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 theteachers used in English speaking lessons and exploring students' interaction to theteachers' questions.. My interest in findin

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

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

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 Graduate Studies, Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies,Vietnam National University The material in this research has not been submitted

Post-to any other university or institution wholly and partially

Phạm Thanh Xuân Mừng

I would, first of all, like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Vu ThiThanh 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 PostgraduateStudies Department, University of Language and International Studies, VietnamNational University, Hanoi for their valuable lectures, which laid the foundation forthis study

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

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

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

The findings of the study showed that the three teachers used three maintypes of questions, namely display questions, referential questions and yes/noquestions in which the display questions were most frequently asked, followed byyes/no questions and referential questions were rarely asked Regarding thepurposes of questions, display questions were mainly asked with diagnostic andinstructional functions Yes/no questions aimed to function as diagnostic andmotivational tools The purpose of referential questions was to motivate students byasking information about students themselves Also, the findings indicated that most

of the students‟ responses were very brief, with one to three words and manyquestions 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 longerresponses when referential questions were asked Next, the way that the teacherasked 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 givingfeedback In brief, the teachers at THD High School were not skillful in using theirquestioning and need training more in applying this technique in speaking

Therefore, this thesis proposes some useful implications to the teachers whowant to have more effective questioning in order to promote interaction in theirclassroom It is also hoped that the results of the thesis will provide usefulinformation and lessons for those who want to do research at the schools withsimilar 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 28

of questions asked by the three teachers

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 Vietnamsince the 6th National Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party in 1986initiated an overall economic reform known as “Doi moi” Young people realize theneed of learning English for a plenty of reasons such as getting jobs in foreigncompanies, studying abroad, and travelling Nevertheless, according to Van (2006),the quality of teaching and learning foreign languages at both general and tertiarylevels in Vietnam is still very low, which is far from meeting the present country‟sdemand of socio-economic development

“Though the aims of the curriculum at secondary school are to trainthe four skills and students‟ required language proficiency is upper-intermediate level However, their real level is just somewhere betweenelementary and lower-intermediate Many school leavers cannot read simpletexts in English nor communicate with English speaking people in some mostcommon cases Actually the real focus of teaching and learning English inboth lower secondary and secondary schools is completing English grammarand vocabulary exercises, in order to pass the final exams (even the entranceexams of many universities and colleges in Vietnam) which mainly consist ofgrammar 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 theypractise doing exercises relating to the tests such as grammar, vocabulary, readingskills and pronunciation Although teaching methodology has changed fromtranslation method to communicative method, students do not focus on speakingand listening skills For them, these skills will be practiced later when they haveentered university The consequence is that students cannot communicate despitethe 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 toteach students this skill effectively.

There exist a number of techniques useful for teaching speaking skill, one ofwhich is teacher‟s questioning Questioning plays a pivotal role not only in teachingspeaking skill in particular but also in teaching learning English in general (Gall,1970) “Questioning has been considered as one of the most essential and importanttechniques during instructional processes since Socrates times Questioning takes upmost of teacher talk and it has been proved to have a great influence on classroominteraction”( Xiaoyan, 2008, p.93) Obviously, many studies (Long & Sato, 1983;Brock, 1986; Shomooshi, 1997; Camak, 2009) have focused on the use ofquestioning as a universal pedagogical approach Despite these studies and theirfindings, how teachers ask effective questions to create students‟ interaction is anunder-researched issue in my context My big concern is whether teachers at TranHung Dao High School effectively use teacher‟s questioning in speaking classes ornot 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 ofquestions and the effects of teacher‟s questioning on students‟ interaction inspeaking Moreover, the study suggested how to effectively use teacher‟squestioning 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 mycolleagues 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 touse them in speaking classes in English 10 to enhance students‟ interaction Hence,

it can be a considerable contribution to teaching and learning speaking skilleffectively and enjoyably at THD High School More importantly, findings in thisproject can, hopefully, be first steps to further study or discovery to encouragestudents to speak English with confidence The research might inspire students tospeak 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 inorder 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 classactivities However, because of the time and length constraint of the study we onlyfocused on teacher questioning, which is considered to occur in almost every lessonand 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 skillbecause of the following reasons Firstly, it is the skill that my students needimproving and do not pay enough attention to Secondly, it is the best in expressingthe 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 6periods 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 teacherquestioning 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 thedata 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 thestudy 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 languageclassroom, 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 isimplemented, namely the setting, participants, data collection instruments, datacollection 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 lastsection 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 tothe 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 oneindicates interaction in class including definitions of classroom interaction, role ofclassroom interaction in second language (L2) acquisition and patterns of classroominteraction The second section looks into teacher‟s questions as an aspect ofclassroom interaction in EFL context This section consists of definition ofquestions, functions of teacher‟ questions, types of questions and effects ofquestions 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 tocommunicate through interaction in the target language Interaction is the heart ofcommunication and it is what communication is all about (Brown, 1994) So far, ithas been defined in a number of different ways

First of all, Ellis (1994, p.11) defines interaction as "when the participants ofequal status that share similar need, make an effort to understand each other".Interaction, based on Brown's (2007) definition, is the collaborative exchange ofthoughts, feelings, or ideas between two or more people resulting in a reciprocaleffect on each other Sharing the same view, Wells (1981) believes that interaction

is a collaborative activity involving a triangular relationship between the sender, thereceiver and the context of situation In brief, interaction relates to a collaborativeeffect 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 theclassrooms 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 takeBrown's (2007) view because it is salient in our classroom context when speakingskill is taught It means that in the context of this study classroom interaction isdefined as the communication between the teacher and the students to exchangethoughts, feeling or ideas about any topic in the lessons in classroom context Thisstudy focuses on the teacher student interaction because “the quality of thisinteraction is thought to have a considerable influence on learning" (Ellis, 1986,p.395) Ellis (1986) argues that successful learning depended more on the type ofinteraction than the method used While interaction amongst learners is also a vitalissue, 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 secondlanguage acquisition (Ellis, 2008) There have been a number of other studies aboutthe role of interaction in L2, Brown (2007) finds that interaction is an importantword for language teachers; it is the heart of language teaching and learning.Sharing the same viewpoint, Hall and Verplaetse (2000) insist on the importance ofinteraction that teachers and students work together to create the intellectual andpractical activities that shape both the form and the content of the target language aswell as the processes and outcomes of individual development through theirinteraction with each other

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

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

Considering all different views about roles of interaction in L2 learningpresented above, we could conclude that interaction plays an important role not only

in shaping the patterns of communication in L2 classroom but also in creatingopportunities for students to use language for classroom learning and L2acquisition Different interaction patterns will be described in the next section

2.1.3 Interaction Patterns

Given interaction patterns, Moore (1989) reports that interaction comes inmany shapes and factions They include learner-learner interaction, learner-contentinteraction and learner-instructor interaction While learner-learner interaction isdefined 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 isreferred to as interaction between the learner and the content of the subject of thestudy Learner-instructor interaction is defined as the interaction between the learnerand the teacher Looking at interaction from another perspective, Thomas (1987)believes that there are two kinds of interaction: verbal interaction and pedagogicinteraction Verbal interaction is a continuous, shifting process of speech acts, socialactions performed through language by addresser, and intended to have some sort ofeffect upon the addressee Pedagogic interaction parallels verbal interaction but thedifference is that pedagogic interaction is the interaction between teaching andlearning

In the literature on classroom discourse, among interaction patterns, thethree-move (or triadic) initiation-response-feedback (IRF) pattern, originallydescribed by Sinclair and Coulthard (1975), is traditionally considered as the basicunit of analysis This pattern is made up of three turns: the teacher initiates alinguistic interaction (generally directing a question to a selected child), the pupilprovides a response, and the teacher replies with feedback Research on classroominteraction shows that IRF is a pervasive and dominant pattern, and a fundamentalfeature 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 orteacher-student verbal interaction.

2.2 Teacher’s questioning in interaction

Questioning has been, for thousands of years, one of the most populartechniques of teaching and serves as the principal way in which teachers control theclassroom interaction and much class time has been devoted to it In order to maketeacher‟s questioning understood clearly, we are going to present definition ofquestions, 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 aregenerally concerned with information-seeking and stimulate some kind of mentalactivity or thinking (Hunkins, 1989) A question is broadly defined as any sentencehaving either an interrogative form or function (Riegle, 1974) Questions areinstructional cues or stimuli that convey the content elements to be learned anddirections 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 ofquestions 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 inclassrooms It is important to actively consider the functions for the questions asked

According to Ur (1996), teachers can use questions to attract students in thelesson and make them participate actively through speech By using questioningtechniques, teachers can get students to be active in their learning and they not onlyprovide poor students with a chance to take part in but also encourage students to beself-confident

According to Kauchak and Eggen (1989, cited in Xiaoyan , 2008, p.93), thefunctions can be basically grouped into three categories: diagnostic, instructionaland 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 ofstudents to find out not only what they know or don‟t know but also how they thinkabout a topic The instructional function means that questions can be used as atechnique to facilitate learners to learn the new knowledge in the learning process

As to motivational function, skillful use of questions can effectively involvestudents 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 andlearning The use of questions can thus change the way of teacher monologue andinvolve students in the active classroom interaction, which is much helpful to thedevelopment of their language competence

To sum up, questions can function as tools of diagnosis, instruction andmotivation It is vital to determine the purposes and functions of questions beforemaking 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 itsorganizational structure may be understood This may involve the classification of parts,exploration of the association between them, and identification of organizationalprinciples

6 Synthesis: the ability to collect different parts and put them together tocreate a new whole Synthesis encourages learners to form something new and rely oninnovative 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), forinstance, distinguishes four types of questions: (1) factual questions (e.g What?),(2) reasoning questions (e.g How?, Why?), (3) open questions, which require noreasoning, (4) social questions, that are questions that affect learner behavior throughcontrolling or appealing Barnes (1976) also makes a distinction between closedquestions (i.e questions that are structured with just one acceptable answer in mind) andopen questions (i.e questions that permit a number of different acceptable answers)

The next category of questions, display/referential questions, relates to thenature of interaction generated (Tsui, 1995) For display questions, the teacheralready knows the answers They are asked in order to check if the students knowthe answers On the contrary, for referential questions, the teacher does not knowthe 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, oftencomplex responses” (Ho, 2005, p.298) Another type of questions, the yes/noquestions, is categorized by Thompson (1997) according to “the grammatical form

of the question”

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

students outside the classroom (Long & Sato, 1983) However, “there is adivergence between what theorists would consider to be good practice and what isactually going on in classrooms”(Banbrook & Skehan, 1989, p.142) In a traditionallanguage classroom, factual questions are the most common while open questionsare 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 weredrawn from Year 2 and Year 6 classes, the analyses showed that the most commonform of questions asked by the teachers is the factual questions (64%).

In general, each author has their own way of classifying questions In ourstudy, we use both Tsui‟s (1995) categories and Thompson‟s (1997) types to codeour data, which means that we use 3 types of questions: wh-questions includingdisplay questions, referential questions and yes/no questions The reason for ourchoice of display questions, referential questions and yes/no questions is that theysignal the types of responses related to meaningful communication in the languageclassroom Display questions refer to questions whose answers the teacher knowswhereas referential questions are those that students answer to give the teacherinformation (Tsui, 1995; Xiaoyan, 2008) Moreover, display questions limitstudents‟ responses to one word or phrase answers In contrast, referential questionsprovide opportunities for students to express their thoughts and ideas, listen todivergent opinions from fellow classmates and develop their confidence to movebeyond conventional patterns of thinking (Chi, 2010; James & Carter, 2006) Foryes/no questions, they can be used for a number of purposes, for example, to requestinformation, to display or test knowledge or as rhetoric (Thompson, 1997).Although answering to yes/no questions is quick and efficient, the posing of suchquestions 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 onsuch 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 thesequestions could stimulate long conversations in speaking classes.

2.2.4 Effects of teacher questions

The effects of display questions on students‟ discourse patterns weregenerally considered to be negative but positive for referential questions (Chi,2010) Brock (1986) conducted a research study in which the effects of referentialquestions on adult ESL classroom discourse were investigated In this study, fourexperienced ESL teachers and twenty-four non-native speakers (NNSs) enrolled inclasses in the University of Hawaii‟s English Language Institute were involved.Two of the teachers were trained to use referential questions in classroom activitieswhile the other two teachers were not provided with any training The findingsshowed that the treatment-group teachers asked more referential questions than didthe control-group teachers Each teacher was randomly assigned to teach sixstudents for a period of forty minutes The findings also indicated that the students‟responses in the treatment-group classes were significantly longer and syntacticallymore complex than those in the control-group classes This suggests a positivecorrelation between asking referential questions and students‟ production of targetlanguage In Ernst‟s (1994) research, it was found out that when the teacher askeddisplay 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 ofresponses” 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 teachersfrequently 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 ofquestions asked frequently in the lessons by the teachers and their effects on thestudents‟ interaction.

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

teacher-CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

Chapter 2 has reviewed the theoretical backgrounds of the study includingdefinitions of classroom interaction, role of classroom interaction in secondlanguage (L2) acquisition, patterns of classroom interaction, definition of questions,functions of teacher‟ questions, types of questions and effects of questions onstudents‟ interaction This chapter describes the setting of the study, data collectioninstruments, 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 publicschool situated in Nam Dinh city in Nam Dinh province It has 35 classes with 1460students in the school year of 2014-2015 The average number of students in eachclass is 45 Being one of the best schools in Nam Dinh province, it is cared andinvested by both Nam Dinh Department of Education and Training and theVietnamese Ministry of Education and Training The school is equipped withmodern facilities supporting for learning and teaching English effectively such ascomputers, projectors, cassette players and language teaching labs The classroomsare separated from the road; therefore, the students are not disturbed by noise Theprincipal of the school always pays attention to English subject; therefore, sheorganizes English competitions such as English public speaking contest, andOlympic contest Moreover, English is a compulsory subject in any exam of theschool Students also have opportunities to communicate with native speakersthanks to native volunteers coming to work at school The above information partlyreflects 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 Daohigh school, all of whom have graduated from pedagogic universities and haveEnglish 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 givesfifteen to seventeen lessons per week along with a great deal of such work aspreparing and marking tests, training gifted students, training students for IOE andEnglish public speaking contest organized every year Since students‟ demand is topass the exams and the principal, as well as the parents of the students judge theteachers basing on the students‟ results, many teachers focus on teaching for exams.They pay more attention to providing exercises to help students practise skills forexams than teaching students skills for communication Moreover, some teachersadopt old-style methods in which teachers provide knowledge and students takenotes and do drills In brief, the teacher‟s English language is recommended to begood enough to teach English for general courses, but their method of teaching isstill 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 thecurriculum at Tran Hung Dao High School “Tiếng Anh 10” prescribed by theMinistry 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 wholecountry 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 105forty-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 decreasepressure on students Sixteen units deal with different themes such as daily life,social issues, sports, music which may interest students more in the subject Eachunit consists of five parts namely reading, speaking, listening, writing and languagefocus The content of most five parts is presented through task-based teaching Moreimportantly, units cover all four language skills adequately and allow for anintegration 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 inthe 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 occursduring the speaking lesson In the first stage teachers introduce the topic and askstudents to talk about it; what they know about the topic, or guide to use someuseful expressions In the second stage, teacher and students discuss and completespeaking 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 asrole-play, games, questions for discussion

In short, the new textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” brings a new way of teaching andlearning 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 somechallenges However, teachers were provided workshops to share opinions andprovided with useful instructions on how to use this new textbook effectively If thisnew 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 collectioninstruments, 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 inorder to keep their private rights The reason for my choice of these participants isthat there are five teachers teaching grade 10 but only three of them teach thestandard syllabus and textbook Two of them teach the experienced

textbook which is a new textbook in the experiencing process to consider thepracticability This experienced textbook is applied in some classes in specificschools Among three teachers of English, ranging from 32 to 52 years with 9 to 28years‟ teaching experience, two are young and eager to apply new methods inteaching English The two teachers have a C1 certificate The rest one is 52 yearsold and rather traditional in teaching method This teacher has not got a C1certificate To sum up, the professional skill of the three teachers is not equal Thismay 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 arechosen to participate in the research The criterion of choosing the three classesobserved for this study was mainly on the basis of convenience of the chosenteachers The three classes were also given pseudonyms as class A, class B andclass C in order to match with the teachers teaching these classes All of the studentsare at the age of fifteen and have been learning English for at least 4 years Most ofthe students, who enrolled in our school, come from Nam Dinh city, Nam Dinhprovince 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, Englishwhile the students following route A focus on Maths, Physics, Chemistry Theyprioritize these subjects for their university entrance exam While students followingroute A had three periods of English per week, students following route D had anextra period per week called an optional period in which teachers can make lessonplans based on their students‟ need

The students of the two groups have different interests, attitude towardsEnglish, background and academic ability While the students who follow route Dare interested in studying English and see the importance of English, the studentsfollowing route A seem to be indifferent to English Because students choose theroute basing on their interests, background and academic ability, the students ofroute 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 forthe entrance exam, the level of students in each class is different Due to workingwith different level students, the teachers cannot avoid using Vietnamese tointroduce a new item or explain what the students do not understand in theclassroom This may help the students understand the lesson more but it may reducethe 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 whichconsiders 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 atgrammar, vocabulary and reading skills than at speaking and listening skills Inaddition, a large number of 10th grade students at Tran Hung Dao High School maynot 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 ofteacher questioning and teacher-student interaction in the language classroom, aqualitative approach was employed to discover their questions in the classroomcontext and to describe the classroom interaction pattern More specifically, to meetthe purpose of the study and answer the two research questions, the classobservation -a technique of a qualitative study is methodologically appropriate forthe researcher to contextually unfold the teachers' questioning practice and itseffects on students‟ interaction

3.2.2.1 Class observations

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

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 ofspeaking 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 couldonly carry out 2 observations in each class from April, 2015 to the end of the secondterm of the school year The total lessons observed were 6 lessons

Table 1: The summary of the class observation data

students

- Speaking lesson

45 minutes

of unit 13Teacher A Class 10 A 43

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categories, with private talk among the teachers and their students during group, pair orindividual work being excluded The procedure involved identifying selected bits of data asbelonging to a certain class or category I chose observation categories for analyzingteacher-student interaction because observation categories can be useful in focusing theobservers' attention and in addressing some research questions (Nunan & Bailey, 2009).

3.2.4 Methods of Data analysis

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

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 quantitativeanalyses of the lesson transcripts, the number of different types of teacher includingyes/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 onstudents‟ production of the target language, the lesson transcripts were analyzedquantitatively by calculating the average length (that is, the number of words) of thestudents‟ 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 thatimmediately followed the teachers‟ eliciting moves were considered Once theteachers spoke again, the responses were considered to have ended

In summary, the whole chapter has presented the methodological issues ofthe study It described the theoretical foundation of the study and how the study wasdesigned to answer the research questions For the purpose of exploration andcomprehension, 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 thesetting, the participants, the actual data collection, the data collection procedure andthe methods of data analysis Chapter 4 presents findings from the observation datawith three teachers These findings focus on the types of questions asked byteachers in speaking classes at Tran Hung Dao High School and the effects ofteacher‟s questioning on students‟ interaction Two major findings are reportedherein

4.1 Findings

This section presents findings from observation under such categories as thetypes of questions, students‟ responses The data were analyzed by counting threetypes 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, Iencountered the following situations First, there were some questions asked in thelessons that only aimed to elicit students‟ non-verbal reaction For example, “Whocan make up a dialogue with me Raise your hand, please” (Teacher C) or “Who cananswer my question?” (Teacher A) Here, though the teacher did not know theanswers 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 thetextbook on the board to instruct students and get their attention, but they did notrequire students to answer these questions Third, the teachers asked students tolook at the questions in the textbook and base on them to do the task In order tocalculate exactly how many questions were asked by the teachers, these types ofquestions were not counted in our study because we focused on the verbalinteraction 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 inspeaking classes The findings of our study are presented in table 3 Generally, thequestion types and functions vary across teachers and lessons

Table 3: Types of questions asked by the three teachers

Teacher A Teacher B Teacher C Total

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

It can be found from the table that each teacher had their own way of using

24

same way (Shomoossi, 1997) For example, teacher B asked much more questionsthan the two other teachers On average, she asked 26 questions per class while theaverage 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 Inunit 16, she asked 30 questions; however, more than half of the questions askedwere yes/no questions (17 questions), followed by 12 display questions and 1referential question Contrary to teacher B, teacher C asked the fewest questions in 2units (15 questions) Her distribution of types of questions in unit 13 was differentfrom that of unit 16 The difference of distribution of types of questions in two unitsresulted from the topics of these units Unit 13 is about Films and Cinema, which isfamiliar to students, but topic of unit 16 is Historical Places, which does not intereststudents The students also lacked background of Historical Places She asked 5referential questions (55,6%) in unit 13 but no referential questions were used inunit 16 33,3% of questions belonged to display questions and only 11,1% ofquestions were yes/no questions in unit 13 However, the number of displayquestions was the same as that of yes/no questions in unit 16 The similarity ofteacher A with the two other teachers is that she asked the number of questions ineach unit differently; moreover, the distribution of types of questions in each unitwas 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 variouspurposes They aimed to ask students‟ knowledge and their experience Forexample, “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 knowabout 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 Forexample, “Look at the example and the table Do you know the “runner-up”? Doyou know the “winner”? The “winner” is the first rank and the “runner up” is thesecond rank” ?” (Teacher B – Unit 14) and “Have you got any questions aboutvocabulary?” (Teacher C – Unit 16) The next purpose of yes/no questions was tocheck students‟ understanding of the information in the textbook For instance,

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

Display questions were asked for a number of purposes First, the teachersaimed to check students‟ knowledge For example, “Who can tell me which footballteam 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 – Unit14) The next purpose of display questions was to check students‟ understanding ofinformation 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 isPresident Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum situated/ located?” and “What is the first floorused for?” (Teacher C – Unit 16) Next, display questions were asked to analyze themodel 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, thedisplay questions aimed to provide the model Teacher C in unit 13 was reading andwriting 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 instructionalfunctions

Referential questions were asked for the following purposes Firstly, thereferential questions were used to ask students‟ opinion and get information fromstudents‟ 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 usedthe 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); “Howmuch do you like it?”, “What do you think of cartoon films?” (Teacher C – Unit13) Another purpose of asking referential questions was to expand the student‟sanswer by requiring him to explain the reason for his answer For example, theteacher asked “why?” (Teacher C – Unit 13) In general, the teachers askedreferential questions to ask information about students themselves Thus, thesequestions functioned as a motivational tool

In summary, in the whole class teaching portion of the six investigatedlessons, the display questions were asked most frequently with diagnostic andinstructional functions Yes/no questions ranking second in the frequency ofappearance aimed to function as diagnostic and motivational tools On the contrary,except for the lesson of teacher C, referential questions were rarely asked Thepurpose of referential questions was to motivate students by asking informationabout 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 generallyshown a positive correlation between asking referential questions and students‟production of target language but a negative correlation between asking displayquestions and the length of students‟ responses (Chi, 2010) The results of thepresent study showed a different pattern The effects of different types of questionsasked by the three teachers in the whole class teaching portion on the length ofstudents‟ responses are summarized in Table 4 below:

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

No No Length of students’ responses No No Length of students’ responses No No Length of students’ responses

of of Quiet 1 2 3 6 of of Quiet 1 2 3 4 5 6 8 9 of of Quiet 1 2 3 4 5 8 9