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Presenters
Noorizah Mohd Noor, Idris Aman, Teo Kok Seong
& Rosniah Mustaffa

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia,
Malaysia 

Title
Teachers’ Questioning Approaches: A discourse analysis in the Malaysian ESL Classroom

Abstract

Teachers’ questioning has long been established as an important component of teaching, learning and assessing students’ understanding in classroom teaching. Questioning promotes memory, inquiry and acts as a stimulus for student talk, engagement and in-depth processing of complex concepts. In addition, the use of questions serves as an important channel for the exchange of ideas between teachers and students. Thus, it is imperative to understand how this elicitation method influences the dynamics of classroom communication which determines the students’ participation in classroom activities. Given this background, this paper explores the questioning approaches of five teachers from selected Malaysian primary schools. All lessons, approximating thirty minutes to one hour long, were audio taped and were later transcribed, coded and enriched with further information collected through classroom observation. The findings revealed various questioning approaches adopted by the teachers and are illustrated with extracts from the transcriptions. These findings are important as they provide an awareness of the questioning practices adopted in the classroom and the significant effects on students’ participation. To conclude, the paper will discuss the implications of the findings for the development of teachers’ repertoire of questioning skills. In relation to this, some pedagogical considerations for instructional practice within an ESL context will also be further discussed. 

Key words: Teachers’ Questioning Approach, ESL, Malaysian primary school, discourse analysis, classroom communication