Students' Responses to Teacher's Questions in an EFL Reading Class

Abstract

This study attempted to investigate students' responses to teacher's questions. Specific attention is paid to syntactical complexity of responses. The present study employed a qualitatve method. Three observations investigated the type of questions that were frequently used by the teacher who is a non native speaker and the effect of the types of questions on the length of students' responses in Reading Across Gemes class inEnglishDepartment of Satya Wacana Christian University. The data in this study found that closed/display questions were frequently used by the teacher, while referential questions were rarely used during the lessons. Consequently, closed/display questions elicited brief and short responses. The present study's implication is mainly to develop teacher's techniques in giving questions that can enhance classroom interactions especially in an ESL setting.