

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT

Chapter 1: Literature review

This chapter briefly covers the theories related to the study: Native and native teachers of English and classroom interaction, teachers talk and questions, and studies about EFL teachers‟ and students‟ questioning

non-1.1 Native and non- native teachers of English and classroom interaction

As this paper deals with questioning techniques employed by native and non-native teachers of English in EFL classroom interactions, it is important to review the continuing debate about native and non-native teachers

It is indeed the case that the notion of native speaker refers to the people who have natural control over a language and are a reliable source of data for the truth about the language (Ferguson, 1983) Davies (1991) adds, “There is the further sense of ascription, that a person does not choose to be, can‟t help being a native speaker” (p x) It is interesting to note that native speech is some kind of acceptance by other people that creates the distinction between native and non-native speakers Davies (1991) has a similar comment on the issue: “the native speaker boundary is one as much created by non-native speakers as by native speakers themselves” (p 9)

Many Vietnamese people believe that NS teachers are more authoritative in teaching EFL students than NNS teachers because NS teachers teach in their mother tongue Issues related to the teaching styles and efficiency of these two groups of teachers have been explored in previous studies

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In terms of the teachers‟ English proficiency levels, Norton (1997) and Árva and Medgyes (2000) conclude from the results of their surveys and interviews that NS teachers were superior to NNS teachers in speaking, pronunciation, listening, vocabulary, and reading McNeill (1994) suggests that NS teachers can offer more correct usage and are more capable than their NNS counterparts in identifying acceptable and/or unacceptable language produced by their students Medgyes (1992) explains that regardless of their effort NNS teachers could not achieve native-level proficiency because of their “norm -dependent” process of language development and their imitation intention toward native speakers The studies conclude that NS teachers enjoy given superiority over NNS teachers in language proficiency

However, research also points out that NNS teachers outperform NS teachers in realizing the needs of EFL learners Üstünlüoglu (2007) suggests that sharing the same L1 with their students, NNS teachers can effectively explain abstract concepts and manage the class Moreover, NNS teacher can understand students‟ difficulties because they share similar language learning experience with students; as a result, NNS teachers can be aware of structural differences between the two languages, so they can help students deal with these difficulties better than NS teachers McNeill (1994) finds that NNS teachers who share the L1 with the learners are more likely to identify the vocabulary problems of their EFL students, especially those with low proficiency level Phillipson (1996) regards NNS teachers of English as „ideal‟ language teachers since they acquire English as an additional language; they have first-hand experience in learning and using language as a second language, thus this experience sensitizes them to the linguistic and cultural needs of their students

The studies reviewed above suggested that NS teachers provide ideal language models, while NNS teachers offer more effective language learning models Responding to the given differences between the two groups of teachers,

1.2 Teacher talk and questions

1.2.1 Teacher talk

A considerable amount of classroom research has focused on different aspects of teacher talk to which foreign language learners are mainly and frequently exposed in the classroom This focus is mostly on rate of speech, amount of talk, effects of teacher questioning on student performance modifications in discourse, pauses, types of oral feedback, modification in syntax and vocabulary, etc The main conclusions of the studies undertaken on features

of teacher talk (Almeida (2011), Dashwood (2005), Hamayan and Tucker (1980),

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Pica and Long (1986) and Shen (2012)) suggests the following general picture though with some variation (cited by Kayaoğlu, 2013):

 Teacher talk occupies the major proportion of a class hour

 Teachers use shorter utterances with less proficient learners

 Teachers do more repetition with foreign language learners

 Teachers use longer pauses with learners

 Teachers speak more loudly and make their talk more distinct with learners

 Teachers slow down their rate of speech to learners

Given the number of studies on teacher talk and classroom interaction, the issue of questioning has become a prominent topic of academic interest Questions have been considered a valuable pedagogic device for teachers whether

to test students‟ knowledge or to stimulate their thinking The knowledge and skills used in asking different types of questions in a classroom is a critical aspect

of the teaching and learning process to the extent that questions can facilitate language acquisition, production and result in meaningful interaction Thus, learners‟ achievement and their degree of engagement are linked to the types of questions generated and used by teachers in a classroom.In support of this view,Chaudron (1988) states “teachers‟ questions constitute a primary means of engaging learners‟ attention, promoting verbal responses, and evaluating learners‟ progress” (p 126).

According to Pawlak (2004), students are encouraged to participate in the ongoing interaction through questions, and in return teachers use student responses to adjust the whole learning and teaching process from the content to the form of language inputs An increase in the amount of classroom interaction through questions is likely to activate learners‟ competence and helps them improve language learning First, questions serve as a means of obliging students

to make some kind of contribution to the ongoing interaction in class, and their

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responses provide the teacher with feedback which he/she can use to adjust the content and form of his/her talk Second, questions are also used to control the progress of classroom interaction and put it back on track in case there are some major deviations from what the teacher has planned occur Questions also have a function of facilitating language production and resulting in correct and meaningful responses which are crucial in teacher questioning Therefore, in the next part, the author will provide some information about the types of question which NS and NNS teachers use in their two EFL classrooms

1.2.2 Questions

1.2.2.1 Pseudo and real questions

In an EFL classroom, teachers‟ questions play a significant role in stimulating thinking, checking student comprehension and progress, gathering attention, modeling appropriate usages, and creating interactive opportunities (Shin-Mei Kao, 2012) For EFL teachers, questioning is one of the essential tools not only for maintaining classroom control (Ellis, 1990), but also for carrying out instructional materials (Gabrielatos, 1997) Nevertheless, questions asked by EFL teachers are seldom based on real needs or interest in seeking new information (Long & Sato, 1983) EFL teachers tend to ask pseudo, or display, questions, of which the answers are known by the teachers and even by some members of the class An example of a pseudo question is: the teacher points at a picture and asks the class, “What can you see in the picture?” The purpose of such question is to invite the students to display their knowledge Pseudo or display questions are questions to which the teacher knows the answer and which the students are asked in order to display their knowledge or to check their understanding (Long

to answer their teachers‟ pseudo questions However, as the students‟ ages increase, their desire of responding to pseudo questions decreases Thus, Chaudron (1993) points out that poor questioning practice can be counterproductive for language teaching and learning

In contrast to pseudo questions, a genuine, or referential, question, is a common type of exchange in real communication, which aims to elicit unknown information from the addressee In the classroom, teachers use referential questions to draw answers referring to learners‟ opinions, judgments, and real-life experiences, with the function of filling information gaps On the other hand,these questions are asked to learners to facilitate expression of opinions, or provision of information that the teacher generally does not have As stated in many research articles, these questions are natural and asked to engender genuine communication (Long & Sato, 1983; Brock, 1986; Thopmson, 1991, Thornbury,

1996 cited in second language classrooms, Chaudron, 1993) The answer to a

in the students‟ replies Seedhouse (1996) explains that, because EFL teachers‟ proficiency in the target language is superior to their students, genuine questions may be rare, especially when the teachers bear pedagogical objectives in mind Lynch (1991) raises the attention of EFL professionals that communicative use of questioning makes up only a minor part of typical classroom activities

1.2.2.2 Taxonomy of question functions

Following Sinclair and Coulthard‟s (1975) ideology of elicitations between teachers and pupils in the classroom, Tsui (1992) uses the term “elicitation” to describe the utterances which invite obligatory verbal or non-verbal responses from the addressee (p 101) Six elicitation functions have been identified by Tsui (1992) as cited by Janin Jafari (2013) including: informing, confirming, agreeing, committing, repeating, and clarifying

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According to Tsui (1992), an information question requires the addressee to provide new information, with the function of bridging information gaps There is

no speaker assumption involved from the addresser and the expected information

is unknown before the elicitation is made This function coincides with referential questions A confirmation question is raised by the addresser with an assumption

in mind about the question, but confirmation on the assumption is needed from the addressee In many cases, the addressee can disconfirm the assumption in the reply For example, when a speaker asks, “You will go to Taipei tomorrow, right?”, the speaker wants the addressee to confirm the assumption about the addressee‟s trip to Taipei Similarly, when asking an agreement question, the speaker also holds an assumption in mind, but the proposition of an agreement question is “self-evidently true” (p 107) In other words, the elicitation is based

on common knowledge shared by the addresser and the addressee The function

of such a question is to invite the addressee to concur with the speaker‟s previous utterances and to establish “the existing common ground” (p 107) It can be best realized when people try to begin a conversation for establishing social mutuality with strangers, such as asking about the weather, “It‟s a nice day, isn‟t it?”, in the opening of a conversation with unfamiliar interlocutors

A commitment question not only invites an obligatory verbal response but also requires further interaction or a verbal exchange from both the addresser and the addressee For example, a question like, “Can you turn on the light?” would require an action of switching the light on, rather than just a verbal reply, “Sure, I can.” A repeat question brings forth the repetition of the preceding utterance from the addresser to clarify the entire utterance or certain elements in the utterance that are acoustically unclear to the addressee Utterances such as “Pardon?”,

“Sorry?”, “Huh?”, or “What did you say?” belong to this type A clarification question, slightly different from a repeat question, requires the addressee to straighten out content confusion or uncertainty of a preceding utterance

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However, according to Shin-Mei Kao (2012), Tsui‟s taxonomy of elicitation functions is not finite In addition, Tsui‟s taxonomy was originally based on social interactions between speakers with equal speaking right; therefore, it is not sufficient for analyzing classroom interaction, in which the teacher has higher authority in controlling the interaction than the students For example, Tsui classifies pseudo questions under information elicitation, suggesting no differentiation between these two types of questions in nature However, asking pseudo questions is a distinct feature in classroom interaction, and carries different purposes from an information question from the view point of instruction (van Lier, 1988) In the taxonomy used in this classroom study, two additional categories were included: pseudo questions and understanding check questions A pseudo question is raised, usually by the teacher, to evaluate the students‟ knowledge about the presented materials An understanding check question is used by the teacher to verify if the students follow the instructions or the progress of the class It is different from a confirmation question or an agreement question in that the teacher does not bear any assumption in mind about the students‟ understanding The reply to an understanding check question,

“Do you understand?”, may be a positive “Yes”, or a follow-up question related

to the content mentioned, “Can you explain…more?” Turn 17 and Turn 22 in Excerpt 1, taken from the data of this study, present three understanding check questions raised by an NS teacher (i.e., NS-L) while teaching a group of low-level EFL students In this short segment, NS-L was explaining the rule of a game to the class She stopped from time to time to check if the students followed her instruction (See Appendix for the transcription conventions.)

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Excerpt 1: Ms Elena-NS (L_voice5)

Question Functions Utterance

20 Ss: sun and moon/

21 T: ok, team sun has to explain a sentence/ the other team has to guess, right/ok/make sentences to describe this word, ok?

22 S: ok/ this fruit is like orange juice/

Pseudo and understanding check questions are relatively less common in social conversations Long and Sato (1983) found in their influential study that adult native speakers almost never used pseudo questions with non-native speakers in casual talks In reality, when a speaker possesses more power than other speakers in a group, for example a company leader or a committee chair, s/he would tend to use more pseudo and understanding check questions than other members of the group By doing so, the speaker also exercises a high level of control over the progress of the talk and the contributions of other participants in the conversation As Goody (1978) points out, questions carry speech acts, which enable interlocutors to negotiate, assert, and challenge each other‟s status in a social context Thus, if one enforces a high level of control in casual talks by asking pseudo or understanding check questions, one breaks the general cooperation principle of Grice (1989) and may be seen as a “bossy” person by others However, a classroom is a specific context where the unequal speech

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status of the teacher and the students is rather fixed (van Lier, 1988); therefore, the teacher is given the privilege to ask pseudo and understanding check questions without strong negative feedback from the students

In term of discourse function, pseudo and understanding check questions, which are instruction-oriented, are called instructional questions, while the other six functions proposed by Tsui (1992) are communication-oriented Using more communicative types of questions in the classroom can create a more natural, interactive context for language teaching and learning On the contrary, when instructional questions dominate the classroom interaction, the control is possessed by the teacher Consequently, the students must respond to the questions Since the answers are all “known” to the teacher, the teacher usually gives an evaluative feedback to the students‟ answer, such as “Good!” or “Can anybody else answer this question?” The students‟ answers, no matter what they are, do not forward the conversational progress, and are not critical to the next turn utterances This teacher “initiating”, student “responding”, and teacher giving

“feedback” pattern is called the I-R-F interaction by Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) Once the I-R-F pattern becomes a regular practice in a language classroom, the teacher does not only take twice as many the number of speech turns (i.e., the “I” and “F” turn) as the students, but also assumes a total control over the progress and topics of the class This instructional pattern is disadvantageous to language learning, especially for EFL learners who primarily rely on the input provided by their teacher and interaction with other participants

in the classroom If the course objective aims to help learners use the target language for communication, the classroom context needs to resemble how language is used for social purposes, or the learners may have great difficulties initiating topics, managing speech turns, and extending interaction outside the classroom (van Lier, 1988)

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Figure 1 presents the degree of communicative level of the eight question functions on a continuum from low to high The understanding check and pseudo questions are placed at the low-communicative end and the answers to these questions do not influence the discourse content of the next turn These two types

of questions carry more instructional purposes and will be called, “instructional questions” in this study The other six types of questions carry higher communicative functions, which help to forward the interaction and bridge communication gaps and will be called “communicative questions” in this study Analyzing the distribution of how these functions are used by the teachers in the classroom help EFL professionals understand the communicative level of the environment created for teaching and learning

Figure 1 Communicative levels of the eight question functions

In this study, the data are analyzed by the eight types of elicitation functions proposed by Tsui (1992) and Shin- Mei Kao (2012)

1.3 Studies about EFL teachers’ and students’ questioning

Many studies point out that questions seeking new information carry more instructional value, both in content and length, than display questions Brock (1986) observed students‟ responses to teachers‟ questions in terms of

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syntactic complexity and mean length of utterance, and found that compared to display questions, referential questions generated more student output and elicited answers with a higher cognitive level for language teaching and learning Beardmore (1996) suggested that excessive use of display questions would lead to deficient student output and would deprive the opportunity of autonomous thinking from the students However, not all research findings support this view For example, Kachur and Prendergast (1997) found from a survey that the students indicated less involvement when the teachers asked authentic questions, but showed more willingness to answer their teachers‟ pseudo questions Wu (1993) also found that referential questions did not elicit more complex utterances and did not increase student-teacher interaction These contradictions may be the results of comparing classrooms with different objectives, teaching styles, teaching techniques, and student levels In addition, these studies used surveys or interviews as the main research instruments, which are based on the respondents‟ perceptions, so that theanswers may not faithfully reflect how interaction actually took place in these classrooms

Research devoted to the question use of EFL students in the classroom is comparatively less than the one denoted to the teachers due to practical difficulty

in collecting classroom data from students In general, educators suggest that questions initiated by students indicate their participation in classroom activities Taboada and Guthrie (2006) found that student-generated questions were associated with their prior knowledge about the texts The students‟ low- and high-level questions were aligned with their low and high levels of conceptual knowledge from reading the texts Skilton and Meyer (1993), based on the discourse data collected from four different adult ESL classes, found that, in addition to gender, nationality and proficiency, participation structures and task types greatly influenced the quantity and range of questions raised by the

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Chapter 2: Methodology

To realize the objectives of this study, this chapter first starts with the aim and research questions Then for better understanding about the research site, some information about the background, materials and teaching approaches and participants are addressed In addition, data collection, analytical frame work, and coding procedures and reliability will be very important for the realization of the study, for without it the researcher will find it impossible to do the research

2.1 The aim and research questions

The aim of the study:

This study aims to compare and contrast types of question functions which four teachers used to teach two classes of EFL students in a private language school during lessons The variables included the language backgrounds of the teachers, i.e., NS teachers and NNS teachers, and the proficiency levels of the students, i.e., high- and low-proficiency

Questions:

1 What are the proportions of questions versus non-question discourse in the four teachers‟ classes?

2 What are the general question functions used by the four teachers?

3 What are the types of question functions used by the NS teachers vs NNS teachers?

4 What are the types of question functions used by the teachers with in high level class and in low level class?

2.2 Background of the research site

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The study took place in a branch of a private English school chain called

“Popodoo school” in Hanoi, which admitted students from 3 to 15 years of age The students were placed in classes of different levels based on the results of a placement test upon their registration The students usually met twice a week, and each meeting lasted 90 minutes with a short break The classes were conducted after the regular school time

The cram school employed both NS teachers with various nationalities (see below) and NNS teachers (i.e., all Vietnamese) Each class was taught by an NS teacher and an NNS teacher; each teacher is responsible for one 45-minute lesson The Vietnamese teachers took additional responsibility for assigning and correcting students‟ homework, arranging regular quizzes and designing testes The NS teachers of this school came from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States The school‟s official brochure stated that extensive exposure to various English accents and cultures can enrich the students‟ learning experience All NS teachers possessed

at least college-level education, though not necessarily in language related fields All NNS teachers had college degree in English language teaching or related fields All teachers, NSs or NNSs, must attended a series of training sessions provided by the school before they can teach independently The NNS teachers also had to pass English proficiency exams periodically to prove maintenance of their English skills Four teachers were assigned to the study by the head of the school

2.3 Materials and teaching approaches

All the classes used the same series of textbooks called “family and

friends” and “phonics” designed and published by this school The series

contained several volumes following certain standardized class procedures from level A to level F set by the school Each lesson in the textbooks focused