Online Study Skills in ELT Practice by Karina: Act. 6 Green Team

English V

Display and Referential Questions in ELT

Erika Cabrera Cruz

Nadia Judith Martínez Flores

Lilia Teresita López Lizárraga

Dina Yudith Toledo Castro

Karina Cecilia Valdez Arámburo

Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa

Centro de Idiomas Culiacán

Professor: Edgar Karim Audelo Sandoval

November 5th, 2011.

Abstract

Questioning is essential to the way teachers manage the class, engage students with content, encourage participation and increase understanding. In an ELT classroom we may identify particular types of questions; actually questions can be classified in many ways. For this case we will focus our attention to display and referential questions.

Key Features an Attributes

According to the database of British Council site we see that display questions are questions you ask to see if the person you are speaking to knows the answer. In an ELT classroom, this normally means questions teachers ask learners to see if they understand or remember something.

Lightbown & Spada (1999) note that teachers ask display questions not because they are interested in the answer, but because they want to get their learners to display their knowledge of the language.

For Example:

The teacher asks the Ss: “What is the past simple form of leave?”

· What does ..... mean?

How do you spell……?

What does ……..stand for?

What’s the synonym of .....?

When beginning a lesson, the Teacher has previously created an information gap which has been filled by the learner; this is how real communication takes place.

On the other hand, the same site let us know that referential questions are questions you ask but you don't know the answer. In an ELT classroom, this can mean questions teachers ask learners and learners ask each other.

They form the basis of brainstorming a topic related to the vocabulary. These questions require the learner to provide information, give an opinion, explain or clarify.

Examples of this kind of questions would be:

· Why are you so sad?

Who told you about ecosystems?
What kind of animals do you like?

In other words, display questions are questions to which the teacher already knows the answers, while referential questions are questions to which the teacher does not know the answer in advance. Some authors such as Lynch and Cullen add to the previous definition by saying that display questions are questions which are used to check learners’ knowledge and understanding, while referential questions genuinely seek new information. Some other authors like Tsui points out that display questions generate interactions that are typical to didactic discourse, whereas referential questions generate interactions typical of social communication.

Concept Map

Conclusions

Taking the two kinds of questions to the classroom, taking as reference what was mention above, the database of British Council gives us this summary: “extended activities in which learners can practice production of referential questions include quizzes (setting and answering questions), interviews, and discussion of work in the class. On the other hand, display questions clearly lack the communicative quality and authenticity of referential questions, but they are also an important tool in the classroom, not only for the teacher to be able to check and test their learners, but also as a source of listening practice. Actually one of the first things a beginner learns in English is how to understand and answer display questions.”

Through all this research which purpose is to study referential and display questions and to talk about the importance for teachers to gain a good understanding of the theoretical and practical issues of the concepts I can define the questions mentioned before as follows:

On the contrary, and as real language is not only about questions from in which one part asks and another answers we use reference questions to create messages and therefore is not form based but meaning based. For open or referential questions, teachers not necessarily know the answer and they want Ss to give opinions. These kinds of questions are more preferred on pedagogical ground because they are the questions commonly asked in the ‘real world’ of students outside the classroom. (long and Sato, 1983). Besides that, these questions engender longer responses compared to the responses given to the display questions. An analysis indicates that lower level language learners participate more when asked a referential question.

But even though referential questions are more realistic a study done by Long and Sato in 1983 found that teachers ask significantly more display questions than referential questions in the classroom.

After looking at these concepts and their characteristics I can notice that it is very important for teachers to know what each of them implies and to know the advantages and drawbacks of using either referential or display questions in the classroom in order to improve their teaching.

References

Al-Muaini, H.A. (2006). The effect of referential questions on learners’ oral

contributions. Retrieved 03/11/2011 from:

http://www.moe.gov.om/Portal/sitebuilder/sites/EPS/English/MOE/baproject/Ch3.pdf