The communicative versus the structural approach to learning English as a second language

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the use of questions during English lessons within two different schools in Malta in order to discover the prominent types of questions employed within the two schools. The data was collected from two Junior Three classes in a State School and two Junior Three classes in an Independent school. Having researched several studies conducted to determine which questions were preferred in second language classrooms as well as the various taxonomies available to categorise different questions, I was able to categorise and analyse the data collected for this dissertation. The questions were classified according to their Linguistic and Cognitive functions for further analysis. As this research consisted of two small scale case studies it was not expected that any conclusions would be drawn which could extend beyond the case studies themselves however, the conclusions did indicate an interesting pattern which could, in future research, merit a larger scale study. The conclusions drawn from the two case studies illustrate that some 'types of questions' are indeed preferred over others, these being display questions and questions which drew upon students' cognitive 'knowledge'. It was also noted that context had an impact on the use of questions within the language classroom. This study, and any future larger scale studies, may prove useful in providing insight on a very relevant and widely used aspect of teacher talk.