VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** PHẠM THANH XUÂN MỪNG EXPLORING THE USE OF TEACHER’S QUESTIONING AND STUDENTS’ INTERACTION IN SPEAKING CLASSES AT TRAN HUNG DAO HIGH SCHOOL (NGHIÊN CỨU TÌM HIỂU VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CÂU HỎI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN VÀ TƯƠNG TÁC CỦA HỌC SINH TRONG GIỜ DẠY NÓI TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT TRẦN HƯNG ĐẠO) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Hanoi – 2015 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** PHẠM THANH XUÂN MỪNG EXPLORING THE USE OF TEACHER’S QUESTIONING AND STUDENTS’ INTERACTION IN SPEAKING CLASSES AT TRAN HUNG DAO HIGH SCHOOL (NGHIÊN CỨU TÌM HIỂU VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CÂU HỎI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN VÀ TƯƠNG TÁC CỦA HỌC SINH TRONG GIỜ DẠY NÓI TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT TRẦN HƯNG ĐẠO) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Dr. Vũ Thị Thanh Nhã Hanoi – 2015 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com DECLARATION I hereby declare that the minor thesis entitled “Exploring the Use of Teacher’s Questioning and Students' Interaction in Speaking classes at Tran Hung Dao High School” is the result of my own work and effort in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at Faculty of Post- Graduate Studies, Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University.
The material in this research has not been submitted to any other university or institution wholly and partially. Phạm Thanh Xuân Mừng i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would, first of all, like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Vu Thi Thanh Nha for her valuable suggestions, enthusiasm, academic guidance, encouragement and precious advice on the thesis. I would like to show my sincere thanks to all my lecturers at the Postgraduate Studies Department, University of Language and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their valuable lectures, which laid the foundation for this study. My thanks also go to the teachers and students at Tran Hung Dao High School where my study was carried out.
Last but not least, my heartfelt thanks go to my family for their support and encouragement throughout my study in Nam Dinh. ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT This study was conducted with 3 teachers and 132 students of grade 10 at Tran Hung Dao High School with the data collected from the class observations in the classroom settings. The study focused on finding out the types of questions the teachers used in English speaking lessons and exploring students' interaction to the teachers' questions. The findings of the study showed that the three teachers used three main types of questions, namely display questions, referential questions and yes/no questions in which the display questions were most frequently asked, followed by yes/no questions and referential questions were rarely asked.
Regarding the purposes of questions, display questions were mainly asked with diagnostic and instructional functions. Yes/no questions aimed to function as diagnostic and motivational tools. The purpose of referential questions was to motivate students by asking information about students themselves. Also, the findings indicated that most of the students‟ responses were very brief, with one to three words and many questions were not answered.
Longer responses up to nine words could be found in a few instances. However, these longer responses accounted for a small percentage. Besides, the use of referential questions in the investigated lessons did not seem to be successful and effective. The findings revealed that there were not many longer responses when referential questions were asked.
Next, the way that the teacher asked the students to explain their answers resulted in longer responses. However, most of the teachers did not focus on follow-up questions or the ways of giving feedback. In brief, the teachers at THD High School were not skillful in using their questioning and need training more in applying this technique in speaking. Therefore, this thesis proposes some useful implications to the teachers who want to have more effective questioning in order to promote interaction in their classroom.
It is also hoped that the results of the thesis will provide useful information and lessons for those who want to do research at the schools with similar teaching conditions iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.school LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT: Communicative Language Teaching F: Feedback L2: Second Language No: Number No of Qs: Number of Questions No of Rs: Number of Responses S: Student Ss: Students T: Teacher THD: Tran Hung Dao Y/N Question: Yes/No Question iv (LUAN.school TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.school LIST OF TABLES Page Table 1: The summary of the class observation data 20 Table 2: Examples of different types of teacher questions 22 Table 3: Types of questions asked by the three teachers 24 Table 4: The length of students’ responses for different types 28 of questions asked by the three teachers v (LUAN.school TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.school TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. iv LIST OF TABLES. Rationale of the study.
Significance of the study. Aims, objectives of the study and research questions. Scope of the study. Method of the research.
Organization of the thesis. 4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Interaction in class.What is classroom interaction? .2 The role of classroom interaction in L2 acquisition. Teacher‟s questioning in interaction.
Definition of questions. Functions of teachers‟ questions. Types of questions. Effects of teacher questions.
The setting of the study. An overview of the research site. English teachers in Tran Hung Dao High School. The syllabus of teaching and learning English 10 in Tran Hung Dao High School.
Methods of the study .school TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. The participants of the study. Data collection instruments. Methods of Data analysis.
21 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Types of questions the teachers asked frequently in the investigated lessons. Effects of the types of questions teachers asked on the students‟ interaction. Types of questions the teachers asked frequently in the whole class teaching portion of the lessons.
Effects of the types of questions teachers asked on the students‟ interaction. 34 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS. Limitations and suggestions for further studies. 43 APPENDIX : OBSERVATION SHEET .school TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.school CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale of the study English has been seen as the most important foreign language in Vietnam since the 6th National Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party in 1986 initiated an overall economic reform known as “Doi moi”. Young people realize the need of learning English for a plenty of reasons such as getting jobs in foreign companies, studying abroad, and travelling. Nevertheless, according to Van (2006), the quality of teaching and learning foreign languages at both general and tertiary levels in Vietnam is still very low, which is far from meeting the present country‟s demand of socio-economic development “Though the aims of the curriculum at secondary school are to train the four skills and students‟ required language proficiency is upper- intermediate level. However, their real level is just somewhere between elementary and lower-intermediate.
Many school leavers cannot read simple texts in English nor communicate with English speaking people in some most common cases. Actually the real focus of teaching and learning English in both lower secondary and secondary schools is completing English grammar and vocabulary exercises, in order to pass the final exams (even the entrance exams of many universities and colleges in Vietnam) which mainly consist of grammar and vocabulary tasks only” (Tien, 2013, p. This situation is true in my teaching context at Tran Hung Dao High School in Nam Dinh. Our students learn English to pass the compulsory exams, so they practise doing exercises relating to the tests such as grammar, vocabulary, reading skills and pronunciation.
Although teaching methodology has changed from translation method to communicative method, students do not focus on speaking and listening skills. For them, these skills will be practiced later when they have entered university. The consequence is that students cannot communicate despite the fact that they have been learning English for many years. This way of students‟ thinking has an influence on teaching and learning speaking in class.
As a teacher, I 1 (LUAN.school TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.school realize the need to help students master speaking skill as well as find out how to teach students this skill effectively. There exist a number of techniques useful for teaching speaking skill, one of which is teacher‟s questioning. Questioning plays a pivotal role not only in teaching speaking skill in particular but also in teaching learning English in general (Gall, 1970). “Questioning has been considered as one of the most essential and important techniques during instructional processes since Socrates times.
Questioning takes up most of teacher talk and it has been proved to have a great influence on classroom interaction”( Xiaoyan, 2008, p. Obviously, many studies (Long & Sato, 1983; Brock, 1986; Shomooshi, 1997; Camak, 2009) have focused on the use of questioning as a universal pedagogical approach. Despite these studies and their findings, how teachers ask effective questions to create students‟ interaction is an under-researched issue in my context. My big concern is whether teachers at Tran Hung Dao High School effectively use teacher‟s questioning in speaking classes or not.
My interest in finding out teacher‟s questioning and students‟ interaction in speaking classes has inspired me to do a study titled “Exploring the Use of Teacher’s Questioning and Students' Interaction in Speaking classes at Tran Hung Dao High School”. Significance of the study Theoretical significance of the study: The study synthesized the understanding of teacher questioning in terms of the types of question, functions of questions and the effects of teacher‟s questioning on students‟ interaction in speaking. Moreover, the study suggested how to effectively use teacher‟s questioning in speaking classes in English 10 to stimulate students‟ interaction. Practical significance of the study: The study was conducted with the expectation that its results would be useful for myself, for my students and for my colleagues at Tran Hung Dao (THD) High School.
Based on the findings, conclusion can be made on what types of questions should be applied and how to use them in speaking classes in English 10 to enhance students‟ interaction.school TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.school it can be a considerable contribution to teaching and learning speaking skill effectively and enjoyably at THD High School. More importantly, findings in this project can, hopefully, be first steps to further study or discovery to encourage students to speak English with confidence. The research might inspire students to speak English-the skill used to be challenging with them. Aims, objectives of the study and research questions The research aims to explore the use of teacher questioning and students' interaction in speaking classes at Tran Hung Dao High School.
Thus, the objectives of the thesis are: 1. finding out question types used by teachers in speaking classes with specific purposes; 2. determining the effects of teacher‟s questioning on students‟ interaction and 3. giving suggestions and recommendations in using teacher questioning in order to raise teacher‟s effective questions at Tran Hung Dao High School.
Based on the objectives of the thesis, the research questions are: 1. What question types are used by teachers in speaking classes? 2. What are the effects of teacher‟s questioning on students‟ interaction? 1. Scope of the study There are a variety of techniques to stimulate students' interaction in class activities.
However, because of the time and length constraint of the study we only focused on teacher questioning, which is considered to occur in almost every lesson and to be teachers‟ important technique. Among performance indicators for language skills, reading, speaking, writing, and listening, speaking was chosen for our study.