Exploring an English Teacher's Questioning Strategies in the EFL Classroom Interactions: A Case Study

Abstract

Questioning is defined as an effective strategy that can be utilized by the teacher in the classroom in order to enlarge the students’ understanding related to the materials that is being discussed in the class. The present study aimed at exploring the questioning strategies used by an English teacher in the EFL classroom interactions in one of the senior high schools in Jember, East Java. It covers type of questions, technique in delivering the questions, teacher’s reasons in applying questioning strategies, and problems encountered during the questioning processes. This study employed a descriptive case study method. The data were collected through five sessions of classroom observation and interview with the teacher. The results showed that among the three types of questions that the teacher used, convergent question was the mostly-used question in the classroom. The teacher often gave this type of question because it has the ability to attract the students’ attention to answer her questions more than the other two types. Additionally, in delivering the questions, the teacher also used the five techniques from Wu (1993) framework that are rephrasing, simplification, repetition, decomposition, and probing.