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Teaching
Ideas and Units - Teaching Strategies
Asking
Questions
Effective
English classrooms are full of interesting questions posed by teachers and
students. Questions arise most often around texts being studied. English
teachers, through their knowledge of texts, their familiarity with the valued
discourses and activities of the English learning area, and their awareness
of competing perspectives and ideas within this field, ask many different
types of questions.
Research
shows that teachers ask lots of questions (between 300-400
per day). The majority of teacher questions are short, direct,
closed and require a short, direct, uncomplicated answer.
Students ask many fewer questions than teachers (about 15%).
The older students get, the fewer questions they ask.
A
"good" question possesses three features:
-
it requires more than recall or reproduction of a skill;
-
it has an educative component; that is, the student will
learn from attempting to answer it and the teacher will
learn about the student from the attempt;
- it
is, to some extent, open; that is, there may be several
acceptable answers.
The
questions English teachers ask relate to their teaching intention
at a particular time or the requirements of a syllabus. Questions
often derive from the perspectives on English teaching
(cultural heritage, personal growth, functional, critical literacy)
that underpin their teaching at a particular time. An understanding
of these perspectives helps teachers identify clear purposes
for the questions they ask. In the past, teachers of English
operated mainly from personal growth and cultural heritage perspectives.
In recent times, they have incorporated functional and critical
literacy perspectives into their practice. The perspectives
on English teaching are evident in the English statement and
profile, TASSAB syllabuses and contemporary tertiary English
courses.
Questions
Derived from the Different Perspectives on English teaching
Below are some questions teachers could ask when studying James
Maloney's A Bridge to Wiseman's Cove:
Questions
from a personal growth perspective
In
your opinion, what is Carl's problem?
If
faced with Carl's difficulties, how differently might you
have acted?
What
do you feel and think about the way Carl and Harley are
treated by Aunt Beryl?
What
are the funniest and saddest parts of the novel?
Which
character in the novel do you believe had most to forgive?
At
the end of the novel, what questions are important for you?
To
what extent do you think the novel accurately describes
the life of teenagers in the 1990s?
Questions from a cultural heritage perspective
What
are the main ideas and values expressed in the novel?
How
do you judge Maloney's use of style, form, tone and point
of view?
What
is the purpose of the symbols found in the title, places,
animals, etc. in the novel?
What
is the connection between Carl and the osprey in the novel?
Do
you see a link to the Christian ideal of redemption in the
way Carl worked so hard to save the barge
in order to make up for what his grandfather had done in
the past?
How
does Maloney's creation of setting contribute to the development
of the novel's themes? How do you compare the effectiveness
of the novel with other books you have read that express
similar ideas?
Questions from a functional perspective
Most novels do not start with a prelude - what is the purpose
of the prelude in this novel?
What are the main features of the narrative genre as evident
in the novel?
How does the structure of the novel contribute to your understanding
of it?
What structures and features would you need to incorporate
into a post script of the novel? What are the structures
and features of advertisements that appear on popular radio?
Incorporate these into the creation of an advertisement
that Carl might have written for the local radio station
advertising the ferry service.
If you were making a film of the novel, what would you need
to adapt to meet the requirements of the film genre?
How would you change the cover of the novel if you were
aiming it at an adult audience?
Questions from a critical literacy perspective
How
are we positioned to respond to the different characters
in the novel?
How are different social groups represented in the novel?
From this text, what do you think are Maloney's beliefs
about young people in Australia today?
If this novel were set in the sixties, how different would
it be?
If all adults were like those presented in the novel, what
would Australian society be like?
If Carl were a girl, how differently might the story be
told?
In practice, teachers ask questions from more than one perspective.
The Teaching Units, Beaut
Ideas and Choosing and Using
Texts sections in this site are full of interesting
questions to ask about texts. You will also find good questions
in recent Department publications such as Lively Lines.
As you look at these resources, focus closely on the questions
and consider whether or not they represent a balance of
perspectives on English teaching.
Questions
derived from Bloom's Taxonomy
There
are a number of frameworks teachers can use to help them
to ask better questions. Probably the best known of these
is Bloom's Taxonomy of thinking skills. Bloom differentiates
between lower-order and higher-order questions. Lower-order
questions ask for knowledge, comprehension and application,
the first three categories of Bloom's taxonomy which defines
these as less demanding, less complex and thus lower' levels
of thinking.
Below are some questions teachers could ask when working
with Let's Eat!, written by Ana Zamorano and illustrated
by Julie Vivas.
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Who are the different people we find at the lunch
table? |
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What
do we call families like this? |
| 3.
Application |
Do
you know of families like this one? |
| 4.
Analysis |
Why do you think Mama likes everyone to eat together?
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Higher
order questions ask for analysis, synthesis or evaluation,
the last three categories of Bloom's Taxonomy which
define these as demanding more complex and thus
'higher' levels of thinking. For example:
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| 5.
Synthesis |
What would happen if the family stopped eating
together at lunch time? |
| 6.
Evaluation |
What are the advantages and disadvantages
of living in an extended family?
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Of course, there are many more questions we could ask
about this story. However, most people agree that the
English classroom is more interesting when teachers
ask more higher-order questions.
Questions
based on the Three Level Guide
This framework is an adaptation of Bloom's Taxonomy.
Teachers and students find this framework easy to use in
developing a range of questions in relation to texts.
Explain to students that there are different types or
levels of comprehension. An explicit understanding of
these levels will help you and your students develop
your questioning techniques, and give you a greater
awareness of how to comprehend the full range of texts.
Questions
based on the Taxonomy of Personal Engagement
The Taxonomy of Personal Engagement (Morgan and Saxton,
1988) shows different stages of student involvement
in learning. It is different from Bloom's Taxonomy
in
that it incorporates both thought and feeling. This
taxonomy is a useful framework to help you plan
key
questions to ask during a lesson or unit of work.
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being curious about what is presented |
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wanting
to be, and being involved in the task |
| 3.
Committing |
developing
a sense of responsibility towards the task |
| 4.
Internalising |
merging objective concepts (the task or what is
to be learned) with subjective experience
(what is already owned) resulting in understanding
and therefore ownership of new ideas |
| 5.
Interpreting |
wanting
and needing to communicate that understanding to others |
| 6.
Evaluating |
wanting and willing to put that understanding
to the test
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When
English teachers use the Taxonomy of Personal Engagement as
a guide for inviting and sustaining students' engagement with
texts, they ask themselves the following:
- What
questions will I ask which will attract their attention?
(Interest)
- What
questions will I ask which will draw them into active involvement,
where their ideas become an important part of the process?
(Engaging)
-
What questions will I ask which will invite them to take
on responsibility for the inquiry? (Committing)
- What
questions will I ask which will create an environment in
which they will have opportunities to reflect upon their
personal thoughts, feelings, attitudes, points of view,
experiences and values in relation to the text? (Internalising)
- What
questions will I ask which will invite them to express their
new understanding to others and further adapt their ideas
in light of the feedback they receive? (Interpreting)
-
What questions will I ask which will provide them with opportunities
to test their new thinking in different ways? What opportunities
will I provide which will enable them to formulate new questions
which arise from their new understanding? (Evaluating)
Asking Better Questions is an excellent resource for teachers
with lots of advice and examples relevant to the English classroom.
Questions
based on a Creative thinking Framework
In Thinking for Themselves, Jeni Wilson and Lesley Wing Jan
provide a useful range of strategies to develop creative thinking:
The best questions are born
of genuine curiosity. Students are more likely to ask questions
when the English classroom is set up as a language workshop
which encourages discussion, debate, cooperative learning,
self- and peer-assessment and incorporates the key learning
processes of negotiation, collaboration and reflection. The
interviews with teachers in Teachers
Talk Teaching section of the site are excellent examples
of how Tasmanian teachers establish an environment that encourages
student questions. In an environment where students feel secure
in their ability to discuss important issues and where differing
viewpoints are valued, the English teacher can adopt a range
of questioning strategies to support student questioning.
Dillon
(1988) sets out three things a teacher can do to foster student
questions:
- Provide
for student questions
• make systematic room for them by asking fewer questions
yourself
• invite them in by the way we plan for and respond
to them
• wait patiently for them by helping students see silent
reflection as acceptable
- Welcome
the question
• communicate this through what you say and how you
act
• model active listening
- Sustain
the asking
• don't automatically answer the question
• help students clarify their question - the spoken
question is often not the question in mind
• reinforce and reward the experience of perplexity
and the expression of inquiry
• restate the question with praise or interest
• bring other students into the discussion
Other
strategies to support student questions
- establish
an agreed set of guidelines for asking questions in the
classroom
- develop
a list of questions to be used for self- and peer-assessment
-
Incorporate learning logs or dialogues journals into your
program; stop the activity of the lesson at strategic times
and ask students to reflect and ask questions of the text
they are studying
-
allocate time at the end of the lesson for student questions
-
have a 'stop and ask' time where you ask to pose a question
that comes to mind
-
provide opportunities for students to share their questions
about texts with each other and the whole class
-
role play interviews with a character from a text
-
model self-talk when working with a text
-
praise students questions - 'that's an interesting question',
'I hadn't though of that', etc.
-
keep a record of interesting questions students ask and
take time to deconstruct them with students, focusing on
what makes them interesting
-
ask a couple of students to keep a record of questions
asked during a discussion and identify the proportion
of 'on the
line', 'between the lines' and 'beyond the lines' questions
-
as you read a shared text (or after reading), ask students
to come up with a list of questions to ask about the text;
use some of these in an assessment task
-
after studying a text, have students play a game of twenty
questions, for example, to guess an important symbol in
film
-
present students with an answer and ask them to provide
the questions - for example, give them a short extract from
a text you are studying and ask them to think of a question
or questions for which the extract might be the answer
-
in pairs, have students read each other's work and ask a
question about it
There
are lots of strategies that you can use to encourage student
questions. However, the most important thing is to establish
a supportive classroom environment in which students can express
their ideas and feelings in an atmosphere of mutual support
and respect.
Where
can I find out more?
Have
a look at the wonderful discussion on questioning that took
place on the English classroom forum.
You will find this a valuable resource for your professional
learning.
Wilson,
J and Wing Jan, L (1993) Thinking for Themselves: Developing
Strategies for Reflective Learning, Eleanor Curtain Publishing,
Armadale. Asking Better Questions
You
could also have a look at the information on Questioning
Circles in Beaut Ideas.
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