Investigating the English Teacher’s Questioning Strategies in Teaching Reading Comprehension

Abstract

Reading is regarded as an important skill in English language teaching because students can acquire a number of new knowledge and information through the process of reading. Reading is categorized as a receptive skill which requires students to identify and understand the written texts. In learning reading, the students are required to read the text as well as understand the meaning or the content of the text. However, the EFL learners find that reading can be very challenging for them to understand. This statement is supported by Kucukoglu (2013) who reveals that reading can be the most challenging aspect in the education system. For instance, if students want to get a good score on the task they are assigned, they have to learn the material by reading critically and analytically. This can be a big problem for students because many of them still find it difficult in comprehending the reading material. In this research, the researcher investigated the English teacher’s questioning strategies in teaching reading comprehension. The objectives of this research were to investigate the types of the teacher’s questioning strategies in teaching reading comprehension as well as the intentions of the teacher’s questioning strategies in teaching reading comprehension. the This research used the qualitative case study design that attempted to investigate teacher’s questioning strategies in teaching reading comprehension. Through the qualitative case study design, the researcher could investigate deeply the real situation that happened in the teaching and learning process. To get the data of this research, the researcher used the classroom observations and the interview. Classroom observations were done four times by recording the teaching-learning process in the classroom. Besides, the interview was done one time in order to get information about the teacher’s intentions in applying the questioning strategies. The researcher chose the English teacher at SMAN 1 Jember as the participant of this researcher because she had been teaching English for thirteen years. Furthermore, she had a lot of experience in following workshops, conferences, and seminars for enriching her professional development. In this research, the researcher applied the model of Creswell (2010) in analyzing the data. They are collecting the data, collecting the data, preparing data for analysis, reading through data, coding the data, reporting findings, and checking the validity of findings. The result of this research showed that the English teacher at SMAN 1 Jember applied the questioning strategies which proposed by Wragg and Brown (2001) in teaching reading comprehension. They are structuring, pitching and putting clearly, directing and distributing, pausing and pacing, prompting and probing, listening to replies and responding and sequencing. The most frequent strategies that applied were listening to replies and responding. On the contrary, she never used pacing tactic questions. The patterns and the intentions of the teacher in applying each questioning strategy were various. They were to give clues on the material that would be learned by them, to make the students recall the general information and the specific information on the material, to help students provide the correct answer, to focus students’ attention during the lesson, to give students time in thinking the answer of the question, to ask the detailed answer from the students, to improve the students’ critical thinking skills, to listen carefully on the students’ answer, and to get the students explore the reading text. The result of this research is expected to be able to give meaningful contributions especially for the English teacher and the other researchers. For the English teacher, the result of this research can be used as a consideration in applying the effective questioning strategies in teaching reading comprehension especially in the senior high school context. Moreover, for other researchers, the result of this research can inspire other researchers to conduct further research dealing with teacher’s questioning strategies in teaching reading comprehension or other language skills.