Relations between teacher questioning and student talk in one elementary ELL classroom

Boyd, M. P. (2015). Relations between teacher questioning and student talk in one elementary ELL classroom. Journal of Literacy Research, 47(3), 370-404.

Background

The author highlighted that although student talk could enhance communicative competence, engagement, cognitive thinking, and comprehension, such talk in the classroom did not occur spontaneously.

Aims

This study examined patterns of teacher questioning that could influence student talk and learning.

Sample

The study took place in a public elementary school in the south-eastern United States. Participants comprised six students in one fourth- and fifth-grade English Language Learning (ELL) pull-out classroom. They were non-English speakers who were taken out of their regular classes for 50 minutes of ‘pull-out’ ELL instruction daily.

Method

Data collected included video- and audio-taped classroom talk practices, teacher interviews, teacher lesson plans and charts, student artefacts, field notes, and analytic memos. Two focal lessons were selected because the criterion chosen positioned these two lessons as outliers – the lessons with the least and the most student critical turns (SCTs). An SCT was defined as uninterrupted student talk lasting at least 10 seconds.

Findings

The findings categorized the relations between teacher questioning and student talk into three sections – the scope of talk, the teacher questioning patterns, and the teacher prototypical question type. Regarding the scope of talk in both lessons, students took more than two thirds of the turns of talk (TOT), the conversation was on the main literature, and the teacher talk was predominantly questioning. The teacher asked about twice as many questions as the students. Her questions were dependent on her students’ contributions, the subsequent dialogue conditions, the scope and purposes of her immediate lesson, and established classroom routines. Her questions were asked in ways that could be answered and they supported authentic commentary on the topic explored together. They varied in form. The teacher’s talk consistently functioned to extend and clarify students’ explorations, pushing them to elaborate.

Implications

The author concluded that the impact of questions in opening up or shutting down student inquiry resulted not from whether the teacher knew the answer, but from how the students interpreted the teacher’s intention behind the question. The patterned and consistent nature of the teacher talk, and student confidence that their ideas would be valued, shaped student predispositions toward teacher questioning. She emphasized that a range of questioning patterns supporting and directing varied student talk would thus be necessary. Students would also explore ideas through classroom talk in classrooms where teachers ensured there was time, curricular and semiotic space, guidance (such as contingent questioning), and a safe environment.

Original article retrieved from ERIC.