Questions are a significant mechanism, triggering qualitative change within the dynamics of the classroom discourse. As a tool to direct and control the discourse development, questions exhibit the properties of contingency and constant feedback through the interaction (Cazden, 1979), which makes them a perfect device for scaffolding. Scaffolding, as the contingent application of teaching strategies, takes place as the gradual fading of guidance and support from the teacher and, at the same time, as the increasing responsibility transfer until the learner has achieved the prospective level of competence (Wood et al., 1976). The role of teacher questions within the classroom discourse has been highlighted in numerous studies. They have been investigated as part of a classroom discourse but not as means of scaffolding. We observed a teacher's verbal behavior during two lessons of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Reading Comprehension at a Dutch public school on the Atheneum- and HAVO-level. For the quantitative study, the teacher questions were retrieved from these videotaped lessons. The questions were coded according to the Scaffolding model of Van de Pol et al. (2010) distinguishing teacher scaffolding intentions and the scaffolding means used. The level of questions was evaluated according to the Bloom Taxonomy (BT) of Educational Objectives (1956) highlighting six levels of cognitive domain structuring based on the question use: knowledge retrieval, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation. BT was transformed to the qualitative scale. The study has shown that teacher questions are a powerful tool for scaffolding. Their function spreads beyond the questioning learners. As scaffolding does not go in a linear way, the occurrence of questions of a different thinking level is unpredictable.
References:
Bloom, B. S., Engelhart, M. D., Furst, E. J., Hill, W. H., Krathwohl, D. R. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives. New York: Longmans Green.
Cazden, C. (1979). Peekaboo as an instructional model: Discourse development at home and at school. Stanford Univ., Calif. Dept. of Linguistics.
Van de Pol, J., Volman, M., Beishuizen, J. (2010). Scaffolding in teacher-student interaction: A decade of research. Educational Psychology Review, 22, 271 - 296.
Wood, D., Bruner, J. S., Ross, G. (1976). The Role of Tutoring in Problem Solving. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 17, 89 - 100.
