Oral Questions Asked by Non-native Teachers of English as a Second Language

Abstract

This paper reports the findings of a study aimed to investigate the forms and functions of the oral questions asked by non-native English as a second language teachers. Participants were eighteen non-native ESL teachers. Each teacher was asked to record one of his/her daily lessons from the regular ESL syllabus. The findings of the study showed that the eighteen teachers asked 2215 oral questions in a forty-five minute class (123.05 questions per teacher). They asked more direct questions than indirect questions. They asked less yes/no and or questions than Wh-questions. They resorted to oral prompts instead of asking real questions. They asked more comprehension questions than the other functional types of questions.