QUESTIONING TECHNIQUES

One of the ways to get responses and to get students to actively involve in the learning is
through question and answer session. This is the simplest and easiest way to identify passive and
active students and at the same time, it allows teacher to ensure that students stay focus during
the lesson. Questioning techniques are important in order to enhance students' engagement.
Questions allow students to explore the content unconsciously. Correct questioning
techniques allow students to respond and reflect their understanding of the lesson. This is also
enhancing students' full participation during teaching and learning activities where at the same
time it gives chances to students to start a discussion from the questions posed. Based on this,
questions also guide the learning process. In addition, students get the chances to recall the
content once teacher poses the question. It triggers their knowledge immediately.
First factor that have to be consider in questioning the students is the type of questions
used which refer to the complexity of the questions. Levels of questions either simple or complex
are determined based on students' level of proficiency. As for example, if the teacher used
question which is too complex to a student with low proficiency, he or she will ne be able to
response to the question. This includes, the choices of vocabulary used in a sentence. Students
will not be able to response if they fail to comprehend the questions posed by the teacher.
Another thing to be considered as questioning techniques is to give some gap of time to
allow students to response to the questions because they need a few second to comprehend the
questions and to recall their prior knowledge or the answers. Once a question is answered by one
student, teacher should not simply reject the others' answers. Different responses to questions
should be encouraged so the scope will be wider and add more information on the content.

This allows students to build connection and information from each other responses where it can
also lead to discussion on the related content. This is one of the questioning techniques that I
have used for my students. Students are enthusiastic to give better answers from each other so,
they continue to volunteer giving the answers which actually help them to unconsciously collect
more information. This shows some progress of the lesson. However, for passive students the
questioning techniques will be more teacher-centred. Teacher has to ask questions after questions
to get more responses from the students. Teacher somehow direct students to the answers through
each question posed. Teacher should focus on important points while asking the questions. This
is important because it allows students to focus on the main content especially when they have
difficulty to understand or comprehend the topic. It directs students to the ideas or contents.
In short, questioning techniques used by the teacher in the classroom is crucial in term of
students' participation and also comprehending the content or exploring the topic. Questions
poses should match students' abilities which cover their background knowledge and also
language proficiency level. Questions used should allow teacher to guide students through the
lesson. Besides that, it helps teacher to identify students who are passive or active or students
who have problems with the lesson so, appropriate questioning techniques should help both
teacher and students.