The Five Lessons for the Plan

YES/NO QUESTIONS

PRESENTATION STAGE

In this class, the teacher should stimulate interest in the topic by asking students about the importance of questions in their daily discourse. They should begin thinking about the situations in which they need to ask questions and to make commands and polite requests. As situations are identified, the teacher should write them on the board (the teacher may use these ideas to design communicative activities). The teacher should explain why a familiarity with question forms is absolutely essential in both day-to-day life, and academic life. Then, the teacher should explain the rationale for the next five lessons: Students must be made aware of the variety of question-forms in ordinary communicative contexts and academic contexts. The teacher will explain that although students may be familiar with the basic question forms, they need more practice using them. Finally, after the teacher "sets the stage" for the following five lesson plans, s/he should encourage students to closely observe (on their own) situations in which questions are asked. At the beginning of each of the lessons, students can share these observations with the rest of the class. Again, the teacher can use this student input to modify the communicative activities. To begin focusing on Yes/No questions, the teacher first explains, using examples, how Yes/No questions are derived from a basic sentence forms: 1) When there is an auxiliary, the auxiliary and subject are reversed, but 2) When there is no auxiliary, a "do" form is added. In addition to performing exercises in the textbook, students should practice asking and answering this type of question in a communicative format. Perhaps they could begin by asking each other questions about their daily routines.

PRACTICE STAGE

Student Interviews: Students interview each other on a given or personally selected topic. For example, students might interview each other about their homes (e.g., "Do you live alone?", "Is your apartment large?", "Is there a pool at your apartment complex?", etc.) The teacher might to choose to specify the topics covered in the interview.

"Guessing game": In one variation of this pair activity, students guess an object or a picture by asking a series of yes/no questions to their partners. There are several other variations of this activity: One student in each pair is given a word, and the other student must guess the word by asking questions. For example, to guess the word "peacock", a student may ask a series of questions such as "Is it alive?", "Is it a person or a thing?", etc. Or, one student, blindfolded, asks questions about an object as s/he feels it.

INFORMATION-QUESTIONS

PRESENTATION STAGE

First, building on the previous lesson, the teacher graphically shows how "wh-questions" are formed. The teacher, using an authentic text (perhaps a short passage from a textbook), asks students to imagine that they are teachers, and to write a short "quiz" on the text. Then, after students compare their questions, the teacher offers more possibilities. For the sake of variety, the teacher might select one passage from a sociology text, and one passage from a scientific text. This short exercise is designed to heighten students' awareness of the various types of questions they may encounter in exams. Furthermore, the teacher explains why this "question making" can also be an effective study tool; students should learn the habit of asking themselves pertinent questions as they read, and after they read. This will not only prepare them for exam questions, but also reinforce their own comprehension of texts.

PRACTICE STAGE

Comprehension questions: Students write comprehension questions based on the same text, exchange questions, and then answer them. This directly follows the presentation stage, in which the teacher offered suggestions for asking appropriate and challenging questions about academic texts.

Information questions in communicative context: Students, given a particular scenario, produce a series of questions that they would likely ask in such a scenario (or, they recall situations in which they asked many questions). In either case, students write a series of questions representing as many of the wh-forms as possible. As a variation, pairs of students could perform a role-play in which the info-questions are answered as well as asked.

Wh-word as a subject and as an object: Students are given a short passage in which some information is left out. One half of the class receives the passage with the subject-position information left out, and the other half receives the passage with the object-position information left out. Then, the two halves come together, and pairs are formed. In these pairs, students ask questions (in order to learn the missing information) to each other.

EXTENDED PRACTICE

As an extended class project, groups of students research a particular topic (of social/cultural interest) and interview informants. In this activity, the focus would be on eliciting opinions and concerns (thus, the polite forms of asking questions would be practiced: "Could you please tell me...?, "Would you mind telling me...?,etc.)

TAG-QUESTIONS

PRESENTATION STAGE

The teacher begins by writing examples of the two basic types of tag-question (positive sentence + negative tag, and negative sentence + positive tag). Then, s/he tells students that tag questions are especially common in vernacular speech.

PRACTICE STAGE

Students add tags to sentences, and then ask the resulting question to a partner (while the teacher monitors intonation pattern). As a variation, the teacher can encourage students to experiment with different intonation patterns. For example, short scripts containing with tag-questions could be handed out and performed by students. Such scripts would include tag-questions with downward intonation patterns (e.g., "The weather's terrible, isn't it?"), and upward intonation patterns (e.g., "You don't know how old she is, do you?") During this activity, the teacher should closely monitor students' intonation patterns, and model appropriate intonation patterns.

Intonation recognition: Watch a recording of an interview, and discuss how tag questions function in the discourse. Before watching, the teacher will explain, and demonstrate, the importance of intonation. This will be the focus of the viewing. A script will be made available.

After viewing/listening, the class identifies the tag-questions, and discusses how they function in the discourse. The teacher will make sure students understand the importance of intonation.

Crime court simulation: Students engage in role-play of court interrogation. First, the teacher describes a crime scenario (and distributes it in written form). Groups of students simulate court proceedings in which "lawyers" cross-examine "suspects" and "journalists" record it. Students ask questions such as "Where were you…", Why were you at the crime scene …?, etc.

EMBEDDED QUESTIONS

PRESENTATION STAGE

First, the teacher explains that in conversations, we frequently "report" questions. The teacher could present a simple dialogue to students, tell them it occurred the day before, and that they need to report it. The teacher can provide more examples, if needed.

PRACTICE STAGE

Interpreter game: This is a small-group activity in which an "interpreter" is the go-between for two others (e.g., diplomats), who try to ask each other questions. For example, one of the diplomats might turn to the reporter and say, "Ask him how we can make peace." And the interpreter would turn to the other diplomat and say, "He wants to know how you can make peace." The teacher and students can work together to create an interesting scenario. As a variation, a "reporter" can record the entire meeting and write a newspaper article" in which the meeting is recorded. This simulation could be video-recorded, and analyzed by the entire class. Reporting questions: This is a follow-up exercise to the "extended practice" portion of the lesson plan on information-questions, in which groups of students interview informants about a social/cultural topic of their choice. These interviews could be "reported", in either written or oral form. Such reports would require "reported speech" in which questions are embedded.

COMMANDS AND REQUESTS

PRESENTATION STAGE

Here, the teacher should make a distinction between commands and polite requests. S/he then explains that there are different degrees of politeness, depending on the circumstances. In asking a personal question or a favor, a polite phrase such as "Would you mind telling me…," or "Could you please tell me…" Then, the teacher demonstrates different degrees of politeness, and students discriminate between them. As a variation, several situations are described by the teacher, and students suggest appropriate degrees of politeness, and how to convey them.

PRACTICE STAGE

Practice giving instructions: In pairs, students give instructions to each other about something they know how to do (e.g., cook a tasty dish). The students who listen to the commands either mimic the operations, or record them, and explain them to another student.

Practice giving advice: This is an expanded version of activity C: Small groups of students make lists of "DOs and DON'Ts", around a particular topic. Then, the lists are shared, criticized, and re-written to reflect input from the teacher and students.

Recognizing academic questions: The teacher distributes a list of questions from a textbook (chapter review). Such questions would include complex commands such as "synthesize", "contrast", and "evaluate". The teacher leads a discussion on the meanings of these commands, and the class suggests possible strategies to answer such commands.