56
3. Focusing Attention on a Particular Issue or Concept
The function of display questions identified in class A wasto focus learners’ attention on a particular issue or concept. It can be seen in the table below.
Table 4.11: Focusing Learners’ Attention on a Particular Issue or Concept Class A
No. Question
Students’ Responses
1.
What is the meaning of a tame animal? Jinak
2.
In Indonesian it is? Lebah
3. What is a monkey?
Monyet 4.
Oscar is a male or female? …
5. Ruby is a male or female?
… There were 5 16.7 questions from the 30 display questions asked that
focused learners’ attention on a particular issue or concept. It is clear from the list of questions in the table that the teacher asked those questions to focus students’
attention on the meaning of certain words in Indonesian language. Students were indirectly asked to translate certain word meanings from English into Indonesian.
The function of display questions that could be identified in class D also focused learners’ attention on a particular issue or concept as it is presented in the
table below.
Table 4.12: Focusing Attention on a Particular Issue or Concept Class D
No. Question
Students’ Responses
1.
What is the meaning of a job or occupation in Indonesian?
Perkerjaanatauprofesi
2.
What is the meaning of a workplace in Indonesian? Tempatbekerja
3.
What is the meaning of a responsibility in Indonesian? It means tanggung?
Jawab
The table shows that there were 3 10.3 questions asked to focus learners’ attention on the meanings of certain words in Indonesian language. The teacher
wanted to check whether the students knew the meanings of
the
57 words“occupation”, “workplace”, and “responsibility” in Indonesian. For
example, What is the meaning of occupation in Indonesian?
4. Controlling Classroom
The function of controlling the classroom was only found in class D. It can be seen in the table below.
Table 4.13: Controlling the Classroom Class D
No. Question
Students’ Responses
1. Ok Christin, do you understand what I mean?
Quiet
The question above was posed to control the classroom. At the time, the students were too noisy in the classroom. They were talking with their fellow
classmates and gave no attention to what their teacher had said. The teacher asked this question to attract the students’ attention back to the lesson, even though she
just said one student’s name. Thus, from 29 display questions asked in class D, there was 1 3.4 question posed to control the classroom attention.
b. Functions of Referential Questions 1. Eliciting Information
As proposed by Brown and Wragg 1993, referential questions are genuinely information seeking. It can be seen in the table below.
Table 4.14: Eliciting Information
No. Question
Students’ Responses
1. Ok, Bertho, what is your father’s job?
… 2.
Ok, can you mention an example of a pet in your house?
…
3.
What is your pet in your house? Cat, dog
4.
What else? Goat, sapi
5.
Do you have a puppy in your house? Yes.
6. What is its name?
… 7.
Can you give a description of your puppy? …
58 The table shows that when posing those referential questions, it was meant
to elicit information from the students. It was related to occupations and animals. As stated by Long and Sato 1984, in Ellis, 2012:122, referential questions are
asked to gain information about situations, events, actions, purposes, relationships, or properties. This type of question is asked when the asker does not
know the answer. Here, the teacher did not know about her students’ fathers’ jobs and the kinds of pets the students had at home.
Thus, the results show that from 133 display questions posed to students in four classrooms, 85 63.9 questions were asked to check the learners’
understanding, while 39 29.3 questions were put forth to arouse interest and curiosity concerning a topic. One 0.8 other question was asked to control the
classroom, while 8 6.0 questions were asked to focus the learners’ attention on a particular issue or concept.
Compared to display questions, all 7 referential questions were posedmainly to elicit information from the students. The other two functions, which are to
develop an active approach to learning and to stimulate students to ask questions of themselves and others, were not applied in the questions.
In line with this, Nunan and Lamb 1996 state that in referring to language teaching, teachers ask questions mainly to check learners’ understanding, to elicit
information, and to control the classroom. Above all these, checking learners’ understanding was the most preferable function that occurred in the English
classroom. It was to check whether or not the learners understood the issues or concepts learned through particular topics in the classroom.
59 However, the questions asked by the teachers do not meet the function of
focusing attention on a particular issue or concept, developing an active approach to learning, and stimulating pupils to ask questions of themselves and others. The
only reason for that is that all questions posed by the teachers did not require a higher thinking skill. The questions were at a superficial level of thinking and
understanding. The teachers even did not ask questions that led students to ask questions by their own. Students just sat in the classroom and waited for their turn
to answer the teachers’ questions. Moreover, the results from the teachers’ questionnaires show three different answers of questioning functions based on the
order of importance. The first teacher stated that classroom questioning according to its order of
importance was to improve students’ communication, attract them to think or to pay attention to the language points, and to lead to the topic. This was to improve
students’ communications by getting them to answer the questions by using the target language. However, from the classroom observations, this function did not
really result in getting students to communicate in the classroom using English. They only answered the teacher’s questions in one or two words. They never
asked questions to the teacher. The second teacher ordered its importance from to check whether students
grasp the language points, lead to the topic, attract them to think or pay attention to the language points, up to improve students’ communication. Checking whether
the students grasp the language points was by asking them to answer particular questions related to the topic. In fact, even though the students gave the correct
answer, they did not answer it grammatically correct. They just answered it using
60 one or two words. Then, the teacher could not measure whether or not they
grasped the language points, because overall the students’ responses toward every question consisted only of one or two words. They did not produce longer answers
as what was expected because the teacher asked too many display rather than referential questions.
3. Students’ Responses toward Teachers’ Questions
Students’ responses were analyzed based on the number of words they produced, the way they responded, and the correctness of their answers.
a. Number of Words Students Produced
Previous research done by Brock 1986 and Ernest 1994 showed a positive correlation between asking referential questions and students’ production
of the target language but a negative correlation between asking display questions and the length of students’ responses. The results from the study about students’
responses toward teachers’ questionswere based on the number of words they produced to answer the teachers’ questions. They were also seen from whether
they gave the expected answer or not. It is presented in the table below.
Table 4.15: The Length of Students’ Responses for Different Types of Questions
Length of students’
responses One word
Two words Three words
Four words No. of
questions No. of
questions No. of
questions No. of
questions Display
Referential 55
1 41.9
14.2 10
2 7.6
28.6 7
- 5.3
3 -
2.3
61 From Table 4.15, it can be found that for one-word responses, there were 55
41.9 display questions asked, and 1 14.2 referential question. For two- word responses, there were 10 7.6 display questions asked by the teacher, and
2 28.6 referential questions. Furthermore, for three-word responses, there were 75.3 display questions asked by the teacher. There were no referential
questions asked by the teacher that produced three-word responses. For four-word responses, there were 3 2.3 display questions asked. There were no referential
questions asked that produced four-word responses from the students. Thus, this study reveals that when teachers asked both display and
referential questions, the students gave only short answers. They produced four words at the most. It happened sometimes as in Can you mention the name of an
animal?It was followed by the answer Elephant, tiger, lion. Or,Can you give me an example of a wild animal?It was answered with Lion, tiger, elephant. Another
example is Can you mention the name of a job that you know?It was answered withPoliceman, nurse, doctor, singer. Or, Give me an example of a part of your
body. It was followed by the students’ answeringHead, nose, ears, shoulder. Another long response given by the students was in What is the name of a
part of the body that is used for holding something?It was followed by a student’s long response Nose, ears, shoulder, hand. This happened because he did not know
the exact answer of that question. He kept on guessing until the teacher said yes to his answer. Another long response was in Indonesian words, so it does not count
in this study. When students produced long responses using Indonesian, they knew the correct answers of the teachers’ questions but they did not know the
English words of the answers, or they did not know how to answer it using
62 English. The teacher herself sometimes had difficulty in asking such questions to
make her students understand what she meant. At that time, she asked them a question by using Indonesian as in Pet disebut juga binatang?It was followed by
the students’ answering Binatang peliharaan. Or in Itis like a human being, seperti? It was answered Manusia, biasa memanjat pohon.
b. Ways of Responding
Through the classroom observations, I can find teachers directed their questions to nearly all the students in the class. There were 78 of the students
who admitted that their teachers distributed their questions to most of the students. These results disprove the finding that a teacher is likely to limit the questions to a
limited few Richards, J. Lockhart, 1994. It is generally considered desirable to distribute questions among all students to keep them engaged in interactions and
keep them alert to respond. This result may imply that the EFL classroom investigated is beneficial to L2 learning in this aspect.
Generally, in English classrooms, teachers let students answer their questions in four ways: 1 nominating; 2 chorus-answering; 3 volunteering; and
4 teacher self-answering.
Table 4.16: Ways of Responding
Total No. of Qs. Nominating
In-Chorus Volunteering
Self-Answer No
No No
No Display
114 -
63 55.26
32 28.07
19 16.6
Referential 4
- 3
75 1
25 -
From this table, it can be seen that chorus answering is more frequent than other ways. This can get support from the questionnaire. Students felt more secure
if they answered a teacher’s question in-chorus. By doing this, they were not afraid of making a mistake. The other preference was volunteering. On the
63 surface, it is a good phenomenon, but because the volunteers are those who are
active or with better English proficiency, it will obstruct other students’ development. Teachers always prefer nominating. But too much nominating will
make students more passive. Sometimes, in order to save time, teachers often answer the questions by themselves. But in this way, students will become more
dependent on teachers. They expect to receive information passively instead of thinking about them actively. In addition, the classroom atmosphere will be blunt.
So how teachers use various question patterns properly to prompt language learning is still a question that all teachers should pay attention to as well as to be
studied. The results from the questionnaires Question
-- I like to answer the questions in this way indicates the students’ favorite way to answer questions
involved in this research: 71.25 of students 57 persons preferred to answer questions in chorus; 6.25 of students 5 persons liked to be called by their
teachers; and 22.5 18 persons liked to be volunteers. These results show a large number of students preferred to answer in chorus, over half of the students
who liked to answer voluntarily, and only a few of them liked to be called.
c. Correctness Table 4.17: Correctness
Total No. of Qs. Correct Answer
Incorrect Answer No Answer
No No
No Display
100 62.5
8 5
52 32.5
Referential 4
457.1 -
3 42.8
Meanwhile, when referring to the correctness of students’ answers, the students mostly produced correct answers or intended answers as what the teacher
expected. There were only 5 incorrect answers they gave. Four 4 incorrect
64 answers were found in class A and one 1 incorrect answer was found in class B.
There were also 26 19.8 questions that did not get responses from students. However, there were another 11 8.39 questions that required students’
participation in pointing to a part of the body mentioned by the teacher. The data shows that 15 11.4 English questions were answered using Indonesian, and
there were 2 questions answered by the teacher. There were still some questions they could not answer. The video
transcription of classroom observations showed that for the questions they could not answer, the teacher rephrased and asked them again by using Indonesian
language, as in You smell with it.When the students did not know the answer, she then
asked them
again using
Indonesian language.Ciumsesuatumenggunakan?what organ do you use to smell
something? Then the students’ responded by using Indonesian language too as in Hidung nose, or in Do you know the function based on the part of your
body?She then asked it again.Tahufungsinya?do you its function?Then the students’ response was Bisa Yes, we do. This implies the fact that when the
teacher askeda question by using Indonesian language, the students then would answer it using Indonesian too. They unconsciously followed the teacher to
answer the question using Indonesian. The first incorrect answer was found in the question Can you mention an
example of a tame animal? Student A said Lion, student B said Tiger, and student C said Elephant. Instead of telling the students the correct answer, the teacher
continued by asking another question. The second incorrect answer was for the question Next? Which refers to the picture of a frog?Student D said Duck, student
65 E said Dog, and student F said Kodok. The answer “kodok” was true, but the
teacher expected the answer to be “frog”. The next incorrect answer was the question about the description of a zebra. The students said it was a horse or lion.
The teacher then answered the question by telling the students that the answer was zebra. The next incorrect answer was when the question was about the
responsibility of a driver; for this question the students said “car”. The last question that resulted in an incorrect answer was the question about the workplace
of the police. There was 1 student who said “supermarket”. To briefly summarize the results, for the students’ responses toward the
teachers’ questions, in eight meetings, most of the students’ responses were very brief, with four words or less when display and referential questions were asked.
Longer responses of four words could only be found in a few questions.
4. Wait-Time
As literature proves, wait-time enables pupils to think and participate in EFL classrooms. According to this study, students were not given more seconds to
think and answer the questions of their teachers. The following table shows how many seconds were given to answer most of the questions.
Table 4.18: Wait-Time Given to Students to Answer Questions
Seconds Number of Questions Percentage
1 second 2 seconds
3 seconds 4 seconds
5 seconds 11
62 52
6 -
14.3 37.8
25.3
4.1 -
Table 4.4.2 suggests that 62 47.3 questions were given two seconds to be answered by the students. 52 39.7 of the observed questions were given
three seconds. Moreover, there were no questions that resulted in five-word
66 answers, 10 10.7 questions were given one second, and 4.5 questions were
given 4 seconds to be answered by the students. It is believed that one can learn more from having more seconds to respond
to higher order questions than lower order ones. As has been indicated before, almost all the teachers’ questions were display questions at the level of
comprehension and knowledge questions. These types of questions may not require more than 1 or 2 seconds. However, more time may be given to low
proficient students to think and answer questions. On top of that, teachers may ask higher level questions like referential questions and give more time to their
students in order to make them think and respond to questions. One of the question asked in the questionnaire were related to the amount of
time should be given that the students can think of the answer. The answer were vary, 24 27,2 students answered 3 second to think while 46 52,2 students
wanted 5 10 second to think of their answer. The rest of the students stated that it depends on the difficulty of the question. Mostly, the students said that the
amount of time the teacher always gives to them to think was 3 second. Their answer was supported by the result from video tape. The average time given to the
students was 2 and 3 second. The students taught that the more time they are given, the better their performance will be.
C. DISCUSSION
It is not surprising to see the big number of questions asked by the teachers, since questioning is a key tool for instructing and evaluating in classrooms. This is
supported by Brualdi 1986 and Nhlapo 1998 who claim that the big amount of
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