This chapter presents the results of the study. The teacher’s questioning are illustrated first. The functions that the teacher’s display and referential questions served in the classes are discussed next. Finally, differences between the teacher’s teaching beliefs and her actual practices in class are dealt with.
The Way the Teacher Asked Questions
The first research question examines the kinds of questions that the teacher asked over the semester. To answer the question, six lesson units were selected,
transcribed and analyzed. As explained in Chapter 3, only three class periods at the beginning, the middle, and the end of the semester were chosen for data analysis.
In each of the samples that follow, the targeted question is underlined, and the English translations appear in the bracket.
The Pattern of the Teacher’s Question Posing
In general, Mrs. Lin posed more display questions than referential questions.
This finding has been reported in the previous studies (Hsu, 2010; Huang & Chang, 2006). Table 5 demonstrates an overall picture of the question types Mrs. Lin asked.
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Table 5
The Frequency Distribution of the Question Types the Teacher Asked
As shown above, about 45% of the questions (235 out of 524) that Mrs. Lin asked are display questions, only 12% (63 out of 524) are referential questions and about 43% (226 out of 524) are other questions.
To exemplify each type of the questions asked by Mrs. Lin, an example of each question type is provided and explained in the following. Example 1 below shows one display question Mrs. Lin asked,
Example 1
T: How do you say 美國? [How do you say America?]
SS: America.
T: Good. America. 有沒有人會說不那麼長字母的? [Can anyone say the word that has fewer letters?]
S5: U.S.A.
T: Good job. The U.S.A.
(Lesson transcript, Year-Four class, Jan. 19, 2015)
The first question “How do you say 美國?” is a typical display question, to which Mrs. Lin already knew the answer before she actually asked it. In order to review the names of the countries that had been taught before, Mrs. Lin required the students to speak out the name of the country in English. Afterwards, she posed another display question “Can anyone say the word that has fewer letters?” for her students to
Type Classes
Display 235 (45%)
Referential 63 (12%)
Other 226 (43%)
Total 524 (100%)
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try out the other way of saying America. Clearly, these are two display questions posed in this dialogue.
Different from display questions, referential questions are asked because the teacher wants to know something she does not know (Long & Sato, 1983). For example,
Example 2
T: What’s your most impressive experience in your Chinese New Year?
S2:拿紅包。[Take red envelopes.]
(Lesson transcript, Year-Six class, Jan. 19, 2015)
In the dialogue, the referential question “What’s your most impressive experience in your Chinese New Year?” was intended to encourage the student to share his
experiences of Chinese New Year. The question was related to the topic of the textbook, Festival, and Mrs. Lin asked it because she wanted to know what her students did during Chinese New Year. Since referential questions do not require a definite answer, the students could share any experiences that they had been through in Chinese New Year.
In the study, Mrs. Lin did not only use display and referential questions. She also asked the questions that did not belong to display or referential questions in her classes. As stated in Chapters 2 and 3, teachers use comprehension check question to check students’ understanding of intended materials and classroom discipline question to manage classes. After analyzing the lesson transcripts of Mrs. Lin’s classes, she also usually employed questions that do not belong to display or
referential questions to check her students’ comprehension, to clarify the answers that her students gave, and to confirm the students’ responses to her questions. That is the reason why Mrs. Lin asked relatively more questions that did belong to display or
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referential questions. After understanding Mrs. Lin question types, it is necessary to further investigate the reasons why she chose to ask more display questions than referential in classes.
The following three concerns behind Mrs. Lin’s questioning pattern may account for why she asked more display questions than referential questions.
Three Concerns behind the Teacher’s Asking More Display Questions
In the interview, Mrs. Lin mentioned that the way she asked questions might be constrained by these concerns: the content of the textbooks, the competence indicators of curriculum, and the students’ personal life experiences.
The Content of the Textbooks
On further examination of Mrs. Lin’s questioning in the classes, it is found that she asked questions mostly based on the content of the textbooks. The following lesson transcript shows how Mrs. Lin asked questions according to the content of the textbook.
Example 3:
T: What is his job? Who can tell me his job?
S2: He is a cook.
T: Yes, he is a cook. Do you remember cook? Remember? 還記得嗎?
[Remember?] 我們以前學過這個職業。[We have learned the occupation before.]
SS:廚師。[Cook.]
T: Perfect. 廚師。[Cook.]
(Lesson transcript, Year-Four class, Sep. 22, 2014)
The conversation happened after the students watched the electronic story book.
Mrs. Lin usually prepared some questions for her students after they watched the story
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two times. In the dialogue, Mrs. Lin posed a question about the main character of the story. She asked her students what job the boy had. When one student answered cook, Mrs. Lin focused on the word and reminded the class that they had learned the word before. In the stimulated recall, Mrs. Lin explained how she was influenced by the content of the textbook when asking questions. In the following extract, the English translations appear in the bracket.
[The arrangement of the content of the textbooks has its sequence and logic.
I usually decide what questions to ask according to the students’ textbooks while preparing for the classes. If there are things that the students have learned before such as one sentence, “Is your brother a cook”, in the
textbook of fourth graders, I will ask the question to check whether they still remember the meaning of the word, cook.]
國小課本的編排有它一定的順序和(.)邏輯，我上課前的準備一直是以 小朋友的課本內容來做要決定要問他們什麼問題。如課程內容中若有一 些他們之前學過的內容，例如像四年級課本中有一句故事的台詞是”Is your brother a cook?”那因為這個字 cook 孩子們其實之前就學過這個職 業，所以我會用問題來確認學生記不記得 cook 這個單字的意思。
(Stimulated recall transcript, March. 17, 2015)
As Mrs. Lin mentioned, the content of the textbook is the first factor affecting her way of questioning. Since the Year-Four graders had learned the word cook before, she decided to pose a display question to check if her students still remembered the meaning of the word. Mrs. Lin followed the content of the textbooks to prepare questions before the classes, so she asked rather more display questions for her students to check the students’ understanding of the content of the textbooks. This finding is consistent with the research findings of Hsu (2010), who investigated an elementary school English teacher’s questioning strategy in different English proficiency level classes and found that the teacher in her study posed display
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questions to check whether her students of high level class understand the content of story of textbook.
The Competence Indicators of Curriculum
The second factor that influences the teacher’s question pattern is a concern about the competence indicators of curriculum. The competence indicators of curriculum, or the Grade 1-9 competence indicators of curriculum, were issued by the MOE to guide the teachers to measure whether their students have possessed certain abilities, such as listening, speaking, reading and writing abilities of English at a certain grade (K-12 Education Administration, MOE, 2015). In other words, the competence indicators provide teaching objectives for the teachers, so Mrs. Lin had followed closely the indicators during her teaching. The lesson transcripts shows how she asked display questions to meet the competence indicators of curriculum.
Example 4:
T: That’s right. What is the UK?
SS:英國。[The UK]
T:英國? 美國? [The UK or the USA?]
SS:英國。[The UK]
T: Right. Let’s say it. Ready? The UK.
SS: The UK
(Lesson transcript, Year-Six class, Sep. 22, 2014)
The dialogue happened at the beginning of the class. Mrs. Lin asked display questions to help her students review the vocabulary of the unit that they learned last time. In this class, Mrs. Lin first asked a display question, What is the UK?, to check whether her students understand the Chinese meaning of the UK or not. Then, after her students answered “The UK”, Mrs. Lin continued to ask another display question
“The UK or the USA?” in Chinese to confirm that her students were able to
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distinguish the names of two different countries. In the stimulated recall, Mrs. Lin explained why she asked this kind of questions,
[In addition to the content of textbooks, I think the competence indicators of curriculum is another part that I will notice. If the indicators of learning require the students to listen, understand the vocabulary or can speak simple sentences, I will focus on these competence indicators of curriculum to design the questions that I ask.]
除了課本的內容外，我覺得課程的能力指標也是我會注意的。若這個年 級需要學習的指標是希望學生達到可聽辨課堂所習得的字彙或是會講簡 易的句子，我會針對這些課程指標來設計提問的題目。
(Stimulated recall transcript, March. 17, 2015)
As the extract illustrated, Mrs. Lin noticed the competence indicators of curriculum when she decided how to ask questions. She mentioned that if the students needed to have the ability on listening and understanding the vocabulary, she arranged to ask questions about the intended vocabulary or sentence patterns. Mrs.
Lin focused on her students’ abilities of vocabulary or sentences and followed the competence indicators of curriculum of 1-1-3, which indicates that students can listen and distinguish the vocabulary they learned in class (K-12 Education Administration, MOE, 2015) when asking questions, so she asked more display questions for her students to gain basic abilities.
The Students’ Personal Life Experiences
The last factor influencing Mrs. Lin’s questioning is the students’ personal life experiences. The following example shows how Mrs. Lin used display questions to interact with her students.
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Example 5
T:What food have you eaten? 有沒有那種食物是你曾經吃過的呢?
[Which one have you eaten?] 我們來投票。[Let’s vote it.] Have you ever eaten sushi?
SS: Yes. ((Some students raised their hands.))
T: Have you ever eaten tacos? 墨西哥捲餅有沒有吃過呢?[Have you ever eaten tacos?]
SS: No.
T: Have you ever eaten pizza?
SS: Yes. ((Some students raised their hands.)) T: Have you eaten hamburgers?
SS: Yes. ((Some students raised their hands.))
T: What do you like, Sushi, hamburger, or pizza? ((wrote down the words of sushi, hamburger and pizza on the board and counted how many students voted for the food they like. Among these three kinds of food, more students voted for pizza.))
T: OK! ((laugh)) You like pizza most. Let’s say it all together. What do you like? I like pizza.
SS: What do you like? I like pizza.
(Lesson transcript, Year-Four class, Jan 19, 2015)
The dialogue happened after the students finished reviewing the vocabulary about food. Although the students in the Year-Four class had limited proficiency abilities to give Mrs. Lin longer or complicated responses, she still asked several display questions to involve the students to join in the discussion. In the stimulated recall, she confirmed this idea,
[When the course is related to the part of students’ personal experiences, I will use this part as the source of asking questions in classes. For example, the fourth graders can share the food that they have eaten when they met the topic of “FOOD AROUND THE WORLD.” Then, I can understand
students’ learning and experiences.]
若課程中有提到個人經驗的部份，我也會拿來當做上課提問的素材。比 如說四年級他們後來學的 FOOD AROUND THE WORLD，那其實，他 們就可以曾經吃過的食物來做分享。那我也可就學生給我的回饋的來看
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他們的學習狀況跟給我的分享這樣…
(Stimulated recall transcript, March. 17, 2015)
Mrs. Lin mentioned that she would encourage students to share their experiences.
Through posing the display questions to invite students to share their own experiences, she got a good chance to check how and what her students have learned.
To sum up, Mrs. Lin had asked more display questions than referential questions in the classes mainly due to the three concerns, the content of the textbooks, the competence indicators of curriculum and the students’ personal life experiences.
The Functions of Display and Referential Questions
The second research question explores the functions of Mrs. Lin’s display and referential questions. As stated previously, nearly half of her questions belong to display questions (45%, 235 out of 524), so the functions of display questions are to be discussed first, which is followed by the functions of referential questions.
Four Functions of Display Questions in the Classes
Mrs. Lin’s display questions in the classes fulfilled four pedagogical functions:
to check the students’ word spelling, to ensure the students’ comprehension of textbooks, to direct the students’ attention to form, and to guide the students to find the correct answer. These four functions will be presented and discussed in the following paragraphs.
To Check the Students’ Word Spelling
Mrs. Lin asked display questions in order to examine whether her students spelt out the words correctly. For example,
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Example 6
T: Taiwan. How do you spell Taiwan? ((put her right hand to hide the word- Taiwan))
SS: T-a-i-w-a-n.
T: That’s right. Taiwan.
(Lesson transcript, Year-Six class, Sep. 22, 2014)
As a routine, when Mrs. Lin was teaching or reviewing vocabulary, Mrs. Lin asked students to spell out the targeted word or phrase. For example, in the dialogue, Mrs. Lin first read the word, Taiwan. Then she posed the display question, How do you spell Taiwan, to require the students to spell out the word, Taiwan. After the students did it correctly, Mrs. Lin evaluated the students’ response. In the Year-Four class, Mrs. Lin also asked display questions to check the students’ word spelling.
The display question in the Year-Four class had the same function as the one in the Year-Six class. Mrs. Lin read the word first and required her students to repeat saying the word and then spell out the word. This finding can be also found in Hsu’s (2010) study. In her study, the EFL elementary English teacher posed display
questions to check students’ word spelling.
To Ensure the Students’ Comprehension of Textbooks
In the classes, Mrs. Lin used display questions to check whether the students comprehend the content of the story in their textbook. These questions usually occurred after the students finished reading the electronic book. For example,
Example 7
T: OK! Now we finish the review and let’s turn to the story page. Listen carefully. I am going to ask you some questions from the story. So one time, no Chinese. Ok? ((used the electronic book to play the
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transcripts of the story))
T: OK! I will ask you where are you from. Maybe the little girl.
Maybe the little boy. Listen again. Listen with Chinese, ok?
((checked each student circle or highlight the capital letters of the countries))
T: OK! In this story, could you tell me where they are? Where are Irene, Dino, Nicky and all? Where are they? ((raised her left hand))
S15: They are in Singapore.
(Lesson transcript, Year-Six class, Sep. 22, 2014)
This conversation took place after Mrs. Lin finished reviewing the vocabulary that the student had learned last week. Before the electronic book was played, she usually informed her students that she would ask some questions based on the story.
In the dialogue, Mrs. Lin first provided some hints about her questions about the story.
Because the main sentence pattern of the unit was Where are you from?, Mrs. Lin chose to ask where the main characters of the story are first. After her students gave the answer, Mrs. Lin evaluated her students’ answers and guided them to say the sentence again. In the Year-Four class, Mrs. Lin also asked display questions to ensure students’ comprehension. For example,
Example 8
T: Question one, What is Irene’s brother’s name? What’s his name?
What’s his name? (Ted is one character of the story of the textbook.) S1: Ted.
T: Can you give me a sentence.
S1: His name is Ted.
(Lesson transcript, Year-Four class, Sep. 22, 2014)
Mrs. Lin expressed her opinions of posing this kind of questions in the stimulated recall,
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[…Actually, the reason why I especially asked questions about the characters of the textbook is to hope the students to understand more about the characters of the textbook. Through listening to this kind of questions, they can comprehend the meanings of where, what and why.
These questions can help them know what their teacher often asks. They can understand more about how to answer the questions if they regularly listen to this kind of questions in classes.]
其實會特別針對課文的角色來問，是希望他們多了解課本的角色。
也可以透過這種問題來讓他們了解 where 是問哪裡，what 是問什麼，
why 是問為什麼。這樣的問題可以讓他們知道老師常在問什麼，常 在課堂上聽這樣的問題他們就會比較知道怎麼回答。
(Stimulated recall, March 17, 2015)
As Mrs. Lin stated, she asked these display questions not only to ensure her students’ comprehension of the story but also to familiarize them with the questions starting with where, what and why. This finding is consistent with Yu’s (2007) study. In his study, the EFL college English teacher also asked display questions to ensure students’ comprehension.
To Direct the Students’ Attention to Form
One purpose of Mrs. Lin’s display questions in the classes is to direct the
One purpose of Mrs. Lin’s display questions in the classes is to direct the