An Analysis of Teachers’ Questioning and Feedback in an ESL Class ()
1. Introduction
Educators have been diligently evaluating the effectiveness of the classroom through the analysis of classroom language from various angles. For example, Smith, Johnson, and Lee (2018) utilized computational linguistics techniques to quantitatively analyze classroom discourse, examining factors such as teacher-student interaction patterns, frequency of academic language use, and student engagement indicators. Jones and Brown (2019) conducted in-depth qualitative analyses of teacher talk, focusing on linguistic strategies employed by instructors to scaffold student learning, provide feedback, and foster a supportive classroom environment. Also, a correlational analysis to assess the relationship between classroom language features (e.g., questioning strategies, vocabulary richness) and student academic performance across different subject areas was carried out in 2019 by Liu and Zhang (Liu & Zhang, 2019). There is an ongoing discussion surrounding the various teaching methods employed by educators in the classroom, as well as a focus on evaluating student engagement and comprehension of the topics covered.
By carefully examining the language utilized in the classroom, we can thoroughly assess the effectiveness of instructional techniques to a significant extent. Through keen observation of teacher-student interactions, valuable insights into the dynamics of effective teaching can be gained. This, in turn, allows us to evaluate whether educators are actively striving to enhance the depth and quality of their interactions with students. To enrich the academic experience, it is beneficial to expand the range of teaching activities and incorporate a diverse array of teaching materials that cater to the different dimensions of learning, including cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects.
Exploring the realm of classroom language can provide valuable insights into teaching methodologies, identify areas for improvement for teachers, and foster the development of a wide range of student skills. This paper delves into the classroom discourse, analyzing transcribed data of students’ learning experiences in a primary school setting. The essay is structured into six sections: introduction, literature review, excerpt analysis, conclusion, references, and appendix. The analysis section examines classroom teachers’ questions and feedback, ultimately leading to a discussion on the potential implications that can be inferred from the evaluation.
2. Literature Review
When it comes to facilitating successful teaching and improving students’ language acquisition, the utilisation of inquiry by educators is of the utmost importance. Students’ curiosity has been sparked and a passion for learning has been cultivated through the practice of questioning, which has been a core component. Intellectual inquiry has, on a consistent basis, been shown to foster critical thinking and encourage active engagement in the educational process. Questions that are posed by the instructor are an essential instrument for assessing the students’ progress, encouraging dialogue, and involving the students in the learning process. The findings of a study conducted by Richards and Lockhart (1996: pp. 185-187) highlight the effectiveness of questioning about the development of communication skills and the enhancement of language competency through the enhancement of comprehensibility.
In the early 20th century, there was a significant amount of academic research conducted on the topic of classroom questions. The groundbreaking research conducted by Stevens in the year 1912 (Stevens, 1912) shed attention on the significant impact that interactions between teachers and students have, with questioning accounting for a significant eighty percent of the instructional impact in English classes. Barnes (1969: pp. 11-77) developed a taxonomy of different types of questions based on observations made in British middle schools. This taxonomy was built upon the framework that was established earlier. To further differentiate between closed and open inferential questions, he outlined four basic categories: factual, reasoning, open, and common inquiries. He also differentiated between open and closed inferential questions.
When it comes to instructional design, one of the most important factors to take into consideration is the use of pseudo-questions, which appear to provide a number of different solutions but actually only have one correct answer. The extensive study that Long and Sato (1983) investigated the function of communication in language schools. More specifically, they classified questioning items into two distinct groups: echoic and epistemic. In contrast to epistemic inquiries, which are designed to elicit information, echoic questions entail the repetition of words or confirmation of statements. The investigation conducted by Long and Sato places an emphasis on the popularity of closed questions, such as demonstrative inquiries, in contrast to the relatively uncommon utilisation of open-ended questions, such as referential inquiries.
Display questions and referential questions are the two basic types of questions that teachers ask their students. Scholars and educational professionals have recognized a variety of various classifications of the strategies that teachers use to ask questions. There is a distinct difference between these two scenarios: in the first situation, the person asking the question is aware of the response in advance, but in the second scenario, the person asking the question is completely unaware of the answer. As a consequence of this, it is absolutely necessary for students to develop their creative abilities and come up with unique concepts by making use of the resources that are available to them.
When it comes to enhancing students’ communication abilities and aiding students’ comprehension of their language proficiency, Chaudron (1998: pp. 132-134) places a strong emphasis on the crucial role that teachers play in providing feedback. Students who are interested in improving their linguistic expression and their level of competency in the target language will find this resource to be quite beneficial. In addition, Ur (1996: pp. 242-244) emphasizes the significance of timely and comprehensive examination of the replies provided by students in the process of cultivating an atmosphere that is conducive to active inquiry. The use of questions is an essential component of good education since it helps students develop their communication skills and increases their level of comprehension. The classification of different sorts of questions and the differentiation between closed and open-ended inquiries provide educators with useful insights that can be utilised in the process of optimizing instructional practices in contexts that are conducive to language learning.
3. Methodology
3.1. Data Collection
A detailed transcription and an in-depth analysis that was derived from the data will be presented in the following part. I will also show the results of the analysis. There is a wealth of information regarding classroom interactional characteristics (such as communicative language teaching strategies, different types of questions, and so on), which enables a comprehensive response to my research objective. Because of this, the selection of the clip was made with great care because it contains a huge amount of information. Following the clip selection, I transcribed the data twice, with a two-week interval between each transcription, ensuring that no important features were overlooked. Additionally, I took detailed notes during the transcription process to provide further support for the subsequent analysis.
Transcription
1) T: So(.) let’s talk about a picture I have in my book. Can you see my picture?
2) SS: Yeah.
3) T: Okay, so you sa:w this picture in the video, didn’t < 1 > you < /1 >? You saw this
4) picture.
5) SS: < 1 > Yeah < /1 >.
6) T: And in the picture, we were talking about ho:w do numbers help us. Now look
7) close at the picture. Tell me about some of the numbers you see in this picture. (..)
8) [S1], what do you see?
9) S1: Three
10) T: Three. Why does she have three on her shirt? (..)
11) S1: (.)The girl.
12) T: The girl has three. Why are they wearing numbers on their shirts? I don’t have
13) numbers on my shirt. ((looking at her own shirt)), you don’t have numbers on your
14) shirt ((pointing at students’ shirts)). Why are they wearing numbers, [S2]? ((asking
15) one student to respond with an invitation gesture))
16) S2: Playing
17) T: They are playing! What are they playing?
18) SX-F: Football=
19) S2: =Soccer
20) T: =Soccer. They are playing soccer, and when we play some sports, sometimes we
21) have a number. So her number is number three and her number?
22) SX-F: Is four=
23) T: =four, and her number? =
24) SS: =five=
25) T: =And her number? =
26) SS: =ten=
27) T: =ten. And it also says their names, it says Meg, Zeya, Hana K, and Ja-Yasmine.
28) Now there are some other things in the picture. Is there anything that we can count
29) (.) in this picture? What can we count?
30) SX-F: The (.)balls? =
31) T: =The balls. How many balls do you see? =
32) SS: =three=
33) T: =three balls. Is it enough? Three balls? (..)
34) SX-F: Yes?
35) T: Maybe not enough. As we are going to share, right? What else can we count in
36) this Picture? (..)What else can we count? ((showing the book to students))
37) SS: < 2 >(xxxxx)< /2 >
38) SX: < 2 >Girls? < /2 >
39) T: The girls! How many girls?
40) SX-F: Four.
41) T: Four girls, let’s count. one, ⎡⎡two
42) SS: ⎣⎣two
43) T: ⎡⎡three
44) SS: ⎣⎣three
45) T: ⎡⎡four
46) SS: ⎣⎣four
47) T: About how many shoes do you see?
48) SX-F: seven?
49) T: seven (.)one, two, three, four, we can’t see this one, five, six, seven, but there
50) mu:st be eight shoes. How many shoes do we see in our classroom? Can you
51) count? (.)
52) Tell the person across from you, ho:w many shoes we have in our class?
53) SX-F: < soft > Twenty-four shoes< /soft >.
54) T: < to S3 >How many do you think< /to S3 >
55) S3: I < soft >think< /soft > twenty-three?
56) T: You think, twenty-three? Somebody missing a shoe.=
57) SS: =@@@
58) T: How many do you think, [S4]?
59) S4: twenty-six
60) T: twenty-six? How many do you think, [S5]?
61) S5: Er (..)
62) T: How many shoes?
63) S5: twenty.
64) T: twenty shoes? Should we count? I think we can count all together. Let’s count,
65) ⎡⎡one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve
66) SS: ⎣⎣ one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve
67) T: Help me out, ⎡⎡thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen,
68) twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three (..)
69) SS: ⎣⎣ thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty,
70) twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three
71) SS: twenty-four
72) T: twenty-fo::ur shoes!
73) S4: twenty-five, twenty-six ((S4 pointed at the teacher’s shoes))
74) T: O::h, < fast >you count in my shoes, twenty-five, twenty-six < /fast > Okay. So I
75) have shoes, too. How many pencils do we have in this room? How many pencils?
76) SS: (xxxxx)
77) SX-M: thirteen?
78) T: Show me with your fingers, how many pencils? Show me with your fingers.
79) Show me with your fingers, how many pencils? ((students raised their hands and
80) showed fingers to the teacher)) Just ten? ten < 3 > pencils< /3 >?
81) SX-F: < 3 > plus three< /3 >.
82) T: ten plu:s three! Are there thirteen? How many do you think, [S6]?
83) S6: te::n plus two.
84) T: ten plus two! Let’s see. Everybody holds up your pencils. Let’s count. Let’s count.
85) Ready? Hold up your pencils. Let’s start over here with [S7]. Please count.
86) S7: One=
87) S8: =Two=
88) S9: =Three
89) S10: (.)Four
90) T: One, two(..)
91) S9: Three=
92) S10: =Four=
93) S11: =Five=
94) S12: =Six=
95) S13: =Seven=
96) S14: =Eight=
97) S15: =Nine=
98) S16: =Ten=
99) S17: =Eleven=
100) S18: =Twelve=
101) T: =Twelve pencils. I don’t have a pencil, so no pencils for me.
102) SS: < 4 >Yes< /4 >.
103) T: < 4 >Who< /4 > thinks there are twelve chairs? ((All students raised their
104) hands at the same time)) Ah::, very good. Because we have twelve pencils and
105) we have twelve students, so we have twelve chairs. I have a very hard one, I
106) was noticing your beautiful buttons on your sweater. You have buttons on your
107) sweater ((students started looking at their own or other’s sweaters)). How
108) many buttons do you have in this who::le room? How many buttons al:::l
109) together? How many buttons al:::l together?((students start counting numbers
110) silently but seem no order)) (3)
111) SX: forty-eight?
112) T: Are there forty-eight?
113) SX-M: (what)?
114) T: Really? That’s a lot of buttons. She thinks there are(.) forty-eight, forty-
115) eight buttons ((T starts writing on blackboard)) in this room. O:kay. Would you
116) write down some of those things that we just counted? We counted pencils, we
117) have twelve pencils. Would you write down twelve pencils on your paper?
118) ((Students started writing on the paper)). (..) We had twenty-six shoes. We had
119) forty-eight (..)buttons. We had(.) twenty-six (.) sho:es ((T starts writing on blackboard)). (..)Write down all the things that we counted.
3.2. Data Analysis
This is an excerpt from a lesson where a teacher aims to guide students on effectively using the textbook and classroom resources to practice counting numbers. This teaching method adopts a conventional approach, with various speakers contributing to the excerpt. During the class presentation, the teacher assumes a position of authority, with complete control over the floor and the majority of speaking opportunities. The teacher’s guidance plays a crucial role in determining the sequence in which the entire class takes their turns. The course incorporates a variety of effective questioning techniques, including in-depth questioning and targeted questioning. Further discussions frequently center on the teachers’ efforts to elicit a response from a student.
Questioning Types
In the excerpt, the teacher utilised a range of question patterns during the teaching process. These included special interrogative sentences at specific intervals, general questions scattered throughout, and a question tag at one point. Out of all the questions, only 10% are referential questions, while a whopping 90% are display questions. Perhaps this is a common occurrence in L2 or FL classrooms, as Long and Sato (1983: pp. 268-285) argue that ESL teachers tend to favor display questions over referential ones. The assumption is that this approach would encourage increased productivity and improved communication between educators and students. However, it is crucial to acknowledge the significance of display questions as they play a vital role in evaluating students in classroom settings. In addition, many of the items could benefit from further elaboration. This could be due to the prevalence of closed-end questions in the class activities. Nevertheless, the teacher appears to be attempting to address this matter by posing additional inquiries.
Modification of questions
According to White and Patsy (1984: pp. 228-244), teachers often continue to question by either paraphrasing or repeating, as they argue convincingly. It’s fascinating to note that the majority of the questions in the text above are of a specific nature, with a focus on quantities. Out of these questions, the phrase “how many” is used 15 times, and surprisingly, around 27% of them (4 out of 15) remain unanswered. The teaching content of this lesson primarily focuses on numbers learning. However, the repetition of 15 sentences with the same patterns in a short 5-minute transcribed audio can make the learning experience dull and boring for learners, particularly younger ones who find it challenging to concentrate on one aspect for an extended period in instructed settings. According to White and Patsy (1984: pp. 228-244), there is no clear evidence to suggest that repeated practice leads to a higher success rate for learners. In fact, it may have the opposite effect. It is important to make adjustments to a question that learners have not understood. The extract (10-21) provides a good example of how to modify such questions. The teacher provided hints to help the girl reconsider the questions without directly pointing out any mistakes. Through appropriate adjustments, learners are able to effectively understand and respond to questions. Examining the exchange of lines 7-22, it seems that the intention behind this modification is to jog the memory of the viewers regarding the numbers covered in the previous video. One might wonder why she has three on her shirt. The teacher’s question was clearly aimed at getting an explanation, but unfortunately, it didn’t succeed in getting any answers. This could be due to the learner’s limited ability to express herself in a foreign language. The teacher then assisted in simplifying the material by offering support and guidance. She clarified the questions through comparisons and examples, helping the student to better understand the subject.
Wait-time
Research indicates that teachers often have a limited amount of time to pause after asking a question, usually no more than 3 seconds (36). In their publication from 1971, Holley and Janet (1971: pp. 494-498) put forward the idea that a waiting time of 5 seconds is the absolute minimum. They conducted research on German college classes and found that when the teacher waited for a longer period of time, there was a noticeable increase in student responses. We strongly believe that allowing learners more time to organize their answers can be beneficial, as it encourages a greater number of participants to engage when there is a brief pause before accepting a response.
Feedback
Assessment and correction are the two fundamental components of feedback (Ur, 1996: p. 242). The most common positive statements, “Yes, right!” and “Well done!” are only used once (104) in the entire 5-minute excerpt. Mostly, the teacher repeats the student’s response (9-10, 19-20, 22-23, 32-33, 40-41 and so on) as an indirect way of endorsing the response. There are two reasons why this phenomenon might occur. First, it is assumed that the instructor does not commend the student’s response because they believe the answer is not very complex. Second, she reinforced the input of numbers in a brief amount of time in a recurring manner in order to guarantee the drill’s fluidity and increase the pupils’ sensitivity to numbers. Nonetheless, numerous research studies have demonstrated that in a classroom setting, learners can acquire the target language more quickly and effectively by improving their ability to question themselves Ur (1996: pp. 242-244).
After closely examining the text, it is easy to determine that nearly every student response falls into the category of “one word” answers. Lines 21 through 26 include an exception: The teacher chose not to repeat the female students’ complete answers as she had done earlier, despite the female student’s attempt to use the verb “be” in her response. It was therefore not surprising that the subsequent dialogue reverted to the answer mode of a single word pattern. Teachers should exercise extra caution when providing “sample” responses because it is common for students to mimic the answer patterns that they hear in class.
In lines 31-34, the teacher asks the same question again in an interrogative tone, “yes,” in an attempt to persuade the student to repeat the seemingly perfect response. This confused the learners and made them ask again in the hopes of receiving the teacher’s proper response. The instructor went on to explain why the student’s response was incomplete. Allowing the student to apply critical thinking even when responding to some display questions could be one explanation. This also subtly highlights a problem, which is that in a classroom setting, instructors’ precise and insightful questions and comments are essential and priceless teaching tools. The same issues were present in lines 47-51 and 52-56 as well, and the teacher first provided a fair explanation that allayed the pupils’ bewilderment. However, in lines 52-64, the instructor posed a straightforward question and four responses emerged, the first of which received no feedback at all (i.e., the teacher did not repeat the answer or give a positive response); the other three answers came from the teacher’s designated students. It is evident that none of the four responses made sense in relation to this closed question. For two reasons, the teacher reiterated the previous three responses in an inane manner. One of two things may have happened: either the teacher purposefully left the question in an “open” state so that additional students would be drawn in and continue to pay attention and speculate as to what the correct answer might be, or all three answers were incorrect. Analysis of the contents that follow suggests that the former is more logical. There is a slight incident here; that is, the teacher believes that 24 is the correct answer (even if the issue states that the question’s scope is the entire classroom), as evidenced by the extension of 24 (72). She did not include her shoes in her response, but she corrected herself right away after learning that one male student had provided the answers to questions 25 and 26. Additionally, the teacher did not provide a clear, obvious solution for lines 107 - 115, which could potentially confuse pupils in a classroom context.
4. Conclusion
The IRF technique proves to be an effective method for assessing students’ understanding of recently taught concepts, as demonstrated in the transcript. It is crucial to offer additional support to students who might be struggling, recognizing that the overall class performance may not always accurately reflect individual abilities. Furthermore, incorporating a blend of individual and group activities in the classroom helps avoid excessive reliance on the traditional teacher-student dynamic.
To enhance students’ comprehension of the material, teachers must pose precise and focused questions during class. Additionally, instructors should uphold appropriate questioning standards, considering factors such as learning value, interest, availability, and extension, while ensuring clarity. Striking a balance between display questions and substantive inquiries is essential, taking into account students’ abilities and circumstances to keep them engaged without overwhelming them.
For students to gain a comprehensive understanding of their learning abilities, they must receive constructive feedback covering both positive and negative aspects. However, educators should steer clear of monotonous, meaningless assessment terminology and refrain from discussing personal matters. It’s vital for students to grasp that instructors’ evaluations aim to support academic growth, not delve into personal affairs or make judgments. Furthermore, incorporating appropriate wait times and simplifying complex issues are key factors for fostering a thriving classroom. While there’s been a notable increase in academic research on language within the classroom, there appears to be a relative dearth of attention and discussion regarding language used by instructors outside of class. This area merits further exploration and consideration in varying pedagogical contexts.
Appendix A. VOICE Transcription Conventions
Appendix B. Video Link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIwdbjv2sng (The transcription starts at 03.30 and ends at 08.30).