What are you trying to achieve by asking a question?
Is it to Enquire into someone knowledge?
To eliminate confusion?
To cause someone to feel special/important?
To guide a conversation in a certain direction?
To demonstrate humility to another?
To enable a person to discover an answer?
To gain empathy through better understanding?
To influence or alter someone's opinion?
To begin a relationship?
To humbly show we have knowledge on a specific subject?
To stimulate creativity?
To gain a person's attention or understanding?
To solve a problem?
To reach an agreement or to agree or disagree with clarity?
To incite someone to do something?
These are just some of the reasons we ask questions.
There are many ways we can start a question, however, depending on how we start it may depend what sort of answer we get back.
Are you looking for an open reply or a closed reply?
When looking for a pupil to explore their knowledge we need to be asking them Open questions.
This will lead to them trying to find an answer with more than a one word response and give us a better understanding of their understanding.
Closed questions tend to resolve with just a one word answer and won't give as much response as you may have wanted from your learner.
Unless specifically required based on the circumstances, Open questions will always get a learner thinking more.
A closed question however, might be used to entice some quick action from your learner on something they may have missed.
Let's just make a situation up.
You're driving along a 40mph road, there are traffic lights ahead that have been green for some time. As you get closer the lights change to amber but you have seen no response from your pupil to show that they intend to slow down or stop.
It may be that they are just going to hit the breaks hard as they get closer to the lights, it may be that they think they will make it through before they go red, or it may be that they just haven't seen the lights at all.
An easy closed question could be
"Are you going to stop?"
This could activate their senses to be looking where they had not been looking (the lights) and will evoke them to coming off the gas and introducing the brakes.
As long as the question is asked in good time, you will have given the pupil time to react, or time to step in if the need arises.
Making an open question might take too long to evoke a response from your pupil, and you'll end up intervening anyway.
Obviously you want to intervene as little as possible, so early communication is essential.
So, how do we start questions?
Is there
Tell me
And that's
Have you
What can
Do you
Is it
Is that
Can
Would
I wonder
OK?
Sound alright?
Show me
What if
Shall
Describe to me
Could you
Give me
What will
What could
How
Why
When might
Who should
If you
Where might
Where can
Who might
Could I
When will
Who has
Can you
What did
Talk to me about
When did
The list to be honest is endless, but timing the question is crucial, the reply you get, and how soon you get that reply will have a huge impact on the situation depending on how you start your question. If it requires a big answer you may well have run out of time before you get it, so make sure you know when to ask an open or closed question,
Don't worry, unless you've been in the teaching industry before it is not an easy task, but will get easier the longer you teach.
The stumbling, in your questions or giving directions will soon become very fluent and roll off the tongue like you've been doing it for years.
One of the biggest downsides to asking the same questions without adapting how you say it, can in a roundabout way let your pupil know they are possibly doing something wrong without telling them they are doing something wrong, which just ends up with you fault finding their lessons and not getting them to think for themselves.
As an example.
If every time your pupil exceeds the speed limit you say to the "can you tell me the speed limit on this road" the first thing they will do is check their speedometer.
Ok they will reduce their speed, but you are not going to be sat next to them once they pass their driving test.
They need to be actively checking their speedometer regularly to stay within the speed limit.
Could you change that question, to say "based on your current surroundings, talk to me about them and why they have set the speed limit that has been set for this road"?
The conversation should bring up from them what they believe the speed limit is and why it has been set at that limit
You didn't mention to them that they are speeding, but it made them scan their surroundings and talk about what is going on around them.
This in turn should also incite them to check their speedometer and adjust their speed accordingly.
When it comes to mirror use or the lack of it to begin with, you might guide your pupil to start with by talking through what mirrors are needed, at what timing and why they are necessary. As your pupils skill in this area begins to grow, you'd like to think that they will become more fluent with using them, but by keep telling them to check the appropriate mirrors will not get them to build the habit of doing so. All it may do is create a habit of waiting for you to tell them to check them. If you don't mention it, they don't check them, so that's a bad habit to be getting them in.
What you might choose as an option for getting them to check them is by asking them
"what mirrors do we need to check before we turn into this junction?"
or
"Are mirror checks going to necessary here?"
or maybe
"Have you seen the cyclist to our left?" there may not be one there, but it enticed your pupil to look anyway.
Just a variation in the way you chose your question can have the same outcome but with actually telling them to check their mirrors.
Think about signalling, again do we want to create a pupil that only places on a signal because you've told them to put on on?
Questions you could ask instead of telling them to signal.
"Is a signal necessary here?"
"Who might benefit for a signal being put on?"
"How soon should a signal go on before getting to a junction?"
"Will putting on a signal now confuse other road users?"
