An Evaluation of Using Referential and Display Questions by the Teachers of English in Some Secondary Schools in Misurata

Contents

Abstract

Chapter One
Background to the Study
1. Introduction
1.2 Significance of the study
1.3 Problem statement
1.4 Limitation of the study
1.5 Aim of the study
1.6 Definition of term
1.7 Literature review

Chapter Two
Data Analysis

Chapter Three
Findings Conclusion and Recommendations
3.1 Findings
3.2 Recommendations
3.3 Conclusion

References

Abstract

This study deals with the effect of referential and display questions use on the students interaction in the classroom and the oral language production of students in English reading classes. The data was collected by designing a questionnaire for teachers of English language in some secondary schools in Misurata. The teachers were asked some questions which concern with classroom interaction. The results suggested that the teachers who were involved in teaching conversation or oral production classes found that creating more classroom interaction by using referential questions is better than using display questions during checking students’ comprehension or knowledge. It seemed that referential questions create more opportunities for language development and enable students to express their feelings and opinions. So, asking referential questions are efficient technique in classrooms language teaching

Chapter One

Background to the Study

1. Introduction

The most important factor in any effective English language teaching classroom is students participation ,but in many classes the teacher does the most important role while students are salient (Walsh,2002 ). A typical classroom environment is one in which students and teachers are actively involved to share each other.The teacher should arise some questions to increase the participation of the students inside the classroom by asking referential question in order to create insure students production.

Referential questions have no specific answer and they areused to encouragestudents communication in the classroom.So the main purpose behind asking referential questions is to make students more confident to express their opinion and ideas(Ellis,1994:Thomposon,1997).

1.2 Significance of the study

Participation and interaction of the students in the classroom are the most important aim of English language teaching. This study gains it's significance from the fact that some teachers of English use different types of questions (Referential and Display questions).

This study is an attempt to investigate the kind of questions the teachers use during dealing with teaching process.

1.3 Problem statement

Throughout the lesson, questions play an important role in classroom managementThe first problem is that most secondary school students in Misuratafind it difficult to comprehend questions and give feedback to their teacher's in the classroom which in turn leads to many difficulties such as frustration and many other problems.

It's important to pay more attention to comprehend the questions for formulating the answer. The second problem is that most of English language teachers concentrate on applying display questions in the classroom without applying referential ones. This means that they don't involvestudents in the real communication which in turn leads to lack ofvocabulary and many expressions during mastering English Language.

1.4 Limitation of the study

The study was conducted between spring semester 2016. It was carried out by using two different questionnaires for both teachers and students.The first one was designed for theteachers from two different secondary schools, whereas the second one is conducted for thestudents of the third year.

1.5 Aim of the study

This paper aims at investigating the type of questions which some teachers of English in some Misurata secondary schools use inside the classroom. It is an attempt to answer the following questions.

1-Arethe referential questions used to facilitate classroom interaction in the intermediate classes?
2-Do referential questions engender more communication and interaction between Libyan teachers and students in teaching process?
3-What are thestudents opinions and feelings about the two different question types?
4-What are the opinions of English teachers about the effect of using referential and display questions duringstudents participation?

1.6 Definition of term

Display questions are questions the teacher asks to knowif the students get the answer in an ELT classroom or not .This means questions are asked by the teachers to see if the students understand what's presented infront of them or not.

Referential questions are questions asked by the teacher,when they can't expect the students answers to their questions in the classroom,of course these kinds of questions are used between the teachers and students and sometimes between students themselves. (Long &Sato ,1983; 1986;Thompson)

Brock (1986) points out that:

Referential questions increase the amount of speaking in the classroom. This output is an important factor in successful SLA, and creates the necessity for learner to perform a syntactic analysis of the language.

1.7 Literature review

Previous studies on the effect of referential and display questions in the classroom through teaching process. Since teaching process won't be completed without asking questions, referential questions play an influential and necessary role in teaching process. Some researchers revealed that referential questions increase the classroom interaction (conversation)between the students. (Ma 2008) insists on the teaching process that questions should be asked with understandable familiar vocabularies in order to be clear enough or the students to formulate their answer. Brown &Wragg point out that questions in the classroom should be effective with specific goal in effective questions likely to confuse and frustrate the students. U 1991, argue that there are huge attempts to identify the effective techniques in ESL classes.Since questions are asked to engage the students with the target language use through participation.

It's effective and important way in teaching process to make students speak English and practice it. The effective principle of language is students; they need to be encouraged in this factor (Loig and Sato, 1983). Thombury1996, points out thatdisplay questions are questions which teachers already know their answer. Referential questions have more than one answer; because they help students to express their information and sharing their opinions.

Özcan (2010)studies the role of asking referential question in the interaction and sharing oral production in reading skill, the result showed that display questions shouldn't be neglected or dismissed since they are used more to check the comprehension and understanding of students,and at the same time referential questions make students more lively and active to express their opinion and feeling more freely.So both of the questions promote and consolidate the participation of student in the classroom.

(Tony Lynch, 1996, 6) says that teacher's talk is the first conversation represented in the classroom and it is the language key to avoid obstacle of conversation in the classroom.So teacher's talk is the language that is used or applied by teachers in language teaching in the class. Teacher's talk is not only a language used by the teacher but also as a behavior used to interact with others to communicate and give explanations which is one of the language functions applied specifically in the classroom.

(Tony Lynch,Oxford Handbooks for language teachers :26)points out that the role of the teacher in performing the lesson is possible to show the teacher in number of roles, the teacher is as a controller in eliciting words and as assessor of accuracy and as a corrector of pronunciation and as an organizer in giving instruction for pair work.

Rode Ellis 1997, points out that the teacher of the language means as a researcher and an educator of the classroom. The major difficulty which encounter teachers is to achieve a practical investigation of how to get started what the nature of knowledge that guides teaching and how teachers can teach differently these questions to provide a base to solve problems. It is useful to consider other ways which teachers might make as a variety way of teaching techniques.(Walsh, 2002)argue that the student's participation in the classroom plays an effective role in production and enhancing oral fluency, teachers should use appropriate language by asking clear right questions in the right time to guide the conversation and to avoid students being silent shy.

(Shomoosi,2004) stated that the effect of asking referential questions during the interaction among the student is a reason including how the language ability of the students and teachers' time are a kind of constraints because of the strict curriculum that they had to cover… as a result of this, it's clear that not all referential questions are essential ways of creating interaction in language teaching rather than display ones.

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