The analysis and interpretation of data from five-minute video-recorded excerpt of the TEYL observed lesson and in-depth interview with that teacher show that display and refe[r]
Trang 1AN EXPLANATORY CASE STUDY OF APPLYING
QUESTIONING STRATEGIES IN TEYL CLASSES
Nguyen Hanh Dao1*, Pham Thuy Linh1, Dang Thi Thanh Huong2
SUMMARY
Questioning is applicable to all English foreign language learners including young learners for two main purposes: information confirmation and activating learners' prior knowledge about new topics This explanatory case study is aimed to identify a teacher's use of question strategies and to explain why she has used them in a Teaching English to Young Learners (TEYL) at a local state-run primary school The analysis and interpretation of data from five-minute video-recorded excerpt of the TEYL observed lesson and in-depth interview with that teacher show that display and referential questions are mainly employed in an observed lesson, and her choice of question strategies depends on lesson learning outcomes and the understanding of learners’ cognitive development Some pedagogical implications of utilizing questioning strategies in TEYL lessons are discussed
Keywords: Questioning strategies; Teaching English to young learners; Single case study; Display and referential questions; Learning outcomes; Cognitive development
INTRODUCTION *
Nowadays, thanks to the global integration,
English has become the world’s common
language Thus, English appears in the
education system as a main subject which
prepares learners for future jobs In Vietnam,
according to decision 50/2003/QĐ-BGDĐT,
teaching English to young learners is
expected to form basic communication skills
to provide fundamental knowledge of world
culture and to create positive attitude toward
English language learning Therefore, various
teaching techniques have been applied to
increase communication in class Questions
are the bone of any class conversations or
information exchanging For those reasons,
this case study is to help TEYL teachers have
a practical view of using questions and how to
make a question appropriate to students’ level
in a TEYL class
LITERATURE REVIEW
The importance of questioning strategies in
teaching language has been realized and
studied by various researchers all over the
world Questions help boost learners’ logical
thinking by processing information [1] and
simplify material and offers learners more
* Tel: 0904160909, Email: dao.nguyenhanh@hust.edu.vn
opportunities to interact [2] It means that questions enable teachers to deliver knowledge straightforwardly and also offer more chances for students to talk about a given material or with teachers and classmates [3], [4] Hence, questions not only check students’ understanding but also reach the hidden level of their awareness
Formulating a practical question includes such steps as: (1) deciding purposes or goals
of questioning; (2) choosing contents of questions; (3) preparing relevant question list; (4) symplifying questions; (5) checking understanding; (6) giving wait-time; (7) listening and confirming students’ answers; (8) preparing for students’ questions [5] Similar to any instructional strategies used in class, teachers’ questioning should embed learners’ cognitive development; thus, two fundamental types of questions are given on the basis on the effects on learning outcomes: lower-cognitive and higher-cognitive questions [6] Elaborately, lower cognitive questions are produced merely to recall or check student awareness of the material; hence, the content of the answer could be predicted [5], [7], [8] Typical lower-cognitive questions are closed, direct, recall, knowledge questions, or named display questions [8], and used popularly at primary
Trang 2school and secondary school [9] In contrast,
higher-cognitive questions require students to
connect knowledge with other problems to
solve, analyze and evaluate information They
are open-ended, interpretive, evaluative,
inquiry; inferential and synthesis questions
Referential questions which basically require
learners to acquire new information through
self-discovery [8] are used less frequently
than display questions [10]
Besides that, questions are sequenced by
increase in learners’ cognitive levels, and they
are closely connected to lesson objectives
[11], [12] Defined as statements predicting
what learners have gained after a course [13],
[14], learning outcomes are divided into three
types: (i)cognitive outcomes - the knowledge
gained by the end of an activity, lesson or
course; (ii) behavioral outcomes - the skills
achieved at the end of a task, a lesson, or a
program; (iii) affective outcomes - abstract
and philosophical concepts [15]
The designing of learning outcome depends
on whether it is applied for a lesson or for the
whole course and aligns some steps matching
expected learning outcome and teaching
activities, assessment and awarding [16]
In this research, revised Bloom Taxonomy is
used to write questions reflecting learners’
higher-order levels of cognition Its six levels
are remembering, understanding, applying,
analyzing, evaluating and creating [7] with
remembering to be the lowest-cognitive skill
and creating the highest In fact, most
questions asked in classrooms are in the first
two levels, with fewer questions in the other
levels [12]
Identifying relevant questioning strategies to
young learners is vital to increase their
involvement in learning a language These
questions should be at their levels of
cognitive development To young learners
aged 7-12 years old [17], their cognitive
development level is at concrete operational
stage [18] In other words, they are able to use
inductive logic in thinking and understanding
and give a conclusion after a series of events
It is implied from Piagetian theory that
teachers need to vary instruction strategies in
teaching learners at different stages of
cognitive development including young learner [19] TEYL teachers should do the followings [20]: (i) guide learners to actively discover knowledge; (ii) encourage peer-learning; (iii) teach learners to accept mistakes as a signal of progress; (iv) focus on process as much as products; (v) recognize and provide various activities to fit learners at individual cognitive development levels
In short, TEYL teachers should use lower-cognitive-level questions more often than higher-cognitive-level ones to be relevant to young learners' concrete operational stage of cognitive development [2] In this research, two such lower-cognitive-level questions are display and referential questions Second, TEYL teachers should start with learning outcomes based on cognitive levels [11] Then, they can use relevant questioning strategies to both motivate discovery learning and facilitate different learning styles or cognitive development levels
Research background The study was implemented in a grade-5 class
at a district primary school in a big city with
20 classrooms and functional facilities furnished with modern equipment (like computers, projectors, and interactive smart boards) for such subjects as English, Computer Science and Music
English program by MOET, Vietnam was chosen for this research because the program is official and compulsory for all primary students
in big cities in Vietnam Each English class has two 40-minute class hours per week by Vietnamese teacher, and students do one mid-term test and one final test each semester The book “English 5” with two volumes for two semesters is complied by the Vietnam Education Publishing House under a pilot program sponsored by MOET Vietnam The book is designed to improve four basic language skills with more focus on listening and speaking about 5 familiar communication topics related to young learners’ life Each topic is taught in one units; each unit has two lessons After five units, students have a revision lesson focusing on summarizing, reviewing and reinforcing four communication skills and three basic language skills (Phonetic, Vocabulary, Grammar)
Trang 3RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
A case study is an empirical strategy of
inquiry that examines contemporary real-life
situations and provides extent for idea
application or method expansion It is divided
into exploratory, descriptive and explanatory
case studies which guide researchers in
determining direction of a study [21], [22] In
this study, research questions explain the
reasons “why” and “how” [21] the teacher
uses some types of questions in TEYL lesson
Therefore, the research belongs to
explanatory case study with two main
research questions:
- How has the teacher used questions in the
observed lesson?
- Why has the teacher asked those questions
in the except of observed lesson?
To fit into limited time and cost resources for
in-depth data, after three 40-minute
observations with three different teachers
teaching separate lessons, a case was selected
for this research
The case is a 23-year-old single female, born
in big city and awarded BA degree in English
linguistics with her passion to become an
excellent academic English manager at a
start-up for a long run She has worked as a
teaching assistant for 2 years and a Math and
English tutor for 1 year At present, she is
teaching English at a local primary school for
students from 6 to 10 years old (grade 1 to 5)
She has 4 classes with 8 hours every week
The data was collected from non-participatory
observation and in-depth interview:
- Data from one video-recorded excerpt of the
single case's observed lesson which lasts five
minutes to identify types and procedures of
questioning strategies in a given TEYL lesson
based on an observation checklist
- Data from one 30-minute audio-recorded
interview with the case about her oral
reflection of applying questioning strategies
in the observed lesson
The interview questions were piloted for
adaptation before being officially used and
conducted on the protocol: covering letter and
consent letter handed in to the observed and
interviewee in advance; interview questions
in Vietnamese asked after each time she used either questions in the video-recorded excerpt These two sources of qualitative data were then organized and sorted, or coded The coding helps researchers summarize and synthesize primary data properly [23], and it has four steps to code data: (1) creating story; (2) coding data using colors; (3) creating codes combining themes/sub-themes and colors; (4) illustration of coding
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION The coding of five-minute excerpt of the observed lesson on the bases of theme 1 and theme 2 helps work out findings 1-5 and answer research question 1- how the teacher has used questions in TEYL lesson Meanwhile, the coding of the 30-minute interview on theme 3 generates findings 6-7 which answer research question 2- explaining why the teacher used such questions in the observed lesson excerpt
Theme 1: Types of questions used in the five-minute excerpt of the observed TEYL lesson
In the five-minute excerpt of observed lesson, when the teacher presented seven new words and introduced the story’s context by pointing
at each character together with eliciting students’ answers to the questions in the dialogue, she asked two types of question-nine display questions and two referential questions which were repeatedly asked five times by the teacher The former is more common; they are also classified as lower-cognitive questions that simply determined what students knew and learned in a narrow sense [6] because the teacher expected them
to identify the answers all in the textbook such as familiar characters of the dialogue or previously-learnt vocabulary items They can
be an interrogative, statement, or a phrase and aimed at seeking information rather than merely confirming information In general, the display questions and referential questions the teacher asked in the observed lesson excerpt are relevant to primary students’cognitive development; they can comprehend and memorize information, based on Bloom’s Taxonomy (1956)
Trang 4Theme 2: Procedures of questioning in the
five-minute excerpt of the observed TEYL
lesson
The teacher in the research followed some but
not all the necessary steps of questioning like
described in [5] During planning questions,
the teacher already understood students’ level
of language proficiency, cognitive
development, the achieved knowledge and
lesson objectives She also repeated questions
instead of posing questions to check
understanding like ‘Are you clear?’ or ‘do
you understand?’ She gave two seconds'
waiting time after each referential question
and one second for each display question The
wait-time should have been longer as its
increase beyond 2-3 seconds could lead to
increase in amount and quality of answers and
could expand the variety of responded given
by students [24]
The following findings are worked out from
the analysis of the observed lesson excerpt:
- Finding 1: More display questions in various
grammatical forms requiring students’ logical
thinking at concrete events [2] than referential
questions are used in the observed TEYL
lesson
- Finding 2: Both display and referential
questions can be used to ask TEYL learners to
search for information already provided in a
given text or context [6]
- Finding 3: Teachers should be flexible in
generatinging a question in TEYL lessons
without rigidly following suggested steps
-Finding 4: TEYL students need more
wait-time for high-order-thinking questions such as
referential questions
-Finding 5: TEYL teachers can check
students’ understanding of questions by
repeating them, enabling them to recall learnt
events [25]
Theme 3: Reasons for the teacher's asking
such observed questions in the five-minute
TEYL lesson excerpt
As mentioned above, many display questions
were used in the observed lesson excerpt due
to the teacher’s understanding of the students’
cognitive development She explained that
with illustrating pictures as physical clues for
students to answer display questions, they could understand the questions more easily,
as pre-teenagers are still in concrete thinking rather than logical thinking, and they literally focus more on physical objects [25], and they recall knowledge from long-term memory by comparing information
Another feature of using display questions in the observed lesson excerpt is that the teacher intentionally repeated the question patterns or
at least simplifying questions by repeating key word twice to draw students’attention to the main contents in repeated key words and quickly found the answers Furthermore, she teacher followed rigorously the language outcomes of achieving Level 1-A1 for primary students [26] in which students communicate at slow pace and usually require repetition Besides that, her low-frequency use of referential questions with two repeated patterns in the observed lesson excerpt required the students’ association skills They only understood and remembered information rather than having deep thinking [23]
From theme 3, following findings are given: -Finding 6: TEYL teachers study thoroughly young learners’ cognitive levels and development together with required learning outcomes of programs so that they can select appropriate question strategies
- Finding 7: Questioning strategies and classroom management are closely connected IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION
On the bases of those seven findings, some pedagogical implications are made for English-language teachers of young learners when using questioning strategies in TEYL classes First, teachers should be clearly aware of the significance and the purposes of classroom questions The benefits range from moderating students’ behaviour, associating previously-learnt with new knowledge, actively involving learners in lessons, developing critical thinking skills and stimulating learner autonomy [2] Second, determining students’ learning outcomes to make relevant questions depends
on how teachers learn about students’ level of cognitive development and the standard language proficiency for Vietnamese primary students [26] Furthermore, teachers also need
Trang 5to consider objectives and contents of lessons
in making questions Besides these, teachers
should clearly understand concepts in text,
students’ backgrounds, students’ prior
knowledge and their thinking skills [27] In
short, English teachers of young learners need
to consider those implications aforementioned
on selecting appropriate questioning strategies
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TÓM TẮT
NGHIÊN CỨU TÌNH HUỐNG VỚI VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CÂU HỎI
TRONG GIẢNG DẠY TIẾNG ANH TIỂU HỌC
Nguyễn Hạnh Đào1*, Phạm Thùy Linh1, Đặng Thị Thanh Hương2
Việc sử dụng câu hỏi trong giảng dạy tiếng Anh tiểu học bao gồm hai mục đích chính: xác nhận thông tin học sinh thu nhận được và phát triển khả năng tư duy phản biện của học sinh Bài nghiên cứu này được tiến hành nhằm mục đích xác định được việc giáo viên sử dụng chiến lược đặt câu hỏi cũng như tìm ra lý do cho việc áp dụng các chiến lược đó trong lớp học tiếng Anh tiểu học Kết quả phân tích hai nguồn dữ liệu: bảng thống kê dạng câu hỏi trong đoạn video ghi hình giáo viên dạy trong năm phút và phỏng vấn sâu trong 30 phút với giáo viên đó chỉ ra rằng loại câu hỏi trình bày và câu hỏi liên tưởng được giáo viên sử dụng thường xuyên trong đoạn video Thêm nữa, trong bài phỏng vấn, giáo viên nêu
lý do chọn hai loại câu hỏi này: dựa vào chuẩn đầu ra của bài học, chương trình học môn tiếng Anh hết cấp và mức độ phát triển nhận thức của học sinh Từ kết quả nghiên cứu này, chúng tôi cũng đưa ra một
số đề xuất cho việc sử dụng câu hỏi trong giảng dạy tiếng Anh tiểu học
Từ khoá: Chiến lược sử dụng câu hỏi; giảng dạy tiếng anh cho trẻ em; câu hỏi trình bày và câu hỏi liên tưởng; kết quả học tập; sự phát triển nhận thức
Ngày nhận bài: 04/9/2018; Ngày phản biện: 18/9/2018; Ngày duyệt đăng: 28/9/2018