This section examines the types of questions the teachers asked, the output students produced in response, and types of questions that triggered extended turns in teacher–student interactions in whole-class discussions in order to seek how teacher’s questions can create a social context to engage students in deep thinking and exploring different perspectives.
The Big Picture in Whole Class Discussions
A total of 123 questions were asked during the whole-class discussions in five classes by five different teachers, which means that all teachers asked one ques- tion every 30–40 seconds on average during the teacher-fronted discussion.
In this study, instructional questions will be examined for inquiry into the dialogic nature of CLIL pedagogy. All the instructional questions were classi- fied into the six categories adapted from “types of information asked for”
(Dalton-Puffer, 2007, p. 98) in order to find out the teachers’ intentions and purposes. Table 1 shows that question types asked during the whole-class dis- cussion were diverse; however, most of the teachers asked questions for facts, which are the most frequently asked questions in any language classrooms including CLIL (Dalton-Puffer, 2007; Llinares et al., 2012). The distribution of teachers’ other question types varied quite considerably depending on top- ics, lesson goals, tasks, and so forth; questions for opinion and meta-cognitive questions were frequently asked in Class B as students were asked their opin- ions for problem-solving and the reasoning for their solutions.
Table 1 Distribution of teachers’ question types
A B C D E
Total Discussion time 20:48 17:41 12:00 12:00 14:00
Q for defining 19 0 0 0 0 19
Q for facts 3 9 9 12 9 42
Q for explanation 2 3 0 0 1 6
Q for reasons 5 0 0 3 3 11
Q for opinion 0 14 2 0 0 16
Meta-cognitive Q 6 7 1 0 0 14
Total 35 33 12 15 13 108
Adapted from Dalton-Puffer’s (2007) typology
The Role of Questions for Abstract Concepts
This section examines how a teacher used questions for the purpose of teach- ing terminology in psychology in the input session. In teaching what an aca- demic concept is, the teacher unravelled the abstract concept by having students evaluate several what-if examples, which meant that questions for defining played an important role in facilitating students’ critical thinking where they used “questioning new concepts” (Fortanet-Gómez, 2013, p. 134) and identified contexts in which the concepts are applied.
Example 1 is an excerpt from Class A where Advanced 1-level (B2 CEFR) students studied various concepts in psychology in English. Before this excerpt, the teacher first explained that aggression is a complex concept and psychologists have difficulty defining it. Then, he presented the goals of the class: (1) to understand how psychologists have defined aggression, (2) to cre- ate its new definition. In other words, a question for defining, “What is aggression?”, was set as an essential question to keep the focus of student thinking in teasing out the concept of aggression.
After that, in scaffolding the concept of aggression, the teacher showed the students several examples of someone being aggressive (e.g., Two brothers are punching each other in a playground.). The teacher asked the students if each of the examples can be categorised into aggression or not. In Example 1, the teacher (T) is leading the students to evaluate more complex situations in order to include different factors to consider.
Example 1
1 T Another example, in London, a police officer, he saw a 2 terrorist running through the station and he shot the 3 terrorist and the terrorist died, right? The terrorist had a 4 bomb, so he saved many many lives, hundreds of lives, 5 this police officer. Is it aggression? (Question for 6 defining) In this case, he harmed the terrorist. The 7 terrorist died. But he could save hundreds of lives.
8 Is that aggression? (Question for defining) Jaa
9 [Then], one minute.
10 (SS start discussing the question)
11 T So, a police officer kills a terrorist to save lives.
12 Is that aggression? (Question for defining) 13 Shaking your heads … no, right?
14 Why do you think so? (Meta-cognitive question) 15 S1 The purpose is not harming the terrorist himself, but he 16 saved others’ lives.
17 T OK, very good. So, the purpose is not to be aggressive, 18 right? So, the purpose is important. Very good.
(continued)
19 Is there any other answer we could say?
20 (Meta-cognitive question)
21 So, a police officer killed the terrorist and saved many 22 lives. How about if a teacher like me kills the
23 terrorist at a station to save many lives? Is it 24 different? (Question for defining) I hope so.
25 S2 You can get to be a hero.
26 T Eh, I can be a hero. That’s good.
27 But what’s the difference? A teacher and a police 28 officer? (Question for explanation)
29 S3 A police officer is asked to kill the terrorist. It’s their
30 job.
31 T Oh, OK OK. That’s their job. Duty. Maybe sometimes 32 we could say aggression is not aggressive. It’s for a job
33 and for a duty.
(continued)
This excerpt shows how the teacher guides the students to argue a particular position and deepen their understanding of an abstract concept. After discuss- ing whether this police officer’s action is considered “aggression” or not in pairs, the teacher initiates the class discussion by repeating the same question,
“Is that aggression?” (line 12). He invites the students to speak freely and asks for their reasoning on why this action is not aggression (line 14). This meta- cognitive question is crucial in the exploration of factors in each example, which successfully elicits one of the important factors for determining whether the example is aggression or not (See S1, lines 15–16). However, the teacher seems to find the factor, “purpose”, too broad to fully argue the position and tries to elicit different ideas by asking another meta-cognitive question, which means, ‘Why do you think so?’ (lines 19–20). Since the students seemed to have difficulty in responding to this question, he decides to change the doer of the conduct from a police officer to a teacher, someone more familiar, for the students to try out a different perspective (lines 22–24). Finally, S3 explains, “A police officer is asked to kill the terrorist. It’s their job.” (lines 29–30), where the teacher paraphrases “job” as “duty” in the end (lines 31–33).
As shown above, the questions for defining asked the students to take a stance for each example, and the meta-cognitive questions followed, encour- aging the students to engage actively in exploring factors and this in turn triggered extended dialogic exchanges. One of the prominent points regard- ing the functions of the questions for defining would be that they kept the students’ focus on taking a clear stance. Many studies criticise the fact that these known questions, which are called display questions, are restrictive and
do not leave much space in extended talk (Long & Sato, 1983; Nikula, 2007).
S3 answered the question for defining (line 12) and the meta-cognitive questions (lines 14, 19), not to the question asked right before (lines 27–28). Moreover, her response is well-organised and straight to the point, even though it was a spontaneous reaction to the teacher’s question, rather than a well-planned one. One of the reasons why she was able to give a logical argument may be that this question, “Is it aggression?” was framed within a larger enquiry, namely the essential question, “What is aggression?” presented as an overarch- ing aim of the class. Here, the findings might suggest that as all the teacher’s questions were connected to this essential question, thus both the teacher and the students were able to share the same goals during the entire discussion.
The pedagogical implication is that one factor which guided the students to think and make logical reasoning was the use of the simple question for which the answer was known, in connection to the essential question.
The Role of Questions for Eliciting Students’ Ideas
The previous section analysed an input session to understand an academic, abstract concept. Here, we focus on an output session in a problem-solving task to find out how teachers’ questions in the whole-class discussion encour- age students to generate ideas and scaffold the construction of their arguments.
The following example comes from Class B, Advanced 1-level (B2 CEFR) students, and the course topic is negotiation of identities in global communi- ties. The class observed and audio-recorded for this study dealt with a simu- lated problem-solving case study on the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community and the campus climate. The aim of the discussion was to think how to make a safe campus environment for LGBT students. First, the students read about a fictitious international LGBT student from the UK who appears in the scenario; Peter is her official name on the passport, and she wants to be called Serena. Students were asked two comprehension check questions: (1) Who is Serena? (2) What is the issue? Then, they discussed these two questions in groups without looking at their handouts, followed by the whole-class discussion to confirm the context.
After checking Serena’s profile, the students worked on the problem- solving tasks from these three angles: what students can do to include Serena in the campus community, what teachers can do to support LGBT students, and what the university can do to provide all students with a safe and fair learning environment. These three questions derive from the essential question, “What can people on campus do in order to include LGBT students?” In Example 2, one of the groups is reporting their solutions to the class.
Example 2
1 T OK, how about this group? What can students do?
2 (Question for opinion)
3 S1 We think mmm … students need to have more
4 information about LGBT?
5 T Right, they need to have more information?
6 (Meta-cognitive question)
7 S1 Yeah, mmm … Personally, since 2017, we, I’m here as 8 a university student, I met a lot of people, but I didn’t
9 met LGBT students (humhum), so, maybe some
10 people don’t know there’re LGBT students in Sophia
11 University.
12 T Exactly, you are the same age, but you haven’t really 13 noticed them (yes), and maybe we don’t know. We 14 don’t know that LGBT. Maybe they don’t tell us. Yes, 15 that’s true, so? (Meta-cognitive question)
16 S1 So … mmm, we need more information about LGBT.
17 T Yeah, we need more information. It’s difficult to ask 18 them, isn’t it? If we don’t know, how can we find 19 out more information? (Question for opinion)
20 S1 Ah mmm, try to communicate?
21 T Yep, if we knew they were, yes? (Question for
22 opinion)
23 S1 Ummmm, just umm, seken-banashi te nan te 24 iuno?[How do you say “seken banashi” in English?]
25 S2 Ummmm?
26 T OK, so you want to talk to different people in a
27 general way? (Question for facts)
28 S1 Yes.
29 T Have a conversation, yeah talk about it with other
30 friends. OK, well done.
This excerpt illustrates how the teacher’s follow-up questions trigger extended dialogic exchanges and guide the students to engage in further understanding of LGBT. When the teacher asks one of the groups a question for opinion (line 1), one of the group members reports their idea, saying “We think mmm, students need to have more information about LGBT?” (lines 3–4). Her initial response is expressed in sentence form, yet it is a general idea not supported by any evidence or reasons. This group appears to be still brain- storming the context and has not suggested any practical solutions. As feed- back, the teacher simply repeats S1’s comment for clarification request (line 5); however, this seems to push her to speak more. Perhaps, she might have taken the teacher’s repetition of her comment as a prompt to ask why students need to have more information on LGBT. This simple echoing with a rising tone seems to function as a meta-cognitive question (i.e., Why do you think so?). The strategy results in eliciting an extended turn where she explains why
more information on LGBT is necessary, referring to her lack of personal experience on campus (lines 7–11). Thus, she is actively linking the interac- tion with her real life to deepen her understanding.
Moreover, S1’s contribution spurrs on more dialogic exchange. After the teacher summarises S1’s comment, she suggests another possibility by saying,
“Maybe they don’t tell us” (line 14) and continues the dialogue by saying “so?”
(line 15). Although this “so?” is a short, informal question, it appears to encourage S1 to consider what she would do if LGBT students did not talk about their identities. Thus, this question is considered as a meta-cognitive question to encourage students to evaluate their own ideas and explore differ- ent perspectives. Furthermore, the teacher asks the same question more explicitly by using questions for opinion (lines 18–19, 21); still, it seems to be very difficult for S1 and her group members to generate any ideas for how students find the LGBT students in order to support them. In the end, S1 finally comes up with a solution for that; however, she is not able to express her idea in English and asks for help (lines 23–24). The teacher feeds the lan- guage in the form of asking a question for facts (lines 26–27) and finally gives evaluative feedback to the group to move on to the next group (lines 29–30).
As examined above, even when students’ initial ideas might be vague and insufficient, the teacher was able to create space for exploring their ideas together by expanding feedback (Llinares et al., 2012, p. 81). In addition, this example suggests that as long as both the teacher and students are clear about the final goals of the discussion, the students might know that they are ulti- mately asked to answer the essential question of the class. The teacher’s infor- mal feedback, for example, simple repetitions of student’s response as well as short questions, such as “So?” and “And?”, might function as negotiatory follow-up questions, which may enable the teacher-fronted discussion to become “reciprocal” (Alexander, 2008, p. 28) and work as a personal dialogic exchange.
In conclusion, it can be said that although Class A and Class B were at dif- ferent stages of the lesson, both groups were engaged in thinking about their topics using interaction in achieving their learning aims. The teachers selected different types of questions depending on their decision; however, both of them used meta-cognitive questions (e.g., “Why do you think so?”) to scaf- fold students’ critical thinking, which triggered extended dialogic exchanges.
These questions were often intended to bring about a particular position held by students. Furthermore, it was found that when the class discussion was oriented toward a shared inquiry, namely an essential question, teachers’ sim- ple feedback functioned as questions that facilitate students to seek for their
reasoning and search for different perspectives. The teacher’s questions are interpreted not on the spot, but within the whole classroom discourse in the context set out by the essential question.