February 22

Fortnightly Focus #12 – Questions

Robert Heinlein once said,

When one teaches, two learn.

I’ve learnt so much since becoming a teacher, not only through those sometimes peculiar texts which crop up in coursebooks – my recent favourite was about a man who travelled around Ireland with a fridge for a dare…there’s even a film about it – but also about the language I teach and speak everyday.

For example, recently I’ve learnt the term urban furniture, which is the collective term for benches, postboxes, fountains, etc.  Through other questions which my learners have asked me, I’ve learnt more about words which I had a general idea of, but didn’t use in that context so never fully grasped – one example is holding, as in a holding company.

Since becoming a teacher trainer, I’m a lot more aware of the questions I ask my learners – gone are the days of, “Do you understand?” and “What do you have to do?” (though admittedly that one sometimes creeps in when I think someone hasn’t been listening to me).  I know though that asking instruction-checking questions is not one of my strong points – partly because I sometimes feel they are a little superfluous and patronising (Which activity? Do you have to write or match?) though I can appreciate that the questions can be matched to the linguistic and cognitive level of the learners too.

I also feel I’m much better at asking concept-checking questions rather than, “What does…mean?” and I enjoy finding the balance between open and closed CCQs (Is a wardrobe for clothes or food? vs.  Which room is a wardrobe usually in?).  As a trainer as well, I’m becoming better at eliciting answers from trainees, as to start with I would tell them why things were or weren’t a good idea; now I ask them (then give my two penneth!).

I’m continuing to use questions as a routine at the start of my tricky class – we’ve done what, who and when so far and I’m going to put the questions on lollipop sticks so that we can use them as a review activity when they need a break.  A question that age group asks me a lot is, “When is it my turn to do Guess the Question?” and I’d like to get into the habit of using more questions with my VYLs to get them familiar with typical questions too.

Here are some questions you might like to think about in your own teaching – they are questions which originally came out in feedback on observations at our centre a couple of years ago.

For my next Fortnightly Focus, I’m going to be focussing on my boardwork.  If you haven’t yet checked it out, I strongly recommend #ELTwhiteboard on twitter – it gives you a fascinating glimpse into other teachers’ classrooms around the world and you can pick up some great tips on layout, use of colour, how to work with phonology and much, much more.

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Posted February 22, 2017 by Teresa Bestwick in category Professional Development

2 thoughts on “Fortnightly Focus #12 – Questions

    1. Teresa Bestwick (Post author)

      Thanks, Anne! I’ve been using your mulitple intelligence questions with my B1 and B2 groups – it’s great with the teens as I’ve got a really creative class and they come up with some fantastic questions!

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