QUESTIONING STRATEGIES BY TEACHERS AT PRESCHOOL LEVEL AND PATTERNS OF STUDENT RESPONSES: THE CASE OF GRAPESEED ENGLISH CURRICULUM

Abstract

For foreign language learners, especially young learners at kindergarten level,

classroom interaction seems to be their only source of communication, most of which is

initiated by teacher questions. On the belief that good questioning strategies facilitate language development, the researcher conducted this study to investigate questioning strategies by teachers at preschool level and patterns of student responses. The study worked with GrapeSEED English Curriculum, a Japan-based English program for children between 4 and 12 years old. In the study, teachers’ perceptions on questioning strategies (data collected via personal interview) were analyzed in comparison with their classroom practice (data collected via observation). Besides, patterns of student responses in terms of word length and syntactic complexity were revealed in correspondence with teacher questions. The participants were GrapeSEED Unit 5 teachers and students who had their classes periodically recorded for research purposes. The findings suggested a desirable consistency between teachers’ perceptions and their practice: that teachers employed more display to referential questions at the beginning of the course and gradually increased the number of referential questions towards the end. In reply to teacher questions, students tended to provide responses with longer and syntacticallycomplicated utterances compared to those display questions. Nevertheless, it was noticeable that the quality and quantity of student responses could be improved as a result of teachers’ instructions using display questions to reshape student responses. This practice, thereby, restates the role of display questions in classroom interaction, especiallyat kindergarten level as well as raises concern over the authenticity of classroom interaction, as recommended by theories of communicative language teaching.