Aspects we may consider when asking questions in the classroom

Asking questions in the classroom is a common resource for every teacher, but what whe should alway keep in mind is that not all questions are appropiate and have the same effectivity on our students. There are basically two types of questions that we can ask: Referential and Display.

When a teacher asks a referential question it is a question to which he does not know the answer (“Do you like fish?” “What time did you get up this morning?”) On the other hand, a Display  question is one to which the teacher knows the answer, and the pupils know that he knows the answer (“What is this?” – holding up an exercise book). While display questions have their uses, it seems that teachers seem to use many more of them than they use of referential questions. So the trainees should be encouraged not to drop Display questions but to increase the proportion of referential questions.

Another useful way of classifying questions is to classify them as open or closed questions. Open questions have an unlimited number of answers while closed questions have a limited number of possible answers.

 Examples of closed questions:

 • Are you afraid of snakes?
 • Where are you from?

 Examples of open questions:

 • If you could talk to an elephant, what would you talk about?
 • What kind of tricks would you teach a dog?

While one cannot say “ask only open questions”, it is important that the trainee makes sure that he does not ask ONLY closed questions, but includes open questions also.

Essentially the right kind of questions are those that make learners think and allow the teacher to extend the interaction by further questioning. For example, instead of just accepting a learner’s reply the teacher can ask a further related question and so extend the dialogue e.g.

Teacher: What’s your favourite sport, Sunil?
Learner: Cricket, Sir.
T: Have you ever played any other sports?
L: Football.
T: Why do you prefer cricket? (e.g. instead of immediately after Sunil’s first response going on to ask another learner what his favourite sport is.)

The trainer must also bear in mind that while it is not wrong to ask YES/NO question, they produce limited responses. WH – questions always produce longer responses (especially WHY and HOW questions). Quite a good strategy is to start with YES/NO questions and extend it using WH-QQ.

T: Have you ever been to Fort Railway Station?
P: Yes
T: When…….?
    Why……..?
    How……..?
    Who……….with?

Asking questions in the right kind of way: The teacher in training should realize the importance of avoiding “thin air” questions. These are questions that a trainee asks of the whole class but they appear directed to “thin air” because the trainee does not nominate people to reply or does not call on volunteers. Questions must be DIRECTED: that is, they may first be asked of the whole class and then a respondent may be nominated either from among volunteers or from the whole class (it is important not to use ONLY volunteers).