Exploring Teacher’s Questioning Strategies in The EFL Classroom Interaction

Abstract

In the classroom, usually, there is an interaction among participants in the class that involves a question-and-answer session. This type of interaction is then defined as a questioning process. Teacher questions as a part of the questioning process is one of the most common things teachers usually apply in classroom interaction. It is used by the teacher as a tool to obtain or test the students’ knowledge and understanding regarding what is being discussed in the class. Regarding the types of teacher questions (Number & History, 2016) proposed their classification of the types of questions that are procedural questions, convergent questions, and divergent questions. One of the most important conducted bya teacher in the teaching and learning process is the questionand-answer session. They play an important role in controlling the course of learning(Shanmugavelu et al., 2020). From the previous research, it was known that the research on the teacher’s questioning strategies during classroom interaction had been done in any case and context. Therefore, the present study was conducted in junior high school because most of the previous studies were conducted at the senior and university level using different strategies. The focus of study is to explore teacher’s questioning strategies in the EFL classroom interaction. This research was conducted in junior high school in Jember using case study design. This research design was chosen because the researcher wanted to explore teacher’s questioning strategies in the EFL classroom interaction. There were two English teachers who participated in this study and data was collected through observation and interview. To analyze the data, I use thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). From the results of the analysis carried out four themes were found. In determining the theme, inductive coding has been applied. The first theme is Question in opening section. I identified the first theme through the sub-themes xi of question in the opening section when the learning process in the classroom. The second theme that I found was deepening knowledge which was identified from observation. The third theme that I found was a specific question which I identified from the sub-themes of demanding answers and relevant questions and the last theme is arrest understanding. While applying her questioning strategies, there were some obstacles that the teacher encountered. The first obstacle is that lack of enthusiasm in the learning process. It can be concluded that the aims of using questioning strategies as a teaching can be reached by doing and applying the questioning strategies in a good and appropriate way. Teachers should use strategies to ask questions well in the learning process that include remembering, understanding, applying, creating and evaluating. It makes the interaction and communication between teacher and students more valuable. Therefore, from the results of this study, researcher can conclude that using questioning strategies in teaching English is very important.