Questioning and oracy

Vaish, V. (2013). Questioning and oracy in a reading program. Language and Education, 27(6), 526-541. doi: 10.1080/09500782.2012.737334

Background

The writer noted that research had shown a small but statistically significant effect of early oral skills on later reading achievement. One way of ensuring oral practice in the classroom is through teacher questions. However, not all questioning results in student talk.

Aims

The writer wanted to look at the questioning teachers used and how it encouraged students to speak in class.

Sample

Five Learning Support Co-ordinators in Singapore agreed to have their lessons observed. The researchers collected and transcribed 19 hours (or 38 lessons) of the Learning Support Programme, a programme designed to help students entering school with weak language skills.

Method

The researchers transcribed the lessons and coded the teacher and student input in terms of the number and type (factual, procedural, process or speculative) of questions asked.

Findings

The results showed a big variation in the number and types of questions asked in the lessons by both teachers and students. In one class, for example, no questions were asked at all while, in another, the teacher used a large number. Further examination showed that the dialogic nature of a class did not depend solely on the number or type of questions asked. In the lessons where the most questions were asked, the teacher did not listen to input from her students she found irrelevant and did not give them the opportunity to direct classroom talk. When a student asked an ‘irrelevant’ question, his non-standard language was corrected but no answer was given. On the other hand, in the lesson where no questions were asked, the teacher allowed students to volunteer their own thoughts and incorporated aspects of what they said into her teaching.

The writer concluded that the extent the teacher allowed students to take some control of talk affected the extent they contributed their ideas to a lesson. In this study, the teacher who asked the most questions was an ‘efficient’ teacher carrying out lessons exactly as planned; the teacher who allowed for extraneous student contributions was an ‘effective’ teacher that allowed students to add to the flow of the lesson.

Implications

The writer suggests that teacher training emphasize a pedagogy in which the teacher relinquishes some control of classroom talk to the students even at the risk of non-standard forms being used in the classroom. In the latter case, the teacher can re-cast the students’ words into Standard English to sensitize children to differences in register.

Original article retrieved from Taylor & Francis Online.