Microteaching -skill of fluency in questioning

1. 6. SKILL OF FLUENCY
IN QUESTIONING
Dr SAJEENA S.

2. ◦ Questioning skill may be defined as a teaching skill helpful in
putting the desired, meaningful, clear and concise, grammatically
correct, simple and quite straight forward questions to the students
in a classroom teaching learning situation for the purpose of
drawing their attention on one or the other teaching points, making
them active and alert in the ongoing teaching learning process.

3. ◦ Components
A. Framing of the questions: Questions can serve their purpose well when they are framed with
necessary care and preparation on the part of a teacher by taking cognition of the following things:
◦ 1.Relevancy: Questions framed should be quite relevant to the topic being taught. There stands no use
of the irrelevant questions being framed and put to the students at any stage of the lesson. Moreover,
these may prove a great hindrance in the process of teaching- learning by getting them astray from their
learning path and confused for responding properly to them.
◦ 2. Clarity: The question should be framed in a simple and clear language. Ambiguity of any kind may
kill the very purpose of putting questions. In a case when the students are not able to understand the
meaning, nature and motive of the question put to them how they can be expected to respond to it
properly.

4. ◦ 3. Precision or conciseness: Brevity is said to the soul of expression. As a result, while
framing the questions, due care should be taken for keeping them as precise and brief as
possible.
◦ 4. Specification: The questions framed should be quite specific and to the point related to
the content material presented to the students, the demand of the specific stage of the
lesson or the purpose to be served by it. So due care should be taken to frame such
questions that may allow to ask only one specific thing at a time to the students.
◦ 5. Grammatically correct: It should be duly cared that the framed question should be
grammatically correct. Failure to do so may confuse the students or may not help them in
their proper understanding of the nature and meaning of the question.

5. ◦ B. Presentation of questions in the class: The questioning skill asks for the proper presentation of
the questions in the class on the part of a subject teacher. It calls usually for playing attention over
the following components:
◦ 1. Voice of the teacher: A teacher should try to present the questions in a quite clear and audible
voice being properly heard by all the students. He should also be careful about the proper accent,
tone, pitch and rhythm of voice along with the accompanying gestures and other non-verbal
expressions while putting any question.
◦ 2. Speed and pause: Due care should be taken for maintenance of proper speed in the asking of
questions on the part of the teacher. He should give enough time to a student or the class for
responding to the question asked by him on a simple logic that the rate or speed of thinking and
responding on the part of the students tends to be slower than the speed of asking questions.

6. ◦ 3. Distribution of questions: Question should be addressed to the whole class
rather than its being put to an individual student. Out of the raised hands of the
students who are willing to answer the question, a teacher may now provide
opportunity to any one of them, or may choose from the group of the students who
have not raised their hands for the purpose. As far as possible, the distribution of
the questions must be quite fair and even all along the corners of the class. As a
result, every student of the class must feel that he may be asked to respond to a
question any time during the course of the lesson, therefore, he must remain quite
alert and attentive to things going on in the classroom.

7. ◦ 4. Teacher behaviour: A teacher must demonstrate a quite spontaneous and
natural behaviour while asking questions in the class. He must possess a
necessary degree of patience, restraint and sweetness in his voice and style of
asking questions as well as responding to the responses of the students. He
should not try to repeat the questions as it may result in developing a wrong
habit among the students for not attending the questions properly. He should
also try to refrain himself from the task of discouraging or ridiculing them for
their incorrect answer or no responding. By all means, he should try to reinforce
their responding behaviour through his pleasant behaviour.

8. ◦ Each question is followed by a variety of student responses, such as no response,
wrong response, partially correct response. Let us consider the five response
situations:
1. No response situation: This situation may be due to student’s inability to
understand the question, to structured response, or due to lack of requisite facts
needed for the purpose or responding or the failure to recall the related facts.
2. Wrong response situation: Wrong response to a question indicates the lack of
knowledge of facts concepts and generalizations on the part of the student.

9. 3. Partially correct response situation: They represent a partial knowledge of facts,
concepts and generalization on the part of the students.
4. Incomplete response situation: Sometimes when an incomplete response situation
occurs, we infer that either the student is not having the necessary facts, concepts or
generalization in his memory or it may be due to his inability to understand and
structure responses to the question.
5. Correct response situation: Correct response situation refers to the statements
expressed by the student.

10. teacher:
Class:
Session: Teach/Re-
teach
Concept/Topic:
Supervisor:
Tallies Components of the skill Ratings (Extremely poor to Excellent)
Framing of questions
i) Relevancy
ii) Conciseness
iii) Clarity
iv) Specificity
v) Grammatical correctness
Presentation of the questions
i) Voice
ii) Speed and pause
iii) Distribution of questions to
 Whole class
 To student volunteers
 To student non-volunteers
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