This document discusses different types of questions teachers can ask students in class and strategies for eliciting answers. It covers yes/no questions, "or" questions, and WH-questions. It also discusses using questions to check comprehension, elicit longer answers, and engage students in real conversations. Finally, it presents different questioning strategies teachers can use, such as calling on individual students, allowing chorus answers, or choosing students to answer. The goal is to make teachers aware of effective questioning techniques.

1. Asking questions
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2. Aims of this lesson.
 To make teachers aware of basic
question types and to show how they
can be used for different purposes.
To show teachers how to elicit short
and long answers from students in a
natural way.
To make teachers aware of different
possible strategies for asking questions.
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3. Question types
Begin by discussing why teachers ask questions in class.
Encourage teachers to think of as many reasons as they can.
For example.
1)To check that students understand:
when we present new vocabulary or
structures, we can check that students
have understood by using the new
language in a question. When we
present a text, we can use questions to
check that students have understood it.
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4. 2)to give students practice: if we want
students to use a certain structure,
one way to do this is to ask a question
that requires a particular answer.
3) To find out what students really
think or know:
we can use questions to encourage
students to talk about themselves and
their experiences.
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5.  Look at the three groups of questions.
What is the difference between these three types of
questions?
How might you reply to each one?
A: 1)Do you drink tea?
2)Can you swim?
3)Did he go to university?
B: 1) Do you prefer tea or coffee?
2) Are they brothers or just friends?
3) will you walk or go by bus?
C: 1) What do you usually drink?
2) where did she study?
3) how long have you known each other?
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6. 1)The first group of questions. Establish that:
 They are Yes/ No questions.
 They reply can be ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, alone or with short
forms: ‘ Yes, I do’ , ‘No, I can’t. ect.
Make sure that teachers understand to form Yes/No
questions.
The auxiliary verb comes first; present simple
questions use ‘do/does’, past simple questions use
‘did’.
If necessary, give teachers practice by asking a few
Yes/No questions to which they can give true
answers, e.g.
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7. Yes/No questions can be used in class. They are
especially useful for checking comprehension.
They are often easiest questions to answer- they do
not require students to produce new language.
2) The Second group of questions. Establish that:
They are ‘ Or’ questions (they are sometimes called
‘alternative questions’).
The reply is usually a word or phrase from the
question itself, e.g. ‘ Friends’ or ‘ They ‘re friends’,
‘in Britain or In Britain’.
Make sure teachers know way as Yes/No questions,
but contain two elements-’tea or coffee’.
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8.  The third group of questions. Establish that:
They are WH –questions
( also called ‘information questions’)
With most WH –questions, it is natural to give a
short answer.So natural answer to” Whare did she
study?” is ‘in Britain, not “She studied in Britain’.(a
few WH –questions require long answer.)
Explain how to form WH-questions. in the same
way as Yes/ No questions, but they begin with a
word
‘WH-word’- When , Where, Why, How, How long
…
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9. Some WH –questions with ‘Who or What’ have the
same structure as a normal sentence. These are
called ‘ subject questions’ ,because they ask about
the subject of the sentence.
Give example, e.g.
Something happened. - What happened?
Someone saw him. - Who saw him?
Someone knows the answer. - Who knows the
answer?
Something fell over. - What fell over?
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10. Questions with short answers
 An important use of questions is to check that
students understand a new word or phrase.
 Imagine that you have just presented ‘ made of wood/
metal/ glass/ stone’. Ask a series of questions with
short answers:
T: Look(pointing to table) – Is this made of wood?
Ss: Yes.
T: ( pointing to wall) What about this? Is it made of
wood?
Ss: No, it isn’t.
T: What is it made of?
Ss: Stone. ( and so on)
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11. Now discuss why the students only need to
give short answers. There are two reasons:
1- because it is more natural,
2- because at this stage the teacher only
wants to check that they understand. Later
they can be asked to produce the new
language themselves.
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12. Real classroom questions
 Many situation which naturally arise in the classroom
give an opportunity to ask real questions .
 It will help students to feel that language is real, not
just something in a textbook.
What questions could you ask in these situations?
a) It’s a hot day, and all the windows are closed.
b) one of your students looks pale and tired.
c) Several students are absent today.
d) when you come into class, you find a bag on
your desk.
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13. Eliciting long answers.
 1. Write these questions on the board:
What time do you get up?
What do you have for breakfast?
 The natural answers to these questions would be
short .( at seven o’clock’, ‘bread and cheese’)
 However, in class we often want students to produce
longer answers, so that they practice making complete
sentences, e.g.
I get up at seven o’clock, and then I have breakfast.
I usually have bread and cheese and a glass of tea.
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14.  Now discuss three possible ways of eliciting long
answers:
1) we could ask a question and insist long answers:
T: Answer with a complete sentence.
What time do you get up?
S: I get up at seven o’clock.
This gets students to practice language effectively,
but only by forcing them to answer in an unnatural
way. As a result, the ‘conversation ‘ that takes in
the class becomes artificial, and unlike real
English.
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15. 2) We could
ask a more general question
which would naturally lead to a longer
answer:
T: What do you do in the morning?
S: Well, I get up at seven o’clock,
then I have breakfast.
This much less artificial, and allows the
conversation in the classroom to be
more like language spoken in real life.
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16. 3) Instead of asking a complete question, we could
give a short ‘prompt’.
T: Tell me about your day.
S: Well, I get up early, at about seven o’clock,…
T: What about breakfast?
S: I have quite a small breakfast, usually just a
piece of bread and some tea….
This is often an easier and more effective way of
getting students to produce language than asking a
question.
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17. Questioning strategies
As well as knowing what questions to ask, teachers
also need to know how to organize question and
answer work in class. There are many different
ways of asking questions:
Teachers can ask each student in turn round the
class.
They can let any student call out the answer
They can choose a student to answer
They can get the class to answer in chorus, and so
on.
these are called questioning strategies.( or
nomination strategies)
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18. What questioning strategies they show:
A) the teacher asks questions and simply lets
students call out answers. If students call
out different answers at the same time, the
teacher chooses one student to give the
answer again.
B) The teacher asks a question, then pauses
to give the whole class a chance to think of
the answer. Then the teacher chooses one
student to answer. Students are not allowed
to call out answer or to raise their hand.
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19. C)The teacher first chooses a student (by
pointing or saying the student’s name), then
asks the student a question. If the student
can not answer it, the teacher passes it on
to the next student.
D) The teacher asks a question and lets
students raise their hand if they think they
know answer. The teacher chooses one of
the students with their hands raised to
answer.
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20. Homework
 1) Imagine that you have just presented each of
these words or phrases. Write one or two
questions you could ask in class, to check that
students understand each item.
 Wide/ narrow, belong to, inside / outside, far
from, depend on.
 2) Make dialogue by using these given prompts:
Tell me about your family. Tell me about your
hometown.
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21. 3) What are the advantages an disadvantages of each
strategy?
Consider which strategies:
- help the teacher to control the class
- help to keep the attention of the whole class
- give good students a chance to show their
knowledge
- give weak or shy students a chance to answer
- give lazy students a chance not to answer.
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