Questioning Of Instructional Purposes: A Study and Types and Possible Classroom Implementation

Abstract

Learning and teaching of English as a second or foreign language have been a dilemmatic issue in non- English speaking countries where problems of both teaching and learning are inevitable. One common and prevalent aspect of interactive speaking relates to questioning routines. Asking questions, and taking part in questioning sequences in talk, is essential for getting information, contributing ideas, and being actively involved in the environment. Besides, it is one way or another to contribute to the fluency of language use. The current study is in general to highlight how questions, especially referential and display questions, are important in increasing learning in general and interaction in particular in EFL classrooms. The current research is actually a library research. One unit of analysis in the current study consists of all types of information questions that would be described in terms of purpose and grammatical features, adopting Miller’s An Introduction to English Syntax. The result of the research are communicative use of the target language makes up only a minor part of typical classroom activities. Most, not all, referential questions create more interaction in the classroom than display questions do. Display questions sometimes cause learners to give a bout five-minute answer but such answer cannot be considered interaction because it is one-way. Display questions outnumbered referential ones, and referential ones produced more classroom interaction.