Ecuaciones efectivas para las ondas tensoriales

The importance of teacher’s questions (or lecturers’ questions) has been investigated both in ESL classes and content classes. Questions in the language classroom are used as a way of controlling the classroom discourse (Ellis, 1990) and the prevalence of a greater number of questions in the SL classroom leads to better exposure to the target language (Brock, 1986). Also, ‘questioning is supposed to guide the learning and thinking patterns of the students, [and] reflect teacher belief of what counts as effective teaching and learning [...]’ (Tan, 2007: 88).

Questions were categorised as ‘closed’ and ‘open-ended’ and display and referential (Chaudron, 1988). These categories are the most prominent types of questions in the language classrooms. Display questions ask the respondent for information already known by the questioner, while referential questions request information not known by the questioner (Brock, 1986). Further, there are many classification systems for classroom questions based on diverse criteria. Tan (2007) classifies questions based on the requirement of the cognitive level: lower order cognitive questions and higher order cognitive questions. Lower order cognitive questions are yes/no or display type questions, while higher order cognitive questions are open ended referential

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questions. In addition, O’Keeffe (2005) identifies a question type called double questions which include two adjoining questions uttered one after the other.

It is generally believed that referential, open type questions or divergent questions request a longer response and high order thinking skills of the students. Brock (1986) also advocates that referential questions are more important than display questions for language development. Nevertheless, it is found that teachers preferred to ask more display questions than the referential questions in ESL classes (Long and Sato, 1983; Brock, 1986), content-based classes (Musumeci, 1996) and also in content classes (Morell, 2004). Based on the prevalence of more display questions, Musumeci (1996) argues that it is irrelevant to consider whether a question is referential or display but what is important is whether it is open ended or close ended. She believes that with open-ended questions a greater amount of oral output can be generated from students. Similarly, Morell (2004) also finds that referential questions, which are open-ended bring more contributions from students. Now I turn my attention towards further content classes.

Chin (2007) argues that in content classes questions are believed to contribute towards the meaning making process by way of teacher talk and teacher-student interaction. Questions have always been an important interactional tool used by teachers to activate and facilitate the learning process (Crawford Camicittoli, 2008). The types of questions lecturers ask may decide the nature of the discourse. If the questions are open and warrant students’ contribution they can generate a lot of interaction, ideas and finally lead to better understanding of the subject under discussion, whereas the questions which require only a short answer or yes or no answer would not be able to help build a discussion in the class. Chin (2006) asserts

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that early studies on teacher questioning focus on the IRF pattern of discourse (e.g. Mehan, 1979; Lemke, 1990), whereas recent studies focus on students’ construction of knowledge (e.g. Yip, 2004; Chin, 2007). Therefore, traditionally teachers ask questions to find what students knew. Any deviant ideas from the teachers’ pre planned agenda is either rejected or discouraged. However, recent studies have shown that in content classes a question is a good way to introduce a problem and warrant the contribution from the students (Nassaji and Wells, 2000).

Even though researchers sometimes classify the questions in content classes using categories that are different from the ESL classes, the functions of questions remain more or less the same as that of ESL classes, as I explain below. Many of the studies that deal with content classes come from primary and secondary level content classes except Morell’s (2004). Morell tried to identify four types of questions in tertiary level content classes. They are similar to the types found in the ESL classes: display, referential, rhetorical and indirect questions. Her rhetorical questions do not warrant a response from the students, while the indirect questions are similar to classroom management questions (e.g. ‘Is there anybody who doesn’t have this handout?’ (p. 329), which requires a response not necessarily verbal (e.g. students raise their hands). As we saw earlier, Morell’s study reveals that there is a higher number of display questions than the other three types in the university discourse she investigated. Nonetheless, she found that though there were only a few referential questions, they brought lengthy interaction or students’ contributions.

Yip (2004) identifies ten types of questions under four categories used by trainee biology teachers in an L1 high school biology class. Those four categories are (1) lower order questions, (2) higher order questions, (3) motivation questions and (4)

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conceptual change questions. Lower order questions are used for recalling facts and explanations, while higher order questions are used for analysis, evaluation and synthesis. Yip further explains that motivation questions could be used for focusing attention on a new topic. The category of conceptual change questions contains four divisions: eliciting, challenging, extending and application. The findings reveal that there are a higher number of lower order cognitive questions and only a few conceptual questions in the discourse. However, the context of the study is different from the regular classroom context as it was based on trainee teachers teaching students from year 9 to 11 and therefore his findings may not be suitable to regular classroom context.

Related to questioning in content classes, Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives stipulates different types of cognitive domains. They are knowledge (test the memory, recall, recognise, etc.), comprehension (interpret, describe, etc.), application (problem solving, apply information, etc.), analysis (identify the reason behind), synthesis (create a new idea) and evaluation (develop opinion, judgment or decision). Krathwohl (2002) describes these educational objectives as a ‘framework for classifying statements of what we expect or intend students to learn as a result of instruction’ (p. 212). In addition, he further explains that this framework was mainly used to develop test items for students.

Chin (2007) investigates how teachers use questions in the class to scaffold students’ thinking and construct scientific knowledge. In her study with grade 7 school children she identified four questioning approaches adopted by teachers. They are Socratic questioning, verbal jigsaw, semantic tapestry, and framing. All these questioning

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techniques focused on how teachers use questions to guide students’ thinking, develop a concept, etc.

In another study, van Zee and Minstrell (1997a) found how physics teachers use questions to guide student thinking. They work with a particular strategy called ‘reflective toss’. This is a kind of a questioning technique that involves students in deeper thinking. Here the teacher, on receiving a response from students, redirects the students to think and elaborate the answer. This approach is found to posses three moves: student statement, teacher questions and student elaboration. Their focus is on the students’ statement which might occur as a result of teacher initiation but the researchers have not focused their attention on the initiation moves nor do they explore the links between the initiation and student statement. Nevertheless, this reflective toss seems to be an efficient approach to make the students think and produce longer and deeper output.

With this review of questions, I move on to a brief review of patterns of interactional episodes, followed by the overall pattern of lecture discourse with a view to revisiting the discussion on questions later under question 3, when I design an analytical system for the FAS lecture discourse.