Using the Art of Questioning as Classroom Assessment for Learning English in Pre-service Teaching

Abstract

Practice teaching is a salient phase for students deployed in the real school settings while they pursue a degree from a Teacher Education Institution (TEI). This mixed-method research examined the types and levels of classroom questioning of pre-service teachers of elementary English in a TEI in Mindanao. It also explored their perceptions and practices in questioning anchored on Kolb's experiential learning theory. Through purposive sampling, 16 pre-service teachers taking up Bachelor in English Education with certificate in teaching elementary participated in the study. Their actual classes were recorded and seven of them joined the 30-minute focus group discussion which was transcribed, translated, and analysed thematically. The identified questions were categorized according to the types of questions in classroom discourse and classified as to low and high levels through Bloom's Revised Taxonomy. Based on the findings, the types of questions were retrieval style and yes or no questions which belonged to low cognitive levels. The participants developed practices to mitigate the challenges of questioning as classroom assessment. A wider exploration to compare results with other pre service programs in the focused TEI is recommended as the study had relevant implications to teacher development.