Questioning strategies by teachers at preschool level and patterns of student responses the case of grapeseed english curriculum

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION GRADUATION PAPER QUESTIONING STRATEGIES BY TEACHERS

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

GRADUATION PAPER

QUESTIONING STRATEGIES BY TEACHERS

AT PRESCHOOL LEVEL AND PATTERNS OF STUDENT RESPONSES:

THE CASE OF GRAPESEED ENGLISH CURRICULUM

Supervisor: Phạm Thanh Thủy, M.Ed Student: Nguyễn Hải Yến

Course: QH2013.F1.E2

HÀ NỘI – 2017

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

CHIẾN LƯỢC ĐẶT CÂU HỎI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN

TIẾNG ANH Ở BẬC MẦM NON

VÀ ĐẶC ĐIỂM PHẢN HỒI CỦA HỌC SINH NGHIÊN CỨU VỚI CHƯƠNG TRÌNH TIẾNG ANH

I hereby state that I: Nguyễn Hải Yến, QH2013.F1.E2, being a candidate for the degree

of Bachelor of Arts (Fast-Track programme) accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

On submission of the graduation paper, I would like to express my gratitude towards GrapeSEED English Curriculum Vietnam, the teachers and the schools who have supported me with dedication and open-mindedness Without their cooperation, this paper could hardly be fulfilled at all

Besides, I would like to thank my supervisor, Ms Pham Thanh Thuy for her patience and tolerance throughout the process I also received great support from the jury members, Ms Doan Thi Thu Trang and Mr Nguyen Chi Duc, whose critical comments helped me revise my work with grounded theory and arguments

Above all, I would like to dedicate this graduation paper to my dearest family and friends who have always embraced me with love and encouragement during 4 years of student life

ABSTRACT

For foreign language learners, especially young learners at kindergarten level, classroom interaction seems to be their only source of communication, most of which is initiated by teacher questions On the belief that good questioning strategies facilitate language development, the researcher conducted this study to investigate questioning strategies by teachers at preschool level and patterns of student responses The study worked with GrapeSEED English Curriculum, a Japan-based English program for children between 4 and 12 years old In the study, teachers’ perceptions on questioning strategies (data collected via personal interview) were analyzed in comparison with their classroom practice (data collected via observation) Besides, patterns of student responses in terms of word length and syntactic complexity were revealed in correspondence with teacher questions The participants were GrapeSEED Unit 5 teachers and students who had their classes periodically recorded for research purposes The findings suggested a desirable consistency between teachers’ perceptions and their practice: that teachers employed more display to referential questions at the beginning of the course and gradually increased the number of referential questions towards the end In reply to teacher questions, students tended to provide responses with longer and syntactically complicated utterances compared

to those display questions Nevertheless, it was noticeable that the quality and quantity of student responses could be improved as a result of teachers’ instructions using display questions to reshape student responses This practice, thereby, restates the role of display questions in classroom interaction, especially at kindergarten level as well as raises concern over the authenticity of classroom interaction, as recommended by theories of communicative language teaching

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Teacher questioning

1.2 The purposes of teacher asking questions in EFL classroom 12

2 English as a Foreign Language at preschool level

2.1 The importance of EFL at preschool level 15

2.3 Teaching English as a foreign language at preschool level 16

3 GrapeSEED English Curriculum

1.2 Justification for the selections of participants 22

1.2 Progression throughout the course

1.2.1 The distribution of teacher questions 34 1.2.2 The syntactic complexity of student responses 36

2 Interview data

2.1 Teachers’ perception on questioning strategies

2.1.2 Influences of questioning on students’ language development 39 2.2 Teachers’ reflection on their classroom practice

2.2.1 The distribution of display and referential questions 39

LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, AND ABBREVIATIONS

List of figures

Figure 1: Distribution of teacher questions – Lesson 1

Figure 2: The proportion of fragment responses to display and referential questions - Lesson 1

Figure 3: Word length of student responses – Lesson 1

Figure 4: Distribution of teacher questions – Lesson 25

Figure 5: The proportion of fragment responses to display and referential questions - Lesson 25

Figure 6: Word length of student responses – Lesson 25

Figure 7: Distribution of teacher questions – Lesson 42

Figure 8: The proportion of fragment responses to display and referential questions - Lesson 42

Figure 9: Word length of student responses – Lesson 42

Figure 11: Distribution of teacher questions – Course progression

Figure 12: Syntactic complexity of student responses to teacher questions – Course progression

Figure 13: Word length of student responses – Course progression

List of abbreviation

EFL English as a foreign language R: researcher

ESL English as a second language I: interviewee

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

On submission of the graduation paper, I would like to express my gratitude towards GrapeSEED English Curriculum Vietnam, the teachers and the schools who have supported me with dedication and open-mindedness Without their cooperation, this paper could hardly be fulfilled at all

Besides, I would like to thank my supervisor, Ms Pham Thanh Thuy for her patience and tolerance throughout the process I also received great support from the jury members, Ms Doan Thi Thu Trang and Mr Nguyen Chi Duc, whose critical comments helped me revise my work with grounded theory and arguments

Above all, I would like to dedicate this graduation paper to my dearest family and friends who have always embraced me with love and encouragement during 4 years of student life

ABSTRACT

For foreign language learners, especially young learners at kindergarten level, classroom interaction seems to be their only source of communication, most of which is initiated by teacher questions On the belief that good questioning strategies facilitate language development, the researcher conducted this study to investigate questioning strategies by teachers at preschool level and patterns of student responses The study worked with GrapeSEED English Curriculum, a Japan-based English program for children between 4 and 12 years old In the study, teachers’ perceptions on questioning strategies (data collected via personal interview) were analyzed in comparison with their classroom practice (data collected via observation) Besides, patterns of student responses in terms of word length and syntactic complexity were revealed in correspondence with teacher questions The participants were GrapeSEED Unit 5 teachers and students who had their classes periodically recorded for research purposes The findings suggested a desirable consistency between teachers’ perceptions and their practice: that teachers employed more display to referential questions at the beginning of the course and gradually increased the number of referential questions towards the end In reply to teacher questions, students tended to provide responses with longer and syntactically complicated utterances compared

to those display questions Nevertheless, it was noticeable that the quality and quantity of student responses could be improved as a result of teachers’ instructions using display questions to reshape student responses This practice, thereby, restates the role of display questions in classroom interaction, especially at kindergarten level as well as raises concern over the authenticity of classroom interaction, as recommended by theories of communicative language teaching

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Teacher questioning

1.2 The purposes of teacher asking questions in EFL classroom 6

2 English as a Foreign Language at preschool level

2.3 Teaching English as a foreign language at preschool level 10

3 GrapeSEED English Curriculum

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

1 Types of teacher questions and patterns of student responses

1.2 Progression throughout the course

1.2.1 The distribution of teacher questions 35 1.2.2 The syntactic complexity of student responses 37

2 Teachers’ perceptions

2.1 Teachers’ perception on questioning strategies

2.1.2 Influences of questioning on students’ language development 40 2.2 Teachers’ reflection on their classroom practice

2.2.1 The distribution of display and referential questions 40

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION

1.1 Teachers’ perceptions 42

LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, AND ABBREVIATIONS

List of figures

Figure 1: Distribution of teacher questions – Lesson 1

Figure 2: The proportion of fragment responses to display and referential questions - Lesson 1

Figure 3: Word length of student responses – Lesson 1

Figure 4: Distribution of teacher questions – Lesson 25

Figure 5: The proportion of fragment responses to display and referential questions - Lesson 25

Figure 6: Word length of student responses – Lesson 25

Figure 7: Distribution of teacher questions – Lesson 42

Figure 8: The proportion of fragment responses to display and referential questions - Lesson 42

Figure 9: Word length of student responses – Lesson 42

Figure 11: Distribution of teacher questions – Course progression

Figure 12: Syntactic complexity of student responses to teacher questions – Course progression

Figure 13: Word length of student responses – Course progression

List of abbreviation

EFL English as a foreign language R: researcher

ESL English as a second language I: interviewee

PART II: MAIN TEXT

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Problem statement & Rationale

For language learners, their ultimate goal of second language acquisition could only be achieved when learners are provided with opportunities for meaningful communication (Richards, 2006) These opportunities, within Vietnam’s EFL context, are seemingly exclusive to classroom environment when teachers and students interact

to exchange their ideas It is thereby critical that classroom discourse be exploited to nurture learners’ language development

A significant pattern of interaction observed in ESL classroom is teachers’ questioning, which is believed to stimulate students’ participation as well as facilitate their language accumulation From a linguistic viewpoint, teachers’ questions serve as the input that triggers output from the students Common as it is as a pedagogical tool, classroom questions seem underused in terms of their communicative function, according to Long and Crookes (1986)

The pioneering research by Long and Sato in 1983 proved that classroom questions are predominantly to test students’ linguistic understanding rather than to carry genuine communication force as seen in native-nonnative conversation Since then there has been a growing interest in questions asked in ESL classroom Brock (1986) conducted a study to test the transferability of questioning techniques among teachers as well as their effects on syntaxes of students’ responses; Shomoossi (2004) and David (2007) focused on the effects of the techniques on students’ responses and classroom interaction, while Zohrabi (2014) investigated the distribution of questions across different levels, to name but a few

Although the importance of research on questioning strategies is universally recognized, there has not much literature on this issue set in Vietnamese context Furthermore, these aforementioned studies shared the same sampling of schoolchildren and adults, whose cognitive ability is developed enough to perceive abstract questions Nevertheless, together with the increasing social investment in EFL at preschool level

in Vietnam, young learners at kindergartens should be considered subjects of investigation as well

It is a pitiful fact that, flourishing as English programs at kindergarten level in Vietnam, there is a lack of systematic and standardized curriculum specifically designed for young learners While complaints are prevalent for most of these unauthorized programs, GrapeSEED English Curriculum is known as an international organization that provides patent curriculum and learning materials for ESL and EFL children in 17 countries all over the world Starting in 2013, this schoolyear (2016-2017), GrapeSEED English Curriculum has reached over 1,000 students in Vietnam and the number keeps growing these days (Riese, 2016) Not only being a popular program, GrapeSEED is also favored for standardized curriculum and materials which are systematically designed and updated by international experts of the company Moreover, GrapeSEED teachers are carefully selected and trained with GrapeSEED trainers, which contributes to their teaching quality Hence, this research is conducted with GrapeSEED English Curriculum as a stable sample of English teaching at kindergarten level in Vietnam

The present study is conducted as an attempt to investigate teacher questioning strategies in preschool ESL classes Besides, a detail description on syntactic and word length patterns of student responses in correlation with teacher questioning is also the aim of the research All these conditions offer the researcher to conduct a study on

“Questioning strategies by teachers at preschool level and patterns of student responses: The case of GrapeSEED English curriculum”

2 Research questions

Here are the objectives of the research:

2.1 What are teachers’ perceptions of questioning strategies at preschool level?

2.2 What types of questions are used in EFL classes by teachers at preschool level?

2.3 What are patterns of students’ responses in terms of word length and syntactic complexity towards different types of teacher questions?

3 Significance of the study

This research is expected to shed light on the distribution of questions by teachers

at preschool level and the patterns of student responses in terms of word length and syntactic complexity Furthermore, as far as I am concerned, this is nearly the first research on teacher questioning strategies that is conducted at preschool setting and took the progress of both teacher questions and student responses into consideration

Furthermore, the research findings are expected to suggest the effective questioning strategies to be adopted in teaching English as a foreign language in order

to elicit better verbal responses from learners in general and from young learners in particular

Teacher training in Vietnam is another matter of concern of this study The integration of questioning techniques in teaching practices may be revisited, with orientation towards student responses’ patterns

4 Scope of the study

The research deals with teacher questioning strategies in EFL classroom for students at preschool level, concerning the types of questions and the frequency of these types Other questioning techniques such as waiting time, nomination and appraisal feedback are beyond the scope of the research

Teacher questions to be studied are text-based questions only, including utterances with interrogative function Those used by teachers for classroom management purposes are not included

Regarding student responses, analysis is conducted in terms of word length and syntactic complexity in correlation with teacher questions

5 Organization of the study

The study consists of 5 chapters in total:

In summary, the introduction part presents the reasons for conducting the research on

“Teacher questioning strategies at preschool level and patterns of student responses: The case of GrapeSEED English Curriculum” It states the objectives of the research in the form of three research questions Significance of the research, its scope and organization are also acknowledged together with the outline for the study

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

In second language acquisition, input from social interaction is considered the driving force that provides “context and process through which language can be learned” (Pica, 1996) Considering the limited conversation in target language in a foreign language learning context, this source of input is supposed to be found mainly

in classroom and mostly directed by language teachers (Chaudron, as cited in Luu & Nguyen, 2010) Among techniques adopted to control classroom interaction, questioning is a common one (Ma, 2008) Hence, an in-depth look into the role of teachers’ questions, some taxonomies as well as their practice in EFL classroom is presented as follows

1 Teacher questioning

1.1 Definition

The broad definition of questions presented in Oxford dictionary is (1) a sentence

or phrase used to find out information or (2) a problem that tests a person’s knowledge

or ability This definition indicates the two most popular functions of questions, either

to seek information in real-life communication or to evaluate people’s knowledge in educational setting

Although the concept of questions is quite familiar to common knowledge, a more specific notion is set for pedagogical purpose According to Ur (1999), questions are

“teacher utterance which has the objective of eliciting an oral response from the learners” Another definition by Cotton (1988) views teachers’ questions as instructions that “convey to students the content elements and directions” on classroom tasks and procedures While the former emphasizes “students’ oral responses” as a result of teacher questioning, the latter implies that responses from students may involve both verbal and non-verbal ones This seems to cover a greater range of questions, including those that only retrieve student’s actions like nodding heads or raising hands (Chan,

1995) This study employs Chan’s definition, which takes into consideration all utterances with interrogative force that requires an obligatory response from students, regardless of the syntactic form

1.2 The purposes of teacher questioning in EFL classroom

In both content lessons and foreign language lessons, questioning is an indispensable part of classroom interaction Theoretically, questions could be initiated

by either learners or teachers; in practice, teachers dominate the process of questioning and answering, as Steven (1912), in her very first attempt to examine teachers’ questioning behavior, recorded that about 80% of normal school time was spent on teacher giving questions and students answering (as cited in Wilen, 1991) So critical

is the art of teachers’ giving questions that it is used to decide the quality of teaching

as De Garmo stated in his book “Interest and Education” (1902) that “to question well

is to teach well”

Questions in EFL classroom context are of practical value in different ways First, questions help shape the interaction in class between teachers and students Since teachers are predominantly question initiators, they have the control over conversation topics and turn-taking Even in a learner-centered class, teachers decide “who speaks, when, to whom and for how long” (Walsh, 2003) This unequal roles of the participants highlight the unique feature of classroom discourse compared to normal daily conversation Second, questions in EFL classrooms are used to seek information from their students, and more critically, to test students knowledge and understanding In Pete and Bremer’s survey (1967), 69% of the studied teachers reflected that they used questions mostly for assessing students’ ability (as cited in Ozcan, 2010) Furthermore, EFL in-class questions serve some pedagogical functions such as motivating students’ participation, detecting students’ errors (Gall & Rhody, as cited in Ellis, 1993)

Wilen (1991) summarized Carin and Sund (1971), Groiser (1964) and Hyman (1979) the reasons for teachers using questions in classroom as follows:

(7) To diagnose the probability of achieving intended goals

(8) To trigger student interest (9) To personalize lesson content (10) To assist student participation (11) To control students behavior

A more neatly look is provided by Cotton on the purposes of teacher questioning

(3) To develop critical thinking skill and inquiring attitudes

(4) To review and summarize previous lessons

(5) To nurture insights by exposing new relationships

(6) To assess achievement of instructional goals and objectives

(7) To stimulate students to pursue knowledge on their own

(Cotton, 1988)

1.3 Taxonomies of teacher questions

Research on teacher questions has focused on classifying questions based on different sets of criteria, namely syntactic form, communicative value, content orientation and cognitive level (Liu, 2005) Within the scope of this study, only taxonomies based on questions’ communicative value are reviewed

Richards and Lockharts (1994) classified questions into three categories: procedural, convergent and divergent The first group mostly deals with classroom management, for teachers to ensure the procedure of teaching and learning rather than

to convey any content lesson The other two groups are identified based on students’ level of thinking Convergent questions are of lower order of thinking, requiring students’ recall of previously presented information Divergent questions, on the contrary, engage students in complex information process to come up with their own ideas The taxonomy by Richards and Lockharts pays tribute to procedural questions which contribute to maintain classroom discipline Nevertheless, the downside of this taxonomy lies in the inconsistence of criteria to categorize, procedural questions are grouped on communicative paradigm while the other two are grouped according to cognitive ability

The most popular taxonomy of questions based on their communicative paradigm

is developed by Long and Sato (1983) The two researchers coined the term “display questions” to which the answers were already known to the teachers In contrast,

“referential questions” are believed to carry real communication needs when teachers actually seek information from students Nunn (1999) believed that display questions were “purposeless” concerning its communicative value Referential questions, adversely, resemble the type of questions that students may face in real conversation

in target language use Moreover, according to Brock (1986), referential questions stimulate longer and syntactically complex responses compared to display questions, thus, are encouraged to be used in language classroom Long and Sato’s taxonomy seems to be the most commonly referred to in ESL classroom research This research

would adopt Long and Sato’s classification regarding its influence on classroom interaction in general and students’ discourse in particular

2 English as a foreign language at preschool level

2.1 The importance of EFL at preschool level

In the context of globalization, being able to speak more than one language has been widely appreciated for the sake of better communication Since English is considered the single most important language in the world (Pullum & Huddleston, 2002), the “de facto language” of more than 60 countries and territories (One World Nation Online, n.d.), people all over the world are craving for the acquisition of English communicative competence

Although the huge demand for English learning is undeniable, to introduce English

as a foreign language at which age has been a heatedly debated topic among people of concern Contrary to common belief of “the earlier, the better”, research has proven that older children and adolescents are the most competent learners when it comes to second language acquisition (Krashen, Long & Scarcella, 1979) Nevertheless, these scholars state that in the long run, early childhood English education is likely to ensure higher proficiency compared to a start during adulthood

In the expanding circle, several countries have officially included English in their national curriculum at preschool level such as Spain, The Philippines However, there is

no statistics of this issue on a global scale

2.2 Preschool children as language learners

For young children, language acquisition seems to be a natural part of development if they are provided sufficient exposure and interaction (Clark, 2000) According to Mur (1998), at preschool level, children have already sharpened some instincts as well as developed some skills beneficial for foreign language learning such

as the ability for indirect learning, the desire for verbal communication, not mention a creative and imaginative mind (as cited in Lopez & Mendez, 2004)

Some unique characteristics of early childhood should be taken into consideration while teaching English as a foreign language for preschool learners According to Dun (1991), children’s developmental level in terms of language, cognition, emotion and physiology should all be well aware by teachers

Here are some attributes that can be seen in preschool children:

 Have short attention span (5-15 minutes)

 Need to move physically during classes

 Need frequent review of prior knowledge

 Have their L1 competence developed together with their L2

 Have their mood affected by their peers’

 Love to transfer concepts from L1 to L2

(Dunn, 1991)

2.3 Teaching English as a foreign language at preschool level

Apparently, there is not much literature about teaching English as a foreign language at preschool level

Clark (2000) claimed that there was not much difference in the pattern of learning between languages by young learners, whether it was their first or second language In other words, for children at preschool level, they would acquire English the same way as they do with their mother tongue This viewpoint reflects Krashen’s theory

of second language acquisition, which distinguishes conscious learning and natural acquisition At the initial stage of learning, research suggested that preschool children gained English knowledge via natural acquisition rather than analytical learning (Dunn, 1991) Dunn also stated that prefabricated language played an important role in English lessons for this group of students, providing basic language for minimum interpersonal communication

In general, Dunn (1991) presented three principles in designing a syllabus for teaching English as a foreign language for young learners:

 Include prefabricated language in the first stage of learning, together with reducing the number of vocabulary items

 Include more activities that suit students’ interest and developmental level, in order to motivate learning process

 Provide opportunities for children to talk about their immediate interests

The third principle goes in line with the importance of teacher initiated questions in classroom interaction It implies that while teaching English for preschool learners, teachers should pay attention to questions that trigger present interests of students by talking about themselves The desire to share personal information in children despite their limited verbal resources should be embraced while conducting an EFL class for this group of students

2.4 EFL at preschool level in Vietnam

In Vietnam, even though English is not included in the national curriculum for preschool level, this subject is increasingly carried out in many kindergartens, especially

in urban areas According to an informal survey by Thanhnien Newspaper (2014), most

of these English classes were held with voluntary registration of parents, catering for kids of three years old and above Besides, little supervision from the Ministry of Education and Training is provided, resulting in the variations among institutions in terms of course designing, instructors and tuition fee This situation raises concern over the quality of English teaching and learning for preschoolers, yet the number of English centers for kids seems to keep blooming

3 GrapeSEED English Curriculum

GrapeSEED also provides training courses for GrapeSEED teachers, including formal training before teaching (Foundation Training, Read and Write Training, etc.)

in which teachers are guided to use GrapeSEED teaching “tools” effectively (GrapeSEED, n.d) They are also given regular class visit by GrapeSEED trainers as a means of mentoring or tutorial for their teaching in action (GrapeSEED, n.d.)

Teaching tools in GrapeSEED consist of songs, poems, chants, stories, etc From Unit 1 to Unit 6, the predominant activities encourage students to develop verbal and phonological skills Moving upward, reading and writing skills are integrated

3.2 GrapeSEED class procedure

For each unit, students participate in 2 classes: (1) REP time when students sit silently, listening to audio tape and pointing to the words in their REP books that match the audio tape (2) interactive class when students learn the materials with teachers and follow normal classroom dynamics This study is conducted with GrapeSEED interactive class only From then on, GrapeSEED interactive class is referred to as GrapeSEED class

GrapeSEED classes follow a typical pattern

For each unit, there is a certain number of “teaching tools”, including songs, stories, chants, reading books, poems and action activities In each lesson, teachers would pick some of the ready-made materials to teach their students, approximately 11-

13 “tools” for a 40-minute-lesson

For each tool to be covered, the recommended approach from GrapeSEED is to

go through one single tool without interruption to ensure the memory mode Questions should be given before and after performing the materials

Each unit lasts about 45-48 lessons It is required by GrapeSEED that only when each teaching tool is covered with 25 exposures could students finish one unit before moving onto another

4 Related studies

The current literature provides information on teacher questioning in several aspects such as the types of questions and the correlation between question types and student responses and participation Notwithstanding, the available research were all conducted with adult learners, which offers a chance for this study to focus on teachers and students at preschool level as the subjects of investigation It was also noticeable that teacher questioning strategies and student responses in these studies were recorded in particular classrooms with particular teachers and learners This research, in contrast, looks at the same class with the same participants and the same content, with the only variable lying in the progress of the students Set in the context of EFL in Vietnam, the research is expected to fill the gap of the current literature and contribute some worthwhile findings from the perspective of EFL in Vietnam

One of the earliest studies on teachers’ questioning was conducted by Brock (1986) at English classes in the University of Hawaii’s English language institute He proposed an experiment to test the possibility of training teachers with questioning techniques as well as the influences of teachers’ questions on students’ discourse patterns The participants included 24 non-native English speakers and four experienced teachers, divided in four groups for treatment and control ones The final results indicated that teachers were mostly quick-adapted to changing their questioning strategies after simple instructions More critically, referential questions were found to motivate students to produce longer and syntactically more complex utterances

The research by Brock (1986) had a large influence on this graduation paper in terms of research methodology It followed Brock’s pathway in investigating the frequency of display and referential questions employed by teachers and the length and syntactic complexity of student responses Research design was to observe classroom interaction of different teachers delivering the same lesson plan; however, this research did not involve any control group as in Brock’s since the researcher did not have intention to do a comparative analysis Besides, data analysis procedures were partly based on Brock’s method in counting the average word length of students When it

came to syntactic analysis, Brock adopted c-nodes and s-nodes model to define the

number of predicaments in each responses This practice was appropriate since his participants were university students whose language competence was at higher level However, this research was conducted with kindergarten children, who hardly managed to produce long and complex utterances; hence, the researcher would prefer

to adapt the framework for coding the level of syntactic complexity based on the definition of fragments and sentences by Merchant (2004)

Ozcan (2010) conducted a study on the effect of asking referential questions on student participation and the quality of their responses in a reading class with low-level learners This was an action research when the researcher prepared a lesson plan and pre-planned questions to teach a single classroom himself The lessons were recorded and 2 teachers in the same institution were asked to classify the questions used in classroom using a tally sheet Based on the observational data, he reached the conclusion that referential questions were more influential in provoking student participation, provided that students were given enough time for discussion Questionnaires were also delivered to 40 teachers and 35 students to ask for their opinions on the effects of display and referential questions It was revealed that while students showed preference for referential inquiries, teachers stated that referential questions would work well with quite advanced level class rather than a low-level one

Ozcan’s research implied that language proficiency of students may exert a certain effect on the distribution of teachers’ display and referential questions as well

as the quality of student responses This implication was taken into consideration when the researcher designed her study, which was to observe classes throughout the whole course, to examine the progress of student language competence and the way questions-and-answers patterns progress accordingly Furthermore, the researcher adapted some open-ended questions from Ozcan’s questionnaire to include in her interview about teachers’ perceptions about questioning strategies and reflection on classroom practice

Another notable research on teacher questioning strategies was carried out by Zohrabi (2014) He focused on the frequency of teachers’ display and referential questions across different levels of proficiency 3 groups of students at elementary, intermediate and advanced level learnt with an experienced teacher during 1 semester and had their lessons audio-recorded The researcher also noted down the types of questions on his tally sheet while observing the classes Zohrabi found out that there were differences in the use of teachers’ questions across these 3 levels Specifically, the teacher appeared to adopt more display than referential questions in elementary class In contrast, the teacher preferred referential questions to display ones in intermediate class and advanced class It was assumed that students need to reach a certain level of competence before they could be involved in referential questions The research by Zohrabi (2014) suggested a possible link between language proficiency and the delivery of teachers’ questions He predicted that in order to produce a response to referential questions, students should reach a certain level of communicative as well as cognitive competence Therefore, this type of questions was mostly asked in intermediate and advanced class The reversed pattern was then reversed in elementary classes In the present study, the researcher also wanted to explore the correlation between student competence and the distribution of teacher questioning at preschool level However, instead of observing different classes at

specific moment, this research involved the participation of teachers and students during more than 2 months so that the progress in language competence could be reflected in both teacher questions and student responses Due to the lack of resources,

3 lessons of each course were picked, representing 3 periods of students’ released responsibility

In summary, this chapter – Literature review provides background information

on the key terms – teacher questioning and teaching EFL at preschool level Some characteristics of GrapeSEED English Curriculum related to the study are also presented Three studies with close relation to the present study are reviewed as well

Unit 5 in GrapeSEED was covered within 48 lessons, 42-45 minutes per lesson

In total, a class of Unit 5 would last approximately 33 hours

1.2 Justification for the selections of participants

GrapeSEED teachers and students were selected as subjects of the study since they followed the same classroom procedures with predefined materials and systematically well-developed syllabus Among 40 units of the curriculum, Unit 5 classes were chosen owing to the following reasons

First, these Unit 5 classes were organized as part of the curriculum of some kindergartens in Hanoi This may ensure the regular attendance of the students – one of the critical factor to student language acquisition progress

Second, Unit 5 focuses on developing students’ verbal skills, which promotes classroom interaction at a frequent level For each teaching tool, it is required that the learning content is reviewed and reinforced by teacher questions This practice creates a favorable environment for observing teacher questioning strategies and patterns of student response

Third, Unit 5 students are presumably confident in communicating in English with some common themes1 They are familiar with a wide range of vocabulary and syntax and are able to produce expressions of different structures Therefore, the study was expected to observe a variety of patterns in both teacher questions and student responses

Last but not least, like other GrapeSEED courses, students’ progress is measured

by the number of student exposure to each teaching tool Of 19 verbal tools of Unit 5, each lesson covered about 11-12 tools on a rotational basis and teachers are required to maintain the balance among exposures of all these tools, reporting their class’ exposures

to GrapeSEED online checking system Supposedly, at one particular moment of the course, students of different classes would experience approximately similar exposures and, consequently, similar progress

Within the time the research was conducted, there were 4 GrapeSEED classes of Unit 5 to be held in Hanoi and the researcher contacted the teachers and school managers

of all these 4 classes to ask for their permission The class enrollment varied from 8 to

15 students for each class, with a total of 44 students

2 Research instruments

2.1 Observation

Classroom observation was conducted in order to investigate the implementation

of teacher questioning strategies in practice Specifically, the researcher looked at the types of questions used by teachers and the distribution of these question types Besides, patterns of student responses were recorded in terms of word length and syntactic complexity (research question 2 and 3)

Observation is a common research instrument in second language research, which provides detailed evidence of classroom dynamic in reality (Griffee, 2012) With a view

1 Unit 1 to 4 GrapeSEED English curriculum covers these following themes: animals, school, clothes, body parts,

to reflect teachers’ questioning behavior in reality, it was employed as a research instrument

2.2 Interview

The interview was conducted with the teachers to investigate their perceptions of questioning strategies as well as their reflection and explanation for their classroom practice (research question 1)

This was a semi-constructed interview with a predefined guideline of questions However, these questions were subject to change during the interview based on the teachers’ responses

The interview included two main parts with the questions adapted from Ozcan (2010) In the first part, the teachers were asked to share their viewpoints on the purpose

of asking questions, the distribution of different types of questions as well as the importance of teacher questioning on language development It was only during this round were the interviewees informed of display and referential questions by definition before they reflected on how they employed these two kinds of questions In the second part, the interviewer highlighted some striking patterns in the teachers’ questioning strategies and asked for more explanation and elaboration from the teachers Extracts from their classroom record would be shown if necessary

3 Procedures of data collection

3.1 Observation

The teachers and school managers were contacted via email to ask for their participation Brief information about the research was clarified before the participants signed the consent form

Piloting observation was conducted with a GrapeSEED class to test electrical devices Cameras were selected in order to record both classroom interaction as well as the physical context for teacher-student discourse The researcher decided to set 2 cameras in each classroom to provide a complete view of teachers and students’ activities

In order to stay unobtrusive to the lesson, the researcher would not be present inside the classroom

The date for observation was negotiated between the researcher and the teachers Each teacher had their class observed 3 times, 45 minutes per lesson, representing 3 periods in developmental chart by GrapeSEED: lesson 8 – lesson 25 and lesson 42 The teachers were asked to conduct the same lesson plan with identical teaching tools as well

as the procedure of these tools No more interruption to classroom management was perceived

On observation day, the researcher came 10 minutes earlier to set up the camera and double checked the learning materials as planned

3.2 Interview

At the end of their classroom observation process, the teachers were invited to participate in an individual interview in person with the researcher Since they were all local teachers, the language used in the interview was Vietnamese, so that the teachers could feel comfortable to articulate their ideas A recorder was prepared to record the interview

At first, the teachers were given the definition of display and referential questions Then they entered the first round of interviewing with questions about the purpose of teacher questioning, effects of teachers’ questions on students’ language development and the distribution of display and referential questions in their class

In the second part of the interview, the teachers were informed of their classroom questioning strategies as observed Then each individual’s striking patterns in questioning would be discussed Teachers may also be shown extracts of their classroom activities to reflect on their practice back then

4 Procedures of data analysis

4.1 Observation data

The first step in analyzing observation data was to transcribe classroom interaction Teacher and students’ actions, which contributed to the physical context of

discourse were also noted Another senior teacher trainee was invited to code the data for cross-reference until agreement was reached between the two raters The following symbols were used for all classroom interaction transcript:

Italic: GrapeSEED materials

Teachers’ questions and students’ responses were coded based on the principle of

adjacency pairs To be specific, the researcher looked for the pattern of “teacher question

– student answer” in which interrogative utterances were immediately followed by a relevant responses, either verbally or non-verbally Within the scope of the study, only text-based questions and their responses were taken into consideration

4.1.1 Text

Utterances were considered text if they were input language provided in GrapeSEED classroom materials These included vocabulary flashcards, phonogram flashcards, poems, chants, stories and lyrics of songs

4.1.2 Teacher questions & student responses

Utterances that were considered questions may be in interrogative form or declarative form as long as they required responses from the students, verbally or non-verbally

Rhetorical questions (e.g., “you see?”) or those that failed to elicit such a response

from students and those aborted by the teachers were not included The limited scope of text-based questions also excluded those without any connection to the linguistic content

of the text like managerial questions that were merely to maintain class control (e.g.,

“who sits nicely?”)

Besides, when teachers used probing and prompting techniques – normally in

order to specify general concepts (e.g “what can you not see in the classroom? Can you see a tiger in the classroom?”), only the last question was counted Questions with little

or no change in wording (e.g., “who can tell me, who likes fruits in your family? Now, who likes fruits in your family?”) were counted as one single question However, if the

same questions were directed towards different students (by nomination, for instance) and elicited different responses, they were counted as different questions

Moreover, in the initial and middle stage of the course, teachers would normally try to involve and instruct students in performing the text by giving cues and look for students to “fill in the blank” Since this part was unanimous of GrapeSEED teaching procedure and held no value to teachers’ variations in questioning strategies, questions for this purpose were not to be counted

While coding, it was noticed that teachers’ utterances may also interrupt and overlap students’ turns as a means to assist students’ responses in terms of syntax or linking ideas In these circumstances, if these interruptions were in line with the original questions and students continued their response without switching their ideas, these interruptions were ignored while students’ interrupted utterances were counted as one single response

Another confusing situation happened when students could not wait for nomination but tried to give out their answers simultaneously In this case, following Oliveira (2010), only the first response was counted

When counting the word length of student responses, some “semantically empty

phrases” (Brock, 1985) like “ah, oh” would not be counted Repetition of words would

be omitted For example, in the utterance “I cut cut cut”, the word “cut” would be counted only once Proper nouns like Ms Broccolli were counted as one single word Contractions “I’m”, “it’s” would be counted as one word

In analyzing the level of syntactic complexity of student responses, since kindergarten students could hardly produce long and multi-clause utterances, the

researcher classified student responses into either fragments or sentential structures with reference to definitions by Merchant (2004) Sentential structures were identified with the presence of both subjects and predicates while those that missed one of these elements were considered fragments

In Appendix C, these formats represent:

Blue color: display question

Blue color, underlined: referential questions

Red color: responses with fragmentary syntax

Red color, bold: responses with fully sentential syntax

4.2 Interview data

The recordings of teachers’ interview were transcribed While reading through the transcript, the researcher gradually developed coding categories to understand teachers’ perceptions Works of reference for coding system included Oliveira (2010) and Ozcan (2010) The coding system was revised when the researcher looked for in-depth details until patterns were highlighted The final list of categories were about question timing types of questions (display or referential), distribution of 2 types of questions, purposes

of asking questions and effects on student responses

When the coding process was completed, the researcher compared and contrasted the patterns among 4 participants and synthesized the results

In summary, this chapter discusses the research design implemented by the researcher, including research participants, instruments, data collection procedures and data analysis procedures This is a qualitative research, employing observation and interview instruments to collect and analyze data

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Data from the two instruments would be respectively presented, discussed and reasoned below

1 Types of teacher questions and patterns of student responses

Data from classroom observation were analyzed to figure out the patterns of teacher questioning and student responses For teacher questions, the researcher looked

at the types of questions employed by the teachers and the distribution of these types in each lesson For student responses, the focus of investigation was on their syntactic complexity and word length

In terms of teacher questions, they were classified into 2 types: display questions and referential questions The distinction between these 2 types lies in the epistemic position of the questioner Display questions were ones for which teachers knew the answers already, while for referential questions, teachers held genuine interest looking for information in students’ responses (Long & Sato, 1983)

As for student responses, they were examined in correspondence with teacher questions as adjacency pairs The researcher compared the word length of student responses as well as their syntactic level Syntactically, responses were classified as fragments if they missed obligatory sentence components and those with subject-predicate structure were considered complete sentences Syntactic complexity of student

responses, in this case, was measured by the proportion of fragments to all responses (f)

Teacher questions and student responses were also presented in progression from the beginning to the end of the course (lesson 8 – lesson 25 – lesson 42)

1.1 Lesson-based analysis

Lesson 8

At the beginning of the course, display questions were the predominant type to be employed by all 4 studied teachers Within 45 minutes of the lesson, the teachers

managed to ask approximately over 50 inquiries, out of which there were only 1 or 2 referential questions

As can be seen, during lesson 8, the teachers tended to display questions based on GrapeSEED materials, either linguistically or visually It was common to see the teachers point to their teaching posters and ask students factual questions for which the answers could be easily found in the text An example in in teacher 4’s lesson 8, with the song

“Five” could be witnessed

T: five red cherries, five purple

grapes

Five yellow lemons, on a plate

Five bananas, five green apples, too

Lots of fruits for me and you!

T: No not six We see in here what kind of fruit here? What

is this? (pointed to pictures) Ss: Cherries

T: What’s this?

Ss: grapes T: What’s this next?

Ss: lemons

T (pointed to picture)

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