Asking Effective Referential Questions in an EFL Classroom

Abstract

Through language interaction in the context of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom, the teacher and students co-construct the activity of teacher questioning and student responding as a source for negotiation, construction, and assessment of language knowledge. Referential questions have been referred to as one of the effective language tools to help develop complexity of learner output and the use of the target language for genuine communication. This study aims to critically examine the extent to which the referential questions are actually and pedagogically used in the language classroom. The research applied Conversation Analysis (CA) to analyze interactions recorded from sixteen EFL classroom lessons. The results reveal that the goal of using referential questions to develop genuine communication in English is rarely achieved in this particular EFL classroom context. The characteristics of the teacher’s practice which cause deterioration of the effective use of the referential forms of question will be discussed in details. The implications for research into teacher questions and language pedagogy will be provided.



Author Information
Jirapa Abhakorn, Graduate School of Language and Communication, National Institute of Development, Thailand

Paper Information
Conference: ECLL2014
Stream: Conversation analysis

This paper is part of the ECLL2014 Conference Proceedings (View)
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Posted by James Alexander Gordon