The Importance of Teacher Questions

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2. Types of Teacher Questions

There are some types of teacher questions that are classified by Wrag and Brown 2001, the British educationalists. 1. „Conceptual questions‟ are important to get ideas and definitions of the subject that being studied. For example, when teacher teaches reading about Animals, heshe will ask the students, “What do you call animals with and without bones?” 2. „Empirical questions‟ are based on the fact or experimental findings. It aims to show the connection between the facts and observations. This example is asked by the teacher when heshe teaches about Science, “When I blew up the balloon, Sarah said that the air presses against the side of the cup up with the balloon. So what do you think is going to happen if I let go of the cup?” 3. „Value questions‟ are related to the moral value that stated in the reading passage. These kinds of questions are usually used in the post-reading to ask about moral value contained in the story. For example, the teacher asks the students, “What about that man? What are some of the problems you think he might face?” Actually, the examples of the three types of questions above are based on Wragg‟s and Brown‟s observation in the Science-class in the primary level. However, the questions above might often be used in teaching reading in English-class or other subjects. They can be used in the pre-reading, whilst-reading, even in the post- reading. In the pre-reading activity, those questions might help the students 7 activating their background knowledge and also help them recalling the information based on their experience or the fact that they have learned. Then, according to Dantonio and Beisenherz 2001 as cited in Mayberry and Hartle 2003, questions in teaching reading are differentiated into eight types. 1. „Clarifying‟ questions are usually used to get more information that students know about the reading topic. Mayberry and Hartle 2003 give an example of clarifying questions based on their observation, such as “Now how many of you know what to do when you see a bear?” 2. „Convergent‟ questions will be answered by the students in the simple words, single answers, or basic recall. For example, “HOW many bears do you see in this picture?” 3. „Focus‟ questions are usually used in order to help students consider information needed, to solve a problem or complete a task. For example, “What would you have done, if you were Goldilocks?” 4. „Cueing‟ questions may be used for children who need help remembering key information which can take students back to the previous learned information. For example, teacher will ask the students to make prediction, “What was in the story that you did not predict?” 5. „Divergent‟ questions are usually open-ended, higher-order requiring analysis, synthesis, or evaluation that emerge children‟s critical thinking. For example, in the beginning of reading section, teacher ask, “What do you think is going to happen to the little girl and the three bears?”