Focused
Observation 3
September
30, 2003
ELI
Tom Hardy's class
Level
5 Reading
2.2
The language of questions p. 46
Background
I agree with what the background says, that teachers place less emphasis on preparing their questions
and more on the needs of the learners. Most of Tom's questions today were for
the sake of comprehension.
During the lesson
Record about twenty questions asked by the teacher. Also
record about five question and answer sets.
Questions asked by Tom about an article that the class read about a stolen statue of Mr. Potatohead:
1. What kind of toy?
Short answer/retrieval
2. How big was the statue?
short answer/retrieval
3. What did it look like?
same
4. What was the statue of?
same
5. What does your title say?
same
6. What is missing, what is it a statue of?
same
7. They give you a name, don't they?
yes/no
8. Do you have Mr. Potato Head in the Czech Republic?
Referential
9. Do you have Mr. Potato Head in Japan?
referencial
10. Were these Mr. Potato Heads usually 6 feet tall?
yes/no
11. What was special about this one?
short answer/retrieval
12. Look at the 3rd paragraph where it starts, In 2000 . . . what does it say there?
short answer/retrieval
13. Mmhmm, so what does that mean he was doing?
Open-ended
14. He was attracting people, what kind of people?
short answer/retrieval
15. Tourists?
yes/no
16. Mr. Potatohead said come to, what state?
short answer/retrieval
17. What is the biggest state in the U.S. in land area?
referential
18. Have you ever heard of Newport, Rhode Island?
yes/no
19. There was a Mr. Potato Head in Newport . . . where exactly was he, and how did he get there?
short answer/retrieval
20. Do poor people in Japan have big houses with gates?
referencial
21. This is obviously a rich guy, what is his name?
short answer/retrieval
22. His alarm went off what time?
short answer/retrieval
Question/Answer sets:
T Tom
S Student
1.
T: Where would a guy get a Mr. Potatohead?
S: Ebay.
T: Are rich people normal?
2.
T: Why did they sell the Mr. Potatohead?
S: For charity.
3.
T: Would you put a Mr. Potato Head in your driveway?
S: No, its too ugly.
4.
T:Do you know what a statehouse is J____?
S: A kind of estate.
T: Kind of . . .
5.
T: Where do you think he got that television?
S: Stolen.
T: He stole it . . .
6.
T: What's a fire ant?
S: Redcolor ant.
T: They're red.
S: They bite me.
T: They bite you.
T: Do you have fire ants in Korea?
S: Yes.
After the lesson
3. Most of the questions were short answer/retrieval questions because he was asking them about an
article they recently read. He also asked a lot of referencial questions to get
students thinking about what they read in terms of relating it to what they already know.
4. It seemed that the more difficult questions were ones
where he asked non-specific information. For example, What kind of people did
he attract? They could fairly easily give him names, but when they had to read
the text carefully for this kind of information, they had difficulty. I think
that the referencial questions motivated students by relating them more to the content.
5.
1,2,3,5,6,4
I rated these according to the ease in which the students answered them.
6. I think that the more specific questions were easier because the students had recently learned the
language with which to answer them. The more general information is harder, I
think because students need more abstract language to talk about it with.
7. I agree with this quote because its true, its a matter of the language that the student has to express
the knowledge, rather than the knowledge. Sure he knows the answer to the question,
Do they have Mr. Potato Heads in Japan, and he can probably answer yes or no easily enough, but he may not be able to explain
that they have a similar toy made out of a yam, for example. A teacher must ask
questions that the class has the language to adequately answer.
Reflection
I wasn't really open to this before. This observation
opened my eyes to this aspect of questioning. Before, I didn't think about rephrasing
questions so that the students had another chance to answer if they couldn't relate the first time. But I see that there is a lot of power in the kinds of questions you ask.
Most students can easily answer yes or no questions, but the open-ended or referencial questions are more difficult. We can use these questions to assess the language abilities of our learners.
