The aims of the primary education system is to teach children to develop an inquiry mind and the ability to solve problems .This aims can be best achieved by helping learners to ask questions about their Education and seek answers to these questions. Hence questioning both by teachers and children will enhance the development of appropriate skills ,concepts ,attitudes and values.
The teacher's questions should help learners to refine,clarify their thinking and direct or redirect their activities.
The main purposes and timing of questions asked during a lesson. Each stage of a lesson demand a different type of questions,for each question to be effective ,it must be phrased in just the right way and asked just at the right time only. Teachers ask questions inorder to introduce new concept in the new lesson. For example on the topic 'Uses of water in the community' in juniour grades, teacher asks:
(1)what are uses of water at home /school?
(2)Does the use of water important?
(3)why we use clean water in most of domestic activities?
When asking questions it is also important to use approriate action verbs stating what learners are expected to do. Teachers should note that asking questions is a skill useful to develop effective learning and the ability to ask questions requires a great deal of thought and practice.
The well framed questions prior to the lesson and proof that they are certainly grammatically correct. Questions must be clear ,using simple wording which is to the level of the children and asked in a friendly manner.
The way questions asked should be varied making use of open ended questions ,instead of questions with simple YES/NO answers.
The direct questions to all children girls as well as boys or active and quiet children. Atleast one meaningful questions asked every child in the classroom every day ,these questions must be provoking rather than those which aimless or guessing responses.
A teacher questions correctly and limit number of questions is also listen carefully to the responses from the questions he/she asked. Children need to be given enough time to reflect on the questions asked before raised their hands to respond on them.For this gap of time when pupils grasping the question before responding ,some teachers developed the habit of answering their questions . However it is nice to rephrase the question or divide it into a series of simple questions if children failed to give expected responses.Questions can be repeated only in expectional circumstances and avoid the use of leading questions.
Progressive reflective teaching and learning process is a two way process where the teacher can also handle questions from children. When responding to pupils' questions ,learners should only be guided to exploration in their Education system,so the teacher should encourages and assists them to find answers on their own. At this point now the teacher should spend less time answering questions ,but redirect more time on helping to rephrase and restructure these questions to find ways of exploring ,investigating or experimenting until a satisfying answer is found.
In some cases the teacher may decide that it is necessary to answer children's questions directly. This depends on the type of question ,however the most important component of the teacher's respond is to respect learners. No child should be laughed at,mocked or humiliated for having asked the question. No silly question as long as one asked it. Every learner deserves to be well treated by the teacher who clarify and acknowledge questions.
When a teacher respond to pupils' answers in a manner that make them feel good about the contribution they had made. Again no one child should be mocked or laughed at even if the teacher or other pupils don't agree with the contributor, but she/he should feels that has been understood or have appreciated.
Generally in different lesson situations pupils will influence the way the teacher reacts. Pupils may give correct ,incorrect ,incomplete ,vague ,irrelevant and no answer at all.The following suggestions will help the teacher to deal with this type of learners' responses:
•Incomplete answers,acknowledge them ,but go on encourage them to state the answer more precisely. Ask a series of direct questions to help the child clarify his her thinking and also beware of twisting answers to suit yourself.
•Irrelevant response,acknowledge them also ,but point out clearly that answer belongs to a different topic. Give them again the time to reply again and allow other members of the group to chip in and assist.
•No answers ,give pupils ample time to think about the question ,verify everyone understood the question. Rephrase the questions breakdown difficult questions into simpler questions for pupils to attempt. And also acknowledge the answers ask children to discuss whether questions is justified or not.
•Correct answer, acknowledge the responses ,allow other pupils to ask questions or make statements regarding the answers modify these questions so that additional aspects can be included.
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