Using Questioning to Improve Classroom Participation in the Foreign Language Classroom
Open Access
Author:
Lawrenson, Anne Elizabeth
Area of Honors:
World Languages Education
Degree:
Bachelor of Science
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
Matthew Edward Poehner, Thesis Supervisor Matthew Edward Poehner, Thesis Honors Advisor Megan Hopkins, Faculty Reader
Keywords:
Foreign language participation student teaching
Abstract:
The purpose of this research project was to examine my own teaching and what I could do to increase student participation among my third year French students. While student teaching at an urban high school in central Pennsylvania, I realized that my students were hesitant to orally participate in class, so I began to look at how the questions I asked in my lessons affected their interactions in class. I looked at two types of interactional patterns typically found in world language classrooms, IRF, its variant IRE, and Instructional Conversations. I tracked student oral participation in French by collecting data when students spoke in French. I also recorded four lessons and examined the types of questions I typically asked, and how the different types of questions were related to student participation, in the classroom.
