A STUDY OF TEACHER’S QUESTIONS IN AN ELEMENTARY
SCHOOL
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Vitus Awang Septiaji 112008138
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
ii
A STUDY OF TEACHER’S QUESTIONS IN AN ELEMENTARY
SCHOOL
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Vitus Awang Septiaji 112008138
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
iii
A STUDY OF TEACHER’S QUESTIONS IN AN ELEMENTARY
SCHOOL
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Vitus Awang Septiaji 112008138 Approved by:
Anita Kurniawati, M.Hum Maria Christina Eko S., M.Hum
iv
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
This thesis contains no such material as has been submitted for examination in any course or accepted for the fulfillment of any degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and my belief, this contains no material previously published or written by any other person except where due reference is made in the text.
Copyright@ 2013.Vitus Awang Septiaji and Anita Kurniawati, M.Hum
All rights reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced by any means without the permission of at least one of the copyright owners or the English Department, Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana University, Salatiga.
v
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Name: VITUS AWANG SEPTIAJI
Student ID Number: 112008138
Study Program: English Department Faculty: Language and Literature Kind of Work: Undergraduate Thesis
In developing my knowledge, I agree to provide SWCU with a non-exclusive royalty free right for my intellectual property and the contents therein entitled:
A STUDY OF TEACHER’S QUESTIONS IN AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
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This declaration is made according to the best of my knowledge.
1
A STUDY OF TEACHER’S QUESTIONS IN AN ELEMENTARY
SCHOOL
Abstract
In teaching-learning process communicative tools are needed by teachers to enhance interactions between teachers and young learners. One of the communicative tools is asking question. Kearsley’s (1976) types of questions were selected as the basis of the literature review of this analysis. They are six types of questions that are purposed by Kearsley (Ibid). However in the five class observation conducted in SD Lab Satya Wacana Salatiga, there are only four types of questions used by the teachers; evaluative, echoic, social control and expressive questions. Each one of the four types has its functions that can be applied through interactions. It is found from the findings that the use of four types of questions is most effective used in the classroom interactions based from the questions own functions.
Key-word: types of questions, english teachers, the functions of questions
INTRODUCTION
Delivering question is one of techniques used by teachers to interact with students and
to convey idea of teaching and learning process. Delivering question plays important role in teaching and learning process as Gabrielatos (1997) believed that asking question is one of the most essential teaching tools or techniques that teachers can use frequently during the
lesson. Questioning is an essential component of teaching. Agreed with Gabrielatos (ibid) Tsui, Marton, Mok and Ng (2004) assure that questions can draw learners’ attention to the
important aspects of learning objective, and open up the space for more study on the part of learners.It is an important tool in teaching because it is used again and again by the teachers in the teaching and learning activity to build interaction with students and create cooperative
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Delivering question is not only important but also has purposes and aims while
playing its part in teaching and learning process. Sonmez (2001) proposed several purposes of asking question in teaching and learning process. The question can be asked in the purpose of directing the students to the target in learning process, providing the students to
think effectively by directing students to think, determining the efficiency of education, increasing students’ attendance, improving the students’ listening skills and increasing
tolerance and respect among the students. Delivering question can stimulate the connection between students and the topic discussed. Chi, et al (1994) agreed that when teachers ask critical questions for students to answer; it will promote a better learning process of the
students and deepen their understanding through those questions asked by teacher.
Delivering question is aimed to increase the understanding of a certain topic given by
the teachers. Scarino et al (2005) also proposed that a teacher questioning the students is to dig their existing understandings as a basis for identifying ways of interacting, scaffolding and building the basis of the topic discussed into the brain and build connection between the
topic discussed and the background knowledge in the brain. In the other word, questioning in the class is the railway to go to the certain location. It provides the connection between the
background knowledge in brain and the topic in the class. For example: in the beginning of the lesson, the teacher uses brainstorming to connect the topic of present lesson with students’ past lesson.
The questioning technique that teachers usually use is brainstorming an idea. Brainstorming is one of the ways to dig students’ background knowledge. Asking question
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Brainstorming is applied by teachers to ask students a few questions that can lead the young
learners to think critically about the discussion.
Regarding to the aforementioned purposes of delivering question it is believed that students’, especially young learners, need to be stimulated. Cameron (2001) said that even
though children seek out intentions and purposes in what they see to what other people doing, bringing their knowledge and experience to their attempt to make sense of other people’s
action and language, they are limited by their experience and that is why they needed stimulus for better learning. Cameron (ibid) also stated that actually the young learners are active learner since they do not only need stimulus given; they also look and want to know
about things surrounding them. It is considered as a proper setting for teachers to develop kinds of questions that appropriate to be asked for young learners.
This study is aimed to identify kinds of questions that English course teachers asked to young learners in their class. This study is guided by one research question that is “What
kind of questions English teachers ask to young learners in their class?”
This study will be helpful for the pre-service teachers who do their teaching and it may also improve their teaching’s techniques and provide guidelines to help teachers use
questions effectively in order to facilitate the learning and teaching process. Teacher who read this paper also know kinds of questions that they could give to their students especially
young learners. Teacher also can identify what questions should be use suitably for their students. I hope that the other pre-service teacher will be able to overcome the problem in
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LITERATURE REVIEW
Teacher’s Questions
Some research shows that questioning is one of the most familiar techniques used by teachers in their classroom (Dillon 1990) as cited in Nhlapo (1998). Along with Dillon, Ellis
(1992) also proposed two main reason why teachers asked questions in the classroom. First, questions require responses and because of that it will be count as contribution to interaction
from responding it. Second, questions serve as a device for controlling the classroom progress of the interaction which a lesson is conducted.
Types of Questions
Martin (2003) groups the question forms in three as Genuine questions, Test questions and Provoking ones. The genuine question is a type of question that asked because the
teacher wants the answer. In line with Martin, Gabrielatos (1997) proposed that genuine question is questions which actually seeks answer. In her research Martin indicated that 25 %
of them ask genuine questions (How many different triangles did you find? Which measurement did you use?). She proposed that 61 % of the teachers ask test question. A test question is a question to check the understanding of a certain topic it is merely only from one
side of knowledge. (E.g. How many sides in a triangle? How can we simplify this fraction?), and the last group of question is Provoking questions which is used by teacher to encourage students to speak more it is more like bait to student to answer and speak more using these
kinds of questions. It kinds of the provoking question is like a trigger of question chain and it digs better answer and make students think more critically because they are simulated to
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Shomoosi in (1997) also proposed some generalizable pattern of teacher’s use of
questions in the observed EFL classroom. The first one is Referential question which are those question for which the answer is not already known by the teacher or the questions deliverer, the questions require interpretation and judgment on the part of the “answerer”.
The second is Display question which refer to questions for which the questioner knows the answer beforehand; the questions are usually asked for comprehension, confirmation or
clarification. The third one is Classroom interaction is used, in this study, meaning any sort of interaction occurring in the classroom.
Kearsley (1976) proposed questions and made the following taxonomy of questions'
types as cited in Shomoossi (1997) and cited by Toni (2013), The first type is Echoic. These are questions which ask for the repetition of an utterance or confirmation that an utterance
from teacher has been interpreted as intended (E.g. Pardon? Sorry, what?). The second one is Epistemic. This is type of question which serves the purpose of acquiring information or as Martin shared the opinion with her genuine questions. In this taxonomy, Kearsley
differentiated epistemic questions into two: the first Epistemic questions are Referential; which is intended to provide contextual information about situations, events, actions,
purposes, relationships or properties (Wh-questions, for example how is your relationship with your friends? What is your opinion?). Then the second Epistemic questions are Evaluative; which asked to establish the addressee's knowledge of the answer (sometimes called display, known information questions, or in Martin’s group called test questions). The
third type is Expressive: this question is conveying attitudinal information from the addresser
to the addressee. In this group the addresser is the teacher and the addressee is the students (e.g. Are you understand or not?). The fourth type is Social control; which are questions used to exert authority by maintaining control of the discourse. (E.g. Are you ready to start today’s
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of the discourse (for example is "listen to me" or "think about this"). And the last type is
Verbosity; which asked only for the sake of politeness or to sustain conversation (e.g. cocktail party questions)
Characteristic of young learners
In Teaching Languages to Young Learners, Cameron (2001) emphasized that “(the children) [young learners]… actively try to make sense of the world… ask questions… want
to know… Also from very early stages, the children have purposes and intentions as they
want to do.” Donaldson (1978: 86.)
According to Cameron (ibid), children are usually curious about things especially the
new ones. It is considered that teachers have to take a role of applying the questioning styles to increase their [young learners] background knowledge by digging the existed one in their
mind and planting the new one that will later being discussed in this journal. The use of questions here plays a role as a communication trigger and promotes a better understanding as Chi (1994) has already explained. This habit of young learners actually made the job of
teachers easier to be done because their curious habit makes them want to know what material we wanted to give to them. This will sort some natural characteristics and skills of children since the better teacher know children’s strengths and weaknesses the better teacher
could teach them
METHODOLOGY
This study is qualitative research. It tries to describe what teacher’s questions used in
7 Context of the study
The setting of this study is SD Laboratorium of Satya Wacana which is located in Salatiga, Central Java, Indonesia. I take the sample of convenience because I take my last
teaching practicum there.
Participants
The participants for this study are 4 (four) English teachers of Laboratorium of Satya
Wacana Elementary School. Their major in teaching is English. I choose all of the English teachers there to strengthen my idea of the importance of identifying kinds of questions.
Instrument of data collection
To fulfill the aim of this study, the instrument of data collection that was used to get reliable data about kinds of questions used in the classroom was observation that is completed
by 8 times with time-sampling protocol by Zacharias (2011). This protocol was used to ease the note-taking about the kinds of questions teachers used in classroom. This protocol also eased the researcher to recall the time of the note-taking. This study also used an evaluative
or structural observation technique. In conducting the observation, the researcher came to the classroom with a specific observation focus Zacharias (2011). Thus, the observation only
focuses on kinds of questions the teacher used.
A time-sampling protocol for teacher’s questions in English course in elementary
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Observation Protocol
Name of course : English Course Name of the teacher : Teacher 1
Topic : Holiday Class time : 70 minutes Grade :
Time
Categorization of questions
In class example
type Sub type
Procedures of data collection
The observation will be done in 2 x 35 minutes and divided into parts of 10 minutes. The questions teachers asked to the students will be written in the observation protocol. Each of the questions then will be classified into 6 (six) groups of questions based on Kearsley
(1976) as cited in Shomoosi (1997).
Data analysis procedure
The data gathered from Real-time observation without using any electronic means to recall the data by Wallace (1998) as cited in Zacharias (2011). Then the data were recorded
or transcribed using time sampling protocol by Zacharias (2011). The data were categorized into some types of questions used in the classroom which I obtained in the observations. The data in this study were analyzed qualitatively, and supported with theories from language
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Findings and Discussion
This section discusses kinds of questions teachers’ used in English classes. In each
category of kinds of questions, there are some excerpts from the data. The categories of kinds
of questions were based on Kearsley (1976) as cited in Shomoosi (1997) and cited by Toni (2013) frameworks. However from the overall six categories written by Kearsley (1997) there
are only four which has shown up in the observation. The four categories stated are Epistemic, Echoic, Expressive, and Social Control questions. Attentional and Verbosity
questions were not found in the classroom observation.
Epistemic questions
Kearsley (1976) as cited in Shomoosi (1997) and cited by Toni (2013) divided
Epistemic question into two part Referential questions and Evaluative / Display / Test
questions. Shomoosi (1997) believed as explained above, the two types of questions are contrasted as to the epistemic questions, of the one who asks, about the answer expected.
These two are referential and evaluative questions. As noted above, the teachers ask evaluative questions only to evaluate their students, only to find out whether they have got
the lesson or not. While, by asking referential questions, teachers want to elicit first-hand information from the students.
Evaluative questions
These evaluative questions are very often used in classroom activity because the teacher wants to test the already known knowledge of the student. This kind of questions also
provide the connections of the topic with the students. This type of question holds the first place of the most common questions asked by the teacher. The examples when the teacher
10 Excerpts 1
(Present Continuous Tense: My mother is ………. to her old friend.) Teacher 1 : What can you add there?
Students : Talking sir.
Teacher 1 : What else besides “talking” that could you may add? Students : Smiling?
Teacher 1 : Yes, it can be. Excerpts 2
(Transportation: Land Transportation (train)) Teacher 2 : Passenger trains means?
Student 1 : Passenger artinya penumpang pak, terus train artinya kereta api pak. Teacher 2 : Good, then. Why train is faster than a car?
Student 3 : Di kereta api nggak ada macet pak. Teacher 2 : Well, okay.
Toni (2013) proposed that evaluative questions as a display questions that are used to test the student or check the known information. It can be seen from the excerpts 1 and 2 that
the evaluative questions are used to check or test the known information of the students. Brock (1986) reports that responses to questions calling for the recognition or recall of factual
information of the students. In the observation this type of questions is used the most in classroom. Teacher 1 used these kinds of questions the most while teaching in classroom
followed by Teacher 2. Teacher 2 stated to the students that he believes that he merely use it to
check the understanding of the students as Brock (ibid) has stated while he was teaching in the
classroom. The other teachers also convey the same question at the same amount of kinds of
questions to the student even though they were not as much as teacher 2 while using this kinds of
questions. Along with Shomoosi (1997) in the observation this is type of question is used by most
teacher rather than referential questions.
Referential questions
Below are examples of the use of referential questions in English classroom.
Excerpts 3
(Present Continuous Tense)
Teacher 1 : What is Briand doing? Student : He is watching television.
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Student : Iya pak. He is watching television berarti kan masih nonton TV to pak kan Watching.
Teacher 1 : Bagus. Excerpts 4
(Hobby: trying to dig more understanding about a picture given by the teacher) Teacher 3 : What is she doing? the classroom as cited in Shoomosi (1997). In her research Brock (1986) believes that the use of referential questions is important because it creates a flow of information from student to
teacher which may create discourse which more nearly reassembles the normal conversation learning experience. From the excerpt 3 and 4, it can be seen that the teacher is trying to dig
more understanding from the student about the topic discussed. Teacher 1 asked about, “What is Brian doing?”. After the student answered the question, the teacher continued with
another question, “Sekarang masih nonton TV atau tidak?”. The question is aimed to dig
more understanding from the students about present continuous tense which is used in the sentence. Teacher explicitly wanted an elaborated answer from the student related to present continuous tense based from the topic discussed. The aim of the teacher’s questions are
fulfilled when the student give the appropriate answer toward the questions.
Teacher 3 asked about hobbies using pictures as the medium. She asked “What is she
doing?” while showing a picture of a person hiking on the hill. After the student answer it,
she asked another question “Do you like hiking?” to check the understanding of the student
about the certain activity which is hiking. Then, the students gave the answer that shows their understanding about hiking. The aim of the teacher’s questions is also fulfilled in this
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The excerpts support the statement of Shomoosi (1997) which believed that epistemic
questions are important to be asked to students because it checks the already known understanding of the students. By questioning the students with epistemic questions, the
students are stimulated to shows their understanding toward certain topic or material.
Expressive questions
Teachers there are also providing the expressive questions to the student. Here are
some examples of expressive questions found in the observation. Excerpts 5
(Simple Past Tense)
Teacher 1 : Any other opinion?
Student A : Berarti simple past tense hanya dipakai untuk masa lalu pak? Teacher 1 : Wah berarti kamu ngga bisa move on? Wkwkwk.
Simple past itu hanya digunakan untuk menunjukkan bahwa kejadian itu terjadi di masa lampau.
Teacher 4 : Up to this point is there any question? Student A : Miss, baju itu apa?
Teacher 4 : Baju itu, S-H-I-R-T. Shirt. Student B : Itu bukannya rok ya miss?
Teacher 4 : Itu S-K-I-R-T. skirt. Artinya ROK.
Expressive questions are those that show the attitude of the speaker Nhlapo (1998).
Along with him Toni (2013) proposed expressive questions as conveying attitudinal information to the addressee. In the excerpts 5 and 6 the teachers wanted to engage the
student with the attitudinal information. Teachers 1 and 4 wanted the students to speak more by using questions as the trigger. Teacher 1’s questions stimulate the curiosity of the students.
He asked about “Any other opinion?” Then the student answered with another question
“Berarti simple past tense hanya bisa dipakai untuk masa lalu pak?”. The same thing
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question?”. Then the student answered with following question to the teacher which is “Miss,
baju itu apa?”. These kind of questions could go along with young learners because young
learners’ curiosity Cameron (2001).
Social Control questions
In this social control questions the teacher used their power to maintain the discourse. These are some example from the observation excerpts.
Excerpts 7
(In-class situation)
Teacher 1 : Could you please close the book? Students : Silent (while slowly closing the book). Excerpts 8
(In-class discussion)
Teacher 2 : Could you speak louder Kanu?
Student : (Following the teacher’s instruction by repeating the sentence louder)
Kearsley as cited in Shomoosi and cited by Toni (2013) proposed social control questions are questions that are used to maintain power by preserving the dialog. In excerpts
7 and 8 the teachers used their power to maintain the lesson in the classroom. In excerpts 7 the teacher wanted the students to close their books. So, he used the question “Could you please close the book?”. The students responded the teacher’s questions by closing their
books. The teacher gave command to the students indirectly, by using a question to make it more polite. It shows that the teacher’s social control in the classroom.
The teacher’s social control is also shown in excerpts 8 The teacher asked a particular
student “Could you speak louder, Kanu?”. Then the student followed the indirect command
from the teacher by increasing the volume of his voice.
By questioning such questions, the teachers implement their social control function in classroom. These event supports Kearsley’s as cited in Shomoosi and cited by Toni (2013)
14 Echoic questions
In the observations, two out of four teachers used these echoic questions. Below are two examples from the two teachers using echoic questions in classroom.
Excerpt 9 (Transportation)
Teacher 2 : Transportation I guess, right?
(Which ask for confirmation from the students.) Student : Yes sir.
Excerpts 10 (Hobby)
Student : Miss, kalo maen skateboard itu bahasa inggrisnya apa? Teacher 3 : Pardon? (questions here were asked for repetition) Student : Miss, kalo maen skateboard itu bahasa inggrisnya apa? Teacher 3 : Skateboarding.
Echoic questions are questions which ask for the reiteration of a confirmation or verification that it has been understood as intended Ellis (2008). From the excerpts, it can be
seen that, the teachers used echoic questions when he/she wanted a confirmation or verification answer from the students in the classroom. Teacher use this kind of question in
class when the student stated a question and then teacher returned it with a confirmation or verifier question.
Conclusion
The aim of the study was to analyze what kinds of questions teacher asked to the
young learners in the classroom. It was found that the teachers used four types of questions asked to young learners. Each type of questions was used with different purposes owned by the teachers. The first type of questions used is Epistemic Question. It is divided into two
subtypes, Evaluative Questions and Referential Questions. The teacher asked Evaluative Questions only to evaluate their students, only to find out whether they have got the lesson or
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is Social Control Question. It was found that the use of Social Control Questions was aimed
to maintain the lesson in the classroom. The last type of questions found was Echoic Question which has function to ask for confirmation or verification.
However, this study still has limitations. The first limitation is the number of School
observed. Bigger number of the data collected will maybe be more beneficial for the reliability of the further studies. The second limitation is on the time allocation. There is limit
of time for me as a researcher doing the research. Therefore, having the time allocation which is longer than the time in this present study will be more valuable.
Based on the finding, this study recommended that teacher in elementary school can use the four types of questions to fulfill their duty in teaching English. The use of these kinds of questions can increase the teacher’s quality of teaching maximally and effectively. This
study was only conducted in SD Laboratorium Satya Wacana Salatiga. The focus of the study was only on the teachers as the participants. For further study, the same topic can be held in more than one elementary school to get more data about what types of questions teacher
asked to young learners. To take student as the participant is also recommended because they may have different opinion toward what types of questions teacher should asked to young
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