Questioning techniques

Description

Taking a step back is a technique that gives the teacher the opportunity to use an incorrect answer from a student in the teaching process.

How it works

If a student fails to give the correct answer, you go back to the point where the student still understood the learning content. You then build up the learning process from there again, starting from the existing knowledge.

You can use different kinds of clues, such as:

• giving an example
  
• providing context
  
• giving a rule
• giving the missing (or first) step
• returning the question
• eliminating the wrong choices.

Tips

• Think carefully in advance about the steps that need to be taken for students to answer a question or carry out an assignment. Identify possible difficulties and think about appropriate clues.
  
• Try to estimate as well as possible the extent of the gap between the student's level of knowledge and the knowledge that is needed to solve the original question, so you can give the right amount of clues.
• The message you convey to your students by implementing this technique is that you expect them to succeed in finding the answer and that you help them doing so. Hence, 'I don't know' can never be students' final answer.

Examples

• You notice that a student uses a wrong tense when writing a story in the past tense. You try to do a step back: 'Which tenses can we use to talk about the past?', 'Is the action in your story over or is there a connection with the present?', etc.
  
• Clues:
  • Example: 'What is an adjective?'... 'For example, pretty is an adjective.'
  • Provide context: A student does not know the meaning of the word 'extremist'. Teacher: 'I would not like it if you called me an extremist. You could only do that if I were to express my sympathy for ISIS.' Student: 'Right, someone with radical views.'
    
  • Provide a rule: 'Do we use an apostrophe in the possessive form when the word ends in a consonant?'
  • Give the missing (or first) step: "You have applied inversion well. Now, what do you also have to take into account when spelling a verb?"
  • Recast: 'Are you saying that "home" is an adjective?'
  • Eliminate the wrong choices: 'You write "Word je vader" with only a -d at the end. Let's see how you have come to that answer.'

Description

Ratio is a technique to encourage your students to maximally think for themselves. You can do this by providing various opportunities for practice or by having students solve problems by themselves instead of explaining or having them parrot you.

How it works

Four ways to increase ratio:

• What next?: do not ask questions solely about the outcome, but also about the process. When you explain something and implement different steps, ask your students what the next step could be.
• Feigning ignorance: pretend that you do not know something yourself and ask your students to come up with a solution.
• Revising examples: ask for at least two examples and indicate clearly in which way the second example should differ from the first.
• Supporting evidence: ask students for arguments to underpin their statements.

Tips

• Give students enough time to think about their answer.
  • After asking a question, purposely wait for a few moments before letting a student or the class respond.
  • Encourage the students to think along with you. For example: 'I will wait another ten seconds and then I want to hear your answers' or 'I want to see at least five raised hands before I give the floor to someone to tell their answer.'
• Ask a question and collect all possible answers from the students before entering into the correct answer to your question.

Examples

• What next?

'We’ve found the right page in the dictionary. What do we have to look out for now? … Indeed, finding the keyword… And what do we do next?…'

• Feigning ignorance

'So here I just add an -s?' 'No, when you conjugate … it’s different.'

• Revising examples

'I want two descriptions of what this lady is wearing, each with different garments.'

• Supporting evidence

'You say that this text type is a business letter. How can you tell?'

Description

Stretching is a method that you can use to determine whether your students have really understood the subject matter. The students are also invited to think more in depth.

How it works

• If a student gives a correct answer to a conceptual or application question, ask one or more extra questions (often more difficult than the first) to challenge the student a bit more.
• Based on the answer you can tailor questions and lesson stages to the student(s) involved.
• There are several ways to stretch (questions):
  • Have the students describe how they came up with the answer.
  • Ask for another way to get to the answer.
  • Ask to use the correct terms/words.
  • Ask for evidence. In this way, students learn to formulate arguments.
  • Ask students to use related skills.

Tips

• When using stretching (questions) for the first time, it is important to explain what is happening. Emphasize that responding to a student's answer with a more difficult question does not mean that you think the answer is incorrect, quite the contrary.
• Look for opportunities to involve other students in the "stretching". For example, "Who can ask an additional question based on the answer Sarah gave?"

Examples

• The thinking process:

"You must use the passé composé in this context. What elements helped you to choose that tense?"

• Other solution method:

"You have now looked up the meaning of an unknown word in the text in a translating dictionary. What would you do if you didn't have a translation dictionary?"

• Asking for a better word:

Pupil: "Hier j'ai visité la mère de ma mère." Teacher: “Comment est-ce qu’on appelle en un mot cette personne?” Apprentice: "Grand-mère."

• Asking for evidence:

"It is indeed a sonnet. What characteristics led you to that decision?"

• Related skills:

"The answer is indeed Wednesday. Can you also spell that word?"

Description

Barrage is a fast, group-oriented activity to revise subject matter or practise skills while keeping your students active.

How it works

During 'barrage', you quickly fire questions at a group of students.

• Question: you start by asking a question and ask a certain student to answer it.
• Do not discuss the answer:
  • When they give a good answer, you pose a new question and ask another student to answer it.
  • If the answer is wrong, you pass the same question on to another student.
  • You can also ask a fellow student to react to the answer given by the first student (reaction can be: addition, correction, confirmation, … including explanation).

Tips

• Make sure you use less complex questions in this format so that students can answer quickly, and you can keep a high pace.
• A barrage can be used as an activity to start the class and find out how much your students remember from the previous lesson, or as a closing activity to find out what your students do and don't know about the lesson.
• Use name cards to quickly draw a random name. Also you can ask your students to stand up. When students give a good answer, they can sit down.
• Prevent students from becoming disinterested in the lesson as a reaction to possible 'I don't know' answers. Always return a question to the student who did not know the answer, and let them respond to a second student's answer.

Examples

• This format is particularly suitable as a drill exercise for things they should know by heart, such as irregular verbs, vocabulary, etc. You can give the challenge verbally (e.g. infinitives of which the students have to give a certain conjugation, synonyms to be given) or use visual means (e.g. pictures of fruit and vegetables that students have to name fast).
• The use of tenses can also be practised through 'barrage': you show a number of sentences (e.g. in a PowerPoint presentation) and each time a different student has to say why a particular tense has been used in the sentence shown.​

Description

Taking a stand is a technique whereby, in a classroom discussion, you use a student’s answer to ask a new question. Because you make the students actively think about the answers given, you increase their active participation during the lesson.

How it works

There are various ways in which students can judge the answers given by their classmates. You can:

• pass a student’s answer to the whole class, to a pair or to an individual student
• let students reply verbally or nonverbally to an answer
• make use of evaluative or analytical statements.

Tips

• Let students also take a stand if the answer is correct.
• Go into things said by classmates, for example by having them clarify their answer. This prevents students from thinking that giving their opinion on a classmate's answer is in itself a noncommittal answer.
• Combine verbal and nonverbal ways to make the classmates think about a student’s answer.

Examples

• Types of statements:

Evaluative: “How many people think that Fatima gave the right answer?”

Analytical: “How can she check her work to see if she is right, Iris?”

• Asking for a nonverbal reaction:

'Stand up if you think Jordy is right.'

• Combining (asking for) a nonverbal and verbal response:

'Raise your hand if you agree with this answer' (nonverbal), followed by: 'Yousef, you didn’t raise your hand, tell me why you don’t agree with this answer' (verbal).