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 AND N

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

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 An2015

I would also like to express my thanks to the teachers at Popodoo schoolwho helped me in providing the materials, taking an active part in interviews andmaking constructive comments.

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

Last but not least, I owe my sincere thanks to my father, my youngerbrothers, my husband and my kind-hearted friend – Ms Do An, who have alwaysinspired and encouraged me to complete this study

A number of young Vietnamese students take extra English lessons at cramschools where classes are taught in English by native speakers of English; however, notmuch has been studied in such settings in previous literature The research in this minorthesis was carried out to compare and contrast types of question functions which fourteachers used to teach two classes of EFL students in a private language school duringlessons The variables include the language backgrounds of the teachers, i.e., NSteachers 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 twoclasses and interviewing NS and NNS teachers, eight types of question functions used byteachers were analyzed and compared in terms of the teacher‟s language background andthe students‟ proficiency levels The study found that the class level and the teacher‟slanguage background, influenced how the teachers formed questions The teachers ofhigh-level students (level D) used more communicative question types, while theteachers with low-level students (level B) preferred instructional questions In addition, itwas found that using the target language as the sole medium in the classroom did notguarantee a communicative learning environment When instructional questionsdominated the classroom discourse, the students became passive in the interaction Thestudy suggests that both NS teachers and NNS teachers should monitor the functions andeffects 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 Thereview of related literature, methodology used in the research study and the findings areall presented in the second part The final part is the pedagogical implications andconclusion of the study, which concurrently concluding remarks and suggests somesolutions for teachers Moreover, the limitations of the thesis are pointed out and theareas 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 theirteaching

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

2.5 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

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Excerpt 1: Ms Elena-NS (L_voice5) 16

Excerpt 2: Ms Kathy- NNS (L_voice4) 30

Excerpt 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.

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Communicative levels of the eight question functions 18

Figure 2: The percentage use of the four teachers‟ question vs non-questiondiscourses 28

Figure 3: The four teachers‟ percentage use of the eight question functions 29

Figure 4: The distribution of the four teachers‟ instructional vs

communicative questions 30

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

teachers and NS teachers 32

Figure 6: The percentage use of question functions between the Class-L andClass-H teachers 34

Figure 7: Class-H‟s percentage use of question functions with NNS-H andNS-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.

PART A: INTRODUCTION

The rationale, the aim of the study, the research questions, the significanceand the scope of the study as well as organization of the study are all dealt with inthis 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 andknowledge of language in general, as well as ability to use one‟s first and, at leastone other language, should be one of the defining characteristics of the educatedindividual” (Nunan, 1999: 71) The world has become smaller It is said it hasturned into the size of the so-called “global village” We are living in the time ofimmense technological inventions where communication among people hasexpanded way beyond their local speech communities (Ellis, 1997: 3) Todayreceiving education, language education not excepting, is not an issue connectedexclusively with schools; the time requires everyone to learn throughout theirlifetimes 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 foreignlanguages 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 majorinternational organizations, including the United Nations, the European Unionand the International Olympic Committee It is the most used language on theInternet, and is currently the language most often taught as a second languagearound the world (Shahi & Pang, 2009) Moreover, since Vietnam joined WTO in

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

knowledge and to contact with people from other countries Therefore theteaching and learning of English plays an essential role in the development of thiscountry.

In Vietnam, in recent years, English as a foreign language has gainedconsiderable attention It has become a compulsory subject in the syllabus ofmany schools, colleges and universities It has been taught and learnt throughoutthe 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 atwork “Vietnamese students start studying English as early as middle school, withmany even learning it in elementary school or kindergarten – just like many othercountries where it is spoken as a second language – but few of them can speak thelanguage 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 universitiesconducted survey is to satisfy job requirements for English skills of graduatedstudents The results show that about 49.3% of students‟ statistic requirements ofemployers, 18.9% of students does not satisfy and 31.8% of students needs moretraining.” (Hanoimoi, 2015)

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

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

this issue of whether there are any differences between native and non- nativespeaking (NNS) teachers in their teaching is a topic of much concern.

Furthermore, in any effective language learning environment, the mostimportant factor is that students are enabled to do most of the talking An idealclassroom situation is one in which students are actively involved and both ableand willing to participate in the lesson Student participation is more beneficial ifthe students are productive rather than purely receptive Nevertheless, in order forthe students to participate actively, they need to be stimulated This stimulationcan arise as a result of the implementation of appealing activities or through theuse of thought provoking questions One popular method of involving students in

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

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

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

2 The aim of the study

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

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 abouthow NS and NNS teachers used question functions Such understanding will helpsEFL teachers set appropriate types of questions functions for the learning context

of an EFL classroom Questioning is one of the most common teachingtechniques employed by teachers Question and answer exchanges sometimesoccupy 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 themanagement of classes but is rather the interactions between the teacher andstudents 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 andlearning take place in private English centers There is a fact that studiesregarding EFL teaching and learning at English centers are scarce The reason forthis is that taking private language lessons has not been considered a part of themainstream educational system by academics; moreover, it is more difficult to

gain access to such an educational environment than to regular school settings forresearch purposes However, if taking extra English lessons has become acommon experience among Vietnamese English learners, this research in aprivate 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 toclassify questions, which are form/function, cognitive level, communicativevalue, communicative orientation of questions, yes-no, open-ended, convergent,divergent, etc However, in this study, the author used Tsui‟s classification Shecategorized questions based on its‟ elicitation functions: inform, confirm, agree,commit, repeat, and clarify It is because the term „Elicitation‟ is used as “Adiscourse category to describe any utterance, both inside and outside theclassroom which functions to elicit an obligatory verbal or its non-verbalsurrogate.” (Tsui, 1992: 81) Besides, the author also use two more types ofquestion functions that are pseudo and understanding check question (Shin-MeiKao, 2012)

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

6 Organization of the study

This study is divided into three main parts

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

of the study

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

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

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 andnon-native teachers of English in EFL classroom interactions, it is important toreview the continuing debate about native and non-native teachers

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

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

In terms of the teachers‟ English proficiency levels, Norton (1997) and Árvaand 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 morecorrect usage and are more capable than their NNS counterparts in identifyingacceptable and/or unacceptable language produced by their students Medgyes(1992) explains that regardless of their effort NNS teachers could not achievenative-level proficiency because of their “norm -dependent” process of languagedevelopment and their imitation intention toward native speakers The studiesconclude that NS teachers enjoy given superiority over NNS teachers in languageproficiency

However, research also points out that NNS teachers outperform NSteachers in realizing the needs of EFL learners Üstünlüoglu (2007) suggests thatsharing the same L1 with their students, NNS teachers can effectively explainabstract concepts and manage the class Moreover, NNS teacher can understandstudents‟ difficulties because they share similar language learning experiencewith students; as a result, NNS teachers can be aware of structural differencesbetween the two languages, so they can help students deal with these difficultiesbetter than NS teachers McNeill (1994) finds that NNS teachers who share the L1with the learners are more likely to identify the vocabulary problems of their EFLstudents, especially those with low proficiency level Phillipson (1996) regardsNNS teachers of English as „ideal‟ language teachers since they acquire English

as an additional language; they have first-hand experience in learning and usinglanguage as a second language, thus this experience sensitizes them to thelinguistic and cultural needs of their students

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

Tajino and Tajino (2000) suggests that team-teaching conducted by the twogroups of teachers may be most effective for an EFL course.

Finally, in term of classroom interaction, Tsui (2001) states “classroominteraction focused on the language used by the teacher especially teacherquestions” (p 120) plays a crucial role in initiating interactions in the classroom.Similarly, Walsh (2011) states “questioning occupies much of a languageteacher‟s time” (p 52) and “typically, classroom discourse is dominated byquestion and answer routines, with teachers asking most of the questions as one ofthe principal ways in which they control the discourse” (Walsh, 2006: 8) Withtheir questions, reactions, and actions, teachers are always the model for learners.Supporting this idea, Chaudron (1993) adds that conversation and instructionalexchanges between teachers and students provide the best opportunities for thelearners to exercise target language skills, to test out their hypotheses concerningthe target language, and to get useful feedback Effective teacher talk includingquestions may provide essential support to facilitate both languagecomprehension and learner production

1.2 Teacher talk and questions

1.2.1 Teacher talk

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

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

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, theissue 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 andskills 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 facilitatelanguage acquisition, production and result in meaningful interaction Thus,learners‟ achievement and their degree of engagement are linked to the types ofquestions generated and used by teachers in a classroom In support of this view,Chaudron (1988) states “teachers‟ questions constitute a primary means ofengaging learners‟ attention, promoting verbal responses, and evaluatinglearners‟ progress” (p 126)

According to Pawlak (2004), students are encouraged to participate in theongoing interaction through questions, and in return teachers use studentresponses to adjust the whole learning and teaching process from the content tothe form of language inputs An increase in the amount of classroom interactionthrough questions is likely to activate learners‟ competence and helps themimprove 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

10

responses provide the teacher with feedback which he/she can use to adjust thecontent and form of his/her talk Second, questions are also used to control theprogress of classroom interaction and put it back on track in case there are somemajor deviations from what the teacher has planned occur Questions also have afunction of facilitating language production and resulting in correct andmeaningful responses which are crucial in teacher questioning Therefore, in thenext part, the author will provide some information about the types of questionwhich 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 instimulating thinking, checking student comprehension and progress, gatheringattention, modeling appropriate usages, and creating interactive opportunities(Shin-Mei Kao, 2012) For EFL teachers, questioning is one of the essential toolsnot only for maintaining classroom control (Ellis, 1990), but also for carrying outinstructional materials (Gabrielatos, 1997) Nevertheless, questions asked by EFLteachers are seldom based on real needs or interest in seeking new information(Long & Sato, 1983) EFL teachers tend to ask pseudo, or display, questions, ofwhich the answers are known by the teachers and even by some members of theclass An example of a pseudo question is: the teacher points at a picture and asksthe class, “What can you see in the picture?” The purpose of such question is toinvite the students to display their knowledge Pseudo or display questions arequestions 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

& Sato, 1983; Brock, 1986; Thompson, 1991; Thornbury, 1996 cited in second language classrooms, Chaudron, 1993).

In real communication, asking pseudo questions violates the “maxim ofquality”, according to Grice‟s principle of co-operation in conversation (Grice,1989: 27) Grice points out that the addresser of a question in real social contextsseeks new and unknown information from the addressee, and so is the addresseeexpected to give a true and sincere answer Therefore, asking pseudo questionswould be considered „insincere‟ and might not receive the desired responses fromthe addressee in social talks However, pseudo questions seem to be used quitefrequently by teachers across subject matters for verifying students‟comprehension or memory about the taught materials in the classroom (Martin,2003; Ho, 2005) Pseudo questions normally elicit short, simple, and low-levelanswers Unlike people in social contexts, the students and the teacher do notspeak with an equal status in the classroom Therefore, the students feel obligated

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

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

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

referential question is usually longer than that to a pseudo question and carriescontent meanings which help forward the conversation.

Besides, Long and Sato (1983) compared the questions occurring ininformal conversations between native and non-native speakers (i.e., NS-NNS)and teacher-learner interaction in second language classrooms They found thatreferential questions predominated in NS-NNS conversation outside classrooms(up to 76%) while only 14% of the teachers‟ questions were referential.Shomoossi (2004) confirmed this imbalanced use of question types in EFLclassroom from his observation of a few university level classes conducted by fiveexperienced non-native teachers of English in Iran The results show that theteachers used pseudo questions 4.4 times more than the number of referentialquestions In addition, he also found that the amount of classroom interactioncaused by referential questions is much greater than that caused by pseudoquestions, in terms of the speech turns taken by the students and speech quantity

in the students‟ replies Seedhouse (1996) explains that, because EFL teachers‟proficiency in the target language is superior to their students, genuine questionsmay be rare, especially when the teachers bear pedagogical objectives in mind.Lynch (1991) raises the attention of EFL professionals that communicative use ofquestioning 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 betweenteachers and pupils in the classroom, Tsui (1992) uses the term “elicitation” todescribe the utterances which invite obligatory verbal or non-verbal responsesfrom 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

According to Tsui (1992), an information question requires the addressee toprovide 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 referentialquestions A confirmation question is raised by the addresser with an assumption

in mind about the question, but confirmation on the assumption is needed fromthe addressee In many cases, the addressee can disconfirm the assumption in thereply For example, when a speaker asks, “You will go to Taipei tomorrow,right?”, the speaker wants the addressee to confirm the assumption about theaddressee‟s trip to Taipei Similarly, when asking an agreement question, thespeaker also holds an assumption in mind, but the proposition of an agreementquestion 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 previousutterances and to establish “the existing common ground” (p 107) It can be bestrealized when people try to begin a conversation for establishing social mutualitywith strangers, such as asking about the weather, “It‟s a nice day, isn‟t it?”, in theopening of a conversation with unfamiliar interlocutors

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

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

However, according to Shin-Mei Kao (2012), Tsui‟s taxonomy of elicitationfunctions is not finite In addition, Tsui‟s taxonomy was originally based onsocial interactions between speakers with equal speaking right; therefore, it is notsufficient for analyzing classroom interaction, in which the teacher has higherauthority in controlling the interaction than the students For example, Tsuiclassifies pseudo questions under information elicitation, suggesting nodifferentiation between these two types of questions in nature However, askingpseudo questions is a distinct feature in classroom interaction, and carriesdifferent purposes from an information question from the view point ofinstruction (van Lier, 1988) In the taxonomy used in this classroom study, twoadditional categories were included: pseudo questions and understanding checkquestions A pseudo question is raised, usually by the teacher, to evaluate thestudents‟ knowledge about the presented materials An understanding checkquestion is used by the teacher to verify if the students follow the instructions orthe progress of the class It is different from a confirmation question or anagreement question in that the teacher does not bear any assumption in mindabout 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 inExcerpt 1, taken from the data of this study, present three understanding checkquestions raised by an NS teacher (i.e., NS-L) while teaching a group of low-levelEFL students In this short segment, NS-L was explaining the rule of a game tothe class She stopped from time to time to check if the students followed herinstruction (See Appendix for the transcription conventions.)

Excerpt 1: Ms Elena-NS (L_voice5)

Question Functions Utterance

Understanding check 17 T: ok, we will divide into 2 teams/ ok?/

18 Ss: hangman/((chatting together))/

19 T: ((dividing the class into 2 team))/ok, you areUnderstanding check team sun/ you are moon/ok?/

20 Ss: sun and moon/

21 T: ok, team sun has to explain a sentence/ theUnderstanding check 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 insocial conversations Long and Sato (1983) found in their influential study thatadult native speakers almost never used pseudo questions with non-nativespeakers in casual talks In reality, when a speaker possesses more power thanother 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 othermembers of the group By doing so, the speaker also exercises a high level ofcontrol over the progress of the talk and the contributions of other participants inthe conversation As Goody (1978) points out, questions carry speech acts, whichenable interlocutors to negotiate, assert, and challenge each other‟s status in asocial context Thus, if one enforces a high level of control in casual talks byasking pseudo or understanding check questions, one breaks the generalcooperation principle of Grice (1989) and may be seen as a “bossy” person byothers However, a classroom is a specific context where the unequal speech

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 checkquestions 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 othersix functions proposed by Tsui (1992) are communication-oriented Using morecommunicative types of questions in the classroom can create a more natural,interactive context for language teaching and learning On the contrary, wheninstructional questions dominate the classroom interaction, the control ispossessed by the teacher Consequently, the students must respond to thequestions Since the answers are all “known” to the teacher, the teacher usuallygives an evaluative feedback to the students‟ answer, such as “Good!” or “Cananybody else answer this question?” The students‟ answers, no matter what theyare, do not forward the conversational progress, and are not critical to the nextturn 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 languageclassroom, the teacher does not only take twice as many the number of speechturns (i.e., the “I” and “F” turn) as the students, but also assumes a total controlover the progress and topics of the class This instructional pattern isdisadvantageous to language learning, especially for EFL learners who primarilyrely 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 targetlanguage for communication, the classroom context needs to resemble howlanguage is used for social purposes, or the learners may have great difficultiesinitiating topics, managing speech turns, and extending interaction outside theclassroom (van Lier, 1988)

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

of questions carry more instructional purposes and will be called, “instructionalquestions” in this study The other six types of questions carry highercommunicative functions, which help to forward the interaction and bridgecommunication gaps and will be called “communicative questions” in this study.Analyzing the distribution of how these functions are used by the teachers in theclassroom help EFL professionals understand the communicative level of theenvironment 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 functionsproposed 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 moreinstructional value, both in content and length, than display questions Brock(1986) observed students‟ responses to teachers‟ questions in terms of

syntactic complexity and mean length of utterance, and found that compared todisplay questions, referential questions generated more student output and elicitedanswers with a higher cognitive level for language teaching and learningBeardmore (1996) suggested that excessive use of display questions would lead todeficient student output and would deprive the opportunity of autonomousthinking from the students However, not all research findings support this view.For example, Kachur and Prendergast (1997) found from a survey that thestudents 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 utterancesand did not increase student-teacher interaction These contradictions may be theresults of comparing classrooms with different objectives, teaching styles,teaching techniques, and student levels In addition, these studies used surveys orinterviews as the main research instruments, which are based on the respondents‟perceptions, so that the answers may not faithfully reflect how interaction actuallytook place in these classrooms.

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

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

students It was found that the students were more active in raising questions insmall group work than in teacher-fronted activities.

In summary, this chapter conceptualizes the discussion of issues and aspectsconcerning the topic of the study First, it concerns the concepts and ideas relating

to native and non-native teacher of English and classroom interaction Thencomes an overview on teachers talk and questions The last one is studies aboutEFL teachers‟ and students‟ questioning In the following chapter, themethodology used in the study will be dealt with

Chapter 2: Methodology

To realize the objectives of this study, this chapter first starts with theaim and research questions Then for better understanding about the research site,some information about the background, materials and teaching approaches andparticipants are addressed In addition, data collection, analytical frame work, andcoding procedures and reliability will be very important for the realization of thestudy, 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 whichfour teachers used to teach two classes of EFL students in a private languageschool during lessons The variables included the language backgrounds of theteachers, i.e., NS teachers and NNS teachers, and the proficiency levels of thestudents, 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

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 aplacement test upon their registration The students usually met twice a week, andeach meeting lasted 90 minutes with a short break The classes were conductedafter the regular school time

The cram school employed both NS teachers with various nationalities (seebelow) and NNS teachers (i.e., all Vietnamese) Each class was taught by an NSteacher and an NNS teacher; each teacher is responsible for one 45-minute lesson.The Vietnamese teachers took additional responsibility for assigning andcorrecting 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‟sofficial brochure stated that extensive exposure to various English accents andcultures 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 relatedfields All teachers, NSs or NNSs, must attended a series of training sessionsprovided by the school before they can teach independently The NNS teachersalso had to pass English proficiency exams periodically to prove maintenance oftheir English skills Four teachers were assigned to the study by the head of theschool

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 tolevel F set by the school Each lesson in the textbooks focused