DE LAS INFRACCIONES A LAS NORMAS SOBRE CALIDAD DEL AGUA Y DEL AIRE

The teacher took away points to remind students to bring the course book and do their homework.

Data revealed that the teachers used rewarding or grading, within questioning, as a tactic to foster students’ performance. However, teachers and students had different opinions about whether using grading could effectively promote engagement. According to teachers, bonuses and penalty marks were useful to motivate the students’ learning attitudes and engagement. The teachers said that:

“when the teacher promises to give a grading bonus for the questions, students become excited to volunteer and raise hands.” (ENM Teacher 3)

“I use bonus marks to stir-up the atmosphere. It could create a healthy competition among students. They compete to take turns to answer.” (EM Teacher 1)

They agreed that this strategy worked well because most of the students cared greatly about grades:

“Students always want to get good grades. If they know that the questions have a bonus, they will use all their ability, searching, discussing, thinking, to answer as well as they can.” (EM Teacher 4)

There were two alternative attitudes towards teacher rewards, as students had different opinions about grading as motivation or demotivation. Some students such as ENM group 1, and ENM group 4 stated:

“Many students, especially who highly think about the grade, want questions with a bonus. I think it is necessary if my exam grade is low, good performance in classroom can improve my grade. I think it is a good motivation.” (ENM group 1)

“The questions are often to review previous lessons. We all want to obtain the high marks, and all are afraid of losing marks.” (ENM group 4)

“The teacher marking us for what we perform in class is fair and even assesses exactly our ability. Because sometimes, we had the bad luck to receive low marks in the final examination.”

EM group 3 and EM group 4 also agreed that they become more active and volunteered to respond whenever the teacher promised to give a bonus,

“We often like questions with bonus and compete to respond.” (EM group 3)

“Whenever the teacher states that the questions are with bonus, the class becomes exciting. The teacher doesn’t need to nominate students; we volunteer to answer.” (EM group 4)

Whereas some others said:

“Promising bonus makes learning too competitive and extrinsically motivated: (ENM group 1)

“Teachers may threaten or warn students if they don't respond. This makes me upset, and I don't want to answer teacher’s question.” (ENM group 3)

A student stated how he felt after the teacher gave him a minus point when he could not answer the question well enough:

“The teacher criticized and gave me a minus grade. The teacher assumed that I did not prepare for the lesson or review the old lesson. This makes I feel not fair and don't want to contribute to the lesson.” (EM group 1)

Because some thought answering to receive a reward was not always effective, some students suggested that:

“The way of giving bonus should be considered. For example, after students answer, the teacher gives bonus; the teacher shouldn’t mention about the bonus before students answer.” (ENM group 1)

Some students had different opinions about whether using bonuses was a type of extrinsic motivation (ENM group 1 and ENM group 3), or threats could make

students uncomfortable (EM group 1). However, teachers and the majority of students agreed that students cared a great deal about grades, therefore, these bonuses and threats worked to motivate students to engage in answering teacher questions.

Teachers and students viewed questions as a way to push students to engage and become more accountable for their own learning. Data in interviews and observations indicated that teachers encouraged learning behaviour by using nomination, repeating questions, and giving students a bonus or minus mark for their answers. Sometimes participants held different opinions about whether these techniques could be motivation or pressure for students. Both teachers and students agreed that students became more alert and engaged through the use of questions.

In brief, according to the teachers and students, questioning was a managerial tool helping to organise classroom activities and learning attitudes and behaviours. In particular, both agreed that the teachers used questions to make students focus on the lesson. Bonus mark questions also made students engage and take responsibility for learning. When managing students in group work, teachers reported that teacher questions could help them to orient students and manage member responsibility. I observed that teachers often used questioning to direct group work. Furthermore, observational data showed teachers using questioning to organise, for example, student position or speaking turns.

Lubricating agent

According to teachers and students, building relationships was another common reason for using questioning. Good relationships could facilitate teaching and learning like the lubricating agent for an engine. Participants believed in the importance of developing rapport and respect between teacher and student.

Building rapport

Teachers and students mentioned how teachers used question-answering interactions to create a harmonious relationship between the teacher and the students. In particular, teachers and students agreed that good relationships meant they understood each other:

“the teacher becomes closer to and more friendly with students. The teacher understands student more” (EM group 1)

In ENM Teacher 4’s opinion, teacher questions could provide a chance for teacher and students to develop relationships:

“asking and answering make the teacher and students emotionally closer to each other.”

Even if:

“the questions are not necessarily related to the lesson content” (ENM Teacher 4)

Teachers gave some examples of such non-content-related questions such as “How is your day today? Are you happy with the final exam?”, and these sorts of questions often happened at the beginning of the lesson to build harmony or to make the students feel relaxed after the previous lessons and prepared for the new one. The teachers emphasised that:

“sometimes I use fun questions to entertain students. I am not so severe to only make academic and content-based questions. I just aim to make a happy and comfortable atmosphere” (EM Teacher 3)

The below episode (ENM Class 4) was used in stimulated recall interview, as an example of how the teacher used questioning to build rapport.

Line Speaker Utterance and

non-verbal data Turns Function/ purposes

1 T: How is everyone today? I Requesting

information

2 S: It is hot. R Giving information

3

T:

It is like summer today, right?

F

Acknowledging

4 It is hotter and hotter. Evaluating

5

But I hope that you will get familiar with it, and it doesn’t

affect your learning. Refering