A Small Scale Investigation into Teacher Questions in the Primary English Classroom

The purpose of the present classroom research is to investigate teacher talk in the primary English classroom with special reference to teacher questions. The analysis of the recorded teacher questions reveals that the teacher asks a carefully structured sequence of questions leading to the clear pedagogical goals she has set: to encourage students to correct themselves; to find out what students know; to personalize the task; and to elicit culture talk. It is also shown that her use of display questions is supportive of learning; the teacher provides feedback in a way which is as communicative as possible in the context of the classroom and which facilitates the attainment of the pedagogical purposes. All these findings suggest that we consider how teacher talk may perform communicative functions in the classroom context rather terms defining communicative teacher talk purely in terms of the norms of communication outside the classroom.