Teachers' Questions to Elicit Learners' Responses

Focusing on Questions from Teachers to Learners in the Classroom

Abstract

This paper presents action research on teachers' questions designed to elicit learners' speech. Through teaching practices in the fall, winter, and spring terms, the author identified an issue: the struggle to ask questions that could effectively draw out learners' speech and broaden classroom interactions. To address this, the author analyzed the questions posed, the subsequent learner responses, and the interactions that occurred using the IRF (Initiation-Response-Follow up) routine and the IRE (Initiation-Response-Evaluation) sequence. By examining cases where learner responses were not adequately elicited, the author identified factors in questions that contributed to this lack of elicitation. Key factors included the relevancy of lesson themes to the author and the inability to fully understand learners' responses. These issues often led to inappropriate questions. Based on these findings, the author explored various methods to improve questioning techniques. Finally, the relationship between this research and the author's beliefs is discussed.