The Role of Teachers’ Questions in the Pre-reading Activity at Primary Level
Nita Christiningtyas
Abstract
This study aims to identify four types of teachers’ questions that are used in the pre-reading activity in Bethany Elementary School, Salatiga, Indonesia. Non-participant observation was applied to collect the data in the three classes as the main instrument aided by field notes. This article presents the examples from each type of questions used in the pre-reading activity in the classes, the essentials why it is applied, and how it is used in different reading topic in the pre-reading activity. The result shows that the four types of questions are used in the pre-reading activity with the difference frequencies of used in each class. Meanwhile, there are new types of questions find in this study. They belong to the combination of questions used by teachers in the pre-reading activity. The findings suggest that the use of questions in the pre-reading activity help the students to have enough background knowledge of a particular topic that they will read. The strategic questions can be applied in the pre-reading activity to create active atmosphere in the classroom, help the students to have higher-level of thinking through particular topic, and make teachers aware of using a series of questions while teaching in pre-reading activity as Indonesia is EFL context.
