QUESTIONING

CAN QUESTIONING HELP READERS

            Getting students to answer questions is one way for the teacher to get some access to what is going on in their minds. Wrong answers are often particularly illuminating, because they can suggest where the misunderstanding arises.

            So questions are helpful to the teacher; reading the text and answering questions to check that you have understood.

Dealing with answers: the key role of the teacher

            A challenging question is useless to most of the class if the teacher simply accepts the first correct answer and moves on; it can only help if every student tries hard to answer it.

            It is important to have a classroom climate that encourages people to say what they really think. Neither you nor the students must be afraid of being wrong.

            One key factor is to make sure the students can look at the text when answering.

            Your attitude to wrong answers is crucial. A perfect answer teaches little, but eacg imperfect answer is an opportunity for learning.

The purpose of questioning

            The purpose is to make students aware of the way language is used to convey meaning, and of the strategies readers can use to interpret texts.

            Having excluded pure language and pure content questioning, we identify the kinds of questions that are relevant to our purpose.

            Some simple initial questions may result in skimming or scanning activities. Others may direct readers’ attention to diagrams.

            The best questions make students aware of the difficulties. You cannot deal with a difficulty if you are not aware of it.

Forms of questions

Questions can be classified according to their grammatical form.

      1)          yes/no questions

Example: is a trout, a fish?    Yes (it is).

1)                  Alternative questions.

Is a trout a fish or a bird?       It is a fish.

2)                  wh- questions:

What is a trout?             It is a fish.

3)                  How/why questions

How did the trout escape? It managed to hide under a black stone.

Presentation of questions

Written or spoken?

Some kinds of question (notably multiple choice) are unsuitable for oral presentation, and written questions may provide the back bone of the lesson, if they coverall the important aspects of the text.

            Written questions do not necessarily have to be answered in writing. Oral responses are often enough.

Open ended, multiple choice or true/false

Open ended questions are those to which the student can give any response that he consider suitable.

            In multiple choice questions the student has to choose from a set of possible responses. For example:
what happened to trout?

a)      it was caught

b)      it escaped down to stream

c)      the fisher man had it for supper

d)      it hid under a black stone

true or false questions present a statement: the student has to decide if it is true or false according to the text. For example:

            the trout was caught by the fisher man.     T/F

open ended questions may, as we saw, require very short answers, but typically they demand rather more; their disadvantages are thus:

1)      the answer cannot be assessed objectively.

2)      They require students to produce responses in the target language.

However open ended questions have some important advantages:

1)      they are relatively easy to devise.

2)      They can be used for virtually any purpose.

3)      They force the student to think things out for himself.

The language of responses

            Inability to express themselves in he target language needlessly limits both the kind and the quality  of the responses students give. It is quite possible that students who are permitted to use their L1 in responding will explore the text more accurately and thoroughly than those who are restricted to target language responses.

The language of questions

            It is not always possible to express the question you want to ask in straightforward language, especially if the text is itself difficult.

            The language used for questions should be as clear as you can make it.

TYPES OF QUESTION: WHAT ARE WE TO ASK ABOUT

Type 1: questions of literal comprehension:

These are questions whose answers are directly and explicitly expressed in the text.

Type 2: questions involving reorganization or reinterpretation:

Such questions make the student consider the text as a whole.

Type 3: questions of inference

These questions oblige the students to consider what is implied but not explicitly stated.

Type 4: questions of evaluation:

Evaluative questions ask for a considered judgment about the text in terms of what the writer is trying to do and how far she has achieved it. The reader may be asked to judge.

Type 5: questions of personal response:

The category includes questions such as “what is your opinion of x’s behavior?”

Type 6: questions concerned with how writers say what they mean:

Another type of question much in use now, has as its main concern how the writer says what he means. This kind of question is intended to give students strategies for handling texts in general, rather than simply helping them to understand one particular text. It is aimed at making students aware of word-attack and text-attack skills, i.e. making them conscious of what they do when they interpret text.

THE QUESTIONER

Traditionally it is the teacher who asks the questions and the student who replies. But we have seen that readers have to learn to “interrogate the text”. The teacher’s questions of course force them to do this, having to ask question son a text is a very good way to ensure that you read it carefully.