Question Everything – Strategies for Inclusive Language Learning

Question Everything

One of the biggest challenges facing world language teachers these days is the pressure to not talk during lessons. Educational researchers have determined that the more a teacher talks during a lesson, the lower students achieve. While studying the ratio of teacher vs student talk, researchers observed teachers talking 70% of the time versus students. In subjects such as ELA, math, science, and pretty much every subject besides world languages, this is problematic. As a school leader, I observed teachers lecture for 20-30 minutes straight before checking for understanding, providing space for students to talk, or even asking a question. The students in these classes, I can attest, did not perform very well on assessments. This is because when teachers do most of the talking, students are not on the hook for anything. They don’t have to answer questions, they don’t have to discuss ideas, and in many cases they don’t even have to think. To solve this problem, I coached teachers on how to flip their lessons: sprinkle in checks for understanding after every 5 minutes, facilitate stop and jots and turn and talks, explicitly teach students how to have conversations to grapple challenging content, etc.  

But what do we do when it comes to beginner or intermediate world language classes? What is a teacher to do when their students only know 100 words in a language? How do we reconcile the research on comprehensible input with the pressure to force students to talk? I argue that we cannot approach WL classes the same as other subjects, and with this subject, we need different solutions.  

“Talk With Your Students, Not At Them”

I heard this phrase first on Bill Van Patten’s old podcast Tea with BVP.  When discussing how to deal with pressure from administrators on teacher/student ratio, Dr. Van Patten argues that we should be engaging in conversation with students, not lecturing at them. I cannot agree more. But what does this look like? What does it actually mean to talk with students?  Here’s what I think:

• Ask a question every 5-7 seconds. When I taught Spanish I and II, I ensured to ask questions every opportunity I could. I never went more than 5-7 seconds without asking SOME type of question. It could be a check for understanding, a personalized question and answer, an opinion question, or any other type of question. The important thing is to ask a variety of questions as frequently as possible. 
• Leverage advanced circle questioning to talk with students. The term “circle questioning” has been around the comprehensible input world since I can remember. The way I learned to circle was by following a simple formula:
  • Make a statement – “There’s a dog on a skateboard.”
  • Ask a question that elicits a “yes” answer – “Class, is there a dog on a skateboard?” <Yes> “Correct, there is a dog on a skateboard.”
  • Ask an either/or question- “Class, is there a dog on a skateboard, or is there a cat on a skateboard?” <Dog> “Correct, there’s a dog on a skateboard.”
  • Ask a question that elicits a “no” answer – “Class, is there a cat on a skateboard?” <No> “Correct, there is NOT a cat on a skateboard, there is a dog.” 
  • Ask a Who/What/When/Where/How/Why question – “Class, what is on this skateboard?”  <Dog> “Correct, there is a dog on this skateboard.”  

This formulaic way of asking questions is a great starting point to talk with your students, but isn’t compelling enough to sustain student attention for long. To spice up your circle questioning, try adding these strategies to your toolbox:

• Parallel character – this post here from tprsbooks.com spells out how to use parallel characters. Essentially, every time you are building information with your students about a character (who they are, what they look like, what they want, where they live, etc.), you also talk about a “parallel” character. This character can be an imaginary person, another student in the class, or a popular fictional character that the students like. I prefer to use a group of people as parallel characters when trying to hammer in the singular vs plural verb forms. I also use myself when I want to practice 1st person. Every time you ask a question about the main character of your lesson (be it a character in a book you’re reading, the main character of your story, or the target of your PQA), ask a clarifying question about the parallel character.  For example, when I read “El Nuevo Houdini” with my students, I ask lots of questions about the main character Brandon. After each set of questions, I ask about the parallel character. It looks like this:
  • “Brandon wants to take his dad’s car, right?”
  • “Does Brandon want to take his dad’s car, or do I want to take his dad’s car?”
  • “Do I want to take anyone’s car? NO! I already have a car. Do I have a T-Bird, or a Nissan? That’s right class, I have a Nissan.”
  • “Does Brandon want to drive his dad’s Nissan?” NO! Does his dad even have a Nissan? No?  Oh.  What does his dad have? What do I have? What car do YOU want? Quickly turn and talk to your neighbors.”

By doing this, it gives you an excuse to fit in more questions without the conversation getting stale, and you get to introduce students to different verb endings.   

• Feign Stupidity – One of the best ways I’ve learned to ask students questions is to pretend like I’m an idiot (although, they might argue I’m not pretending). When I start class with a review, or do a quick recap after a series of PQAs, I pretend like I forgot everything. A good example is when I do star student interviews. Let’s say we just did a 10 minute chunk and we discovered that our star student, Jay, lives with his mom, dad, and dog Skippy, wants a green Jeep, and wants to be a doctor when he grows up. The class knows this, I know this, so I don’t want to just keep circle questioning this. Instead, I just start saying things wrong but with a lot of confidence, and the students yell at me and correct me:
  • “Ok class, applaud for Jay! Thanks Jay!”
  • “Ok let’s recap: so, Jay lives with his mom, dad, and 2 cats, right? NOO”
  • “Oh my bad, he lives with his dog, Mikey. NOO”
  • “No? Ay de mi, what’s his dog’s name again? SKIPPY!”
  • “That’s right. Thanks class. He lives with his dog Skippy, and he wants a blue mustang.”
  • “NO”
  • “No? He doesn’t want a blue mustang?? He wants a … red mustang?”
  • “NO, HE WANTS A JEEP.”
  • “That’s right! He wants a blue jeep. Thanks class. Moving on.”
  • “NOOOO. HE WANTS A GREEN JEEP.”

And so on.

How to Question and Still Keep Order

One of the challenges with asking check for understanding questions so frequently is how to make sure all students are with you. When doing whole class questioning, the quiet kids can get lost in the shuffle as the dominant extroverts take over. Additionally, asking whole class questions can get students riled up and you can quickly lose control.  And if you know me, you know I love some classroom management. So I encourage remember these tips when doing questioning with students:

1. Plan Tiered Questions – If your goal is to make sure ALL students are participating in answering questions, then prepare 3 levels of questions. Plan a batch of tier 1 questions (easy, people who haven’t even taken your class can probably answer these questions), tier 2 questions (medium, most students can answer, but need some time to think), and tier 3 questions (harder to comprehend, but more than that, requires sustained output).  Here are some examples:
   1. Tier 1 Questions – Keep these to yes/no, true/false, either/or style questions.  Pretend you have a red shirt and say “Is this shirt blue or red? (Shake your head no when you say “blue”, and nod aggressively yes when you say “red”.) 
   2. Tier 2 Questions – These are your who, what, when, where, and how questions.  “Where did Brandon go? What did he want? How did he get there?”
   3. Tier 3 Questions – These are your “why” questions or hypothetical questions. “Why was Jake mad at Brandon? Would you have acted differently? How would you have acted?” These questions require students to output, so you should reserve these for your high performing students.

Once you’ve planned some batches of Tier 1-3 questions, then pre-decide who you will ask these questions to. So, when I’m in the middle of a lesson, and I notice that my low performing students are checked out, I pause, and cold call them with some Tier 1 questions to get them engaged. Even if they shrug their shoulders and say “I don’t know”, I make the question even easier.  “Is this shirt… BLUE (shakes head no), or REEEDDDD (nods yes)”.  Then I move to some tier 2 questions, and ask some middle of the road students. “What is the dog wearing? What does he want?”  Then, by this time, my smarty pants fast processing students are bored, so I hit them with “Why do you think Brandon wants to take his dad’s car?”, and then I sit back and let them show off how much Spanish they can speak. When I can do several Tier 1-3 questions in a short, 90 second span, I can engage my lowest performing student, my highest performing student, and everyone in between. Another term for this is: differentiation.  

2. Warm Calling – Warm calling is a technique that helps your anxious / quiet students feel confident in answering questions for the whole group. The way I warm call is by finding a student who I know can answer a question, but lacks the confidence to share out. So I quietly walk next to them while other students are on a task, and tell them the question I’m going to ask them whole group. Sometimes I even put it on a sticky note so they have time to prepare. Then, when I bring the class together, I pretend like I’m cold calling, but I call on that student, who is prepared and ready. This is a great strategy to use when getting observed, and your principal wants to see you call on all students equitably.  Students, in my experience, really appreciate this and it goes a long way to building trust. 
3. Cold Calling – I know this sounds daunting to some teachers, because I think we’ve all had some bad experiences being cold called. However, I cannot stress enough how important it is to make this a part of your daily routine. Every class, no matter what, I carve out 2-3 minutes at the beginning, middle, and end to cold call. Here is the formula to do it well:
   1. Tell the class you’re about to do some cold calling. Give them a minute to mentally prepare.
   2. Give directions: “I’m going to ask a question, count to 5 silently in my head, then I’m going to call on someone. Please remain silent unless I call on you.”
   3. State the question BEFORE calling on a student.  This step is vital. If you call on the student before asking the question, then only that student has to do any mental work.
   4. Count to 5 silently.
   5. Call on the student.

Now, here’s how you REALLY have a successful cold call session. Refer to the tiered questions earlier, and insert those questions during your cold calling session. Start with your Tier 1 questions, state the question, give wait time, then intentionally call on your low student. Do 2-3 tier 1 questions, then work up to Tier 2 questions, calling on your average performing students. After 2-3 Tier 2 questions, graduate to Tier 3, and let your now-bored-but-ready-to-shine students have the floor.  

4. Show Calling – Show calling is a favorite of mine. Simply put, when you want to ask individual questions but don’t want to just cold call or warm call, have students write or draw their answers on a paper. Then, collect 5-6 random papers, put them under a doc camera (or just walk around and show other students their answers), and talk about it. Here’s an example:

• “Class, what is your prediction for what will happen to Brandon in chapter 6? Draw your answer, and I’ll take some random samples and talk about it.”
• Students draw for 1-2 minutes, I collect 5 papers, and then talk about them just like I would a picture talk. 

Then we proceed to read chapter 6, and compare whose prediction was right.  Show calling is great because it makes all students answer the question and do the thinking, but also allows the teacher to use their ideas for content. 

5. Mix Individual and Whole Group Questioning – The final tip is to ensure you have a healthy balance of whole group questions with individual questions. If all you do is whole group choral response, then you’ll lose a lot of students. If all you do is cold calling, then you’ll hate your life. So, make sure to mix up when you do whole group vs. individual questioning, and make sure you have a good signal for your students to know when you want a whole group response. The types of questions you ask also should determine if they are asked whole group or individual. Here is my formula:
   1. Whole Group Questions: Yes/No, True/False, Right or Wrong, What? Who? Where? When? Avoid ALL questions that require students to give an opinion or produce a lot of output. This can be really clunky whole group, and it can also lead to chaos. For example, when doing a TPRS story and I want the class to help me with a funny plot line, I don’t ask for whole group suggestions. I used to. I used to ask “Class, where should the girl go next in our story?” And students would yell really loudly at me about their ideas. However, once I chose one of the student’s ideas, the other students would get mad that I didn’t choose theirs. Asking for ideas or opinions whole group just isn’t worth the hassle. 
   2. Individual Questions: Opinions, What is your favorite …., do you prefer …. What does the boy in our story want? Help me out, give me some ideas, etc..  These are the types of questions I ask via cold calling, warm calling, stop and jots, and turn and talks. When I want some ideas for a TPRS story, but I don’t want the chaos, I’ll ask the question “Where should the character go next?”, and then prompt students to write/draw their answers, turn and talk with a partner, and then I circulate, listen for the answer I want, and then choose it.  This invites less arguing / hard feelings from students because even though I didn’t choose their idea, at least they got to share it. It gets it out of their system.