EFL Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices on the Use of Questions in Mozambican Secondary Schools

Abstract

In this study, the use of questions in a Mozambican English as a Foreign Language context is explored as a technique to develop communicative and critical thinking skills in secondary school students. Therefore, a qualitative approach was adopted using a phenomenological design which allowed the use of classroom audio recordings and semi-structured online interviews for data collection, based on Lowery’s (2005) questioning framework. The results revealed that English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in Mozambican public secondary schools are aware of open and closed questions, which they claim to use for checking understanding. However, in practice, they often use open-ended, rhetorical, and procedural questions found in Lowery’s framework. These teachers ignore the relevance of using integrating, confirming, valuing, as well as feeling questions, which foster learners’ communicative skills. These results have strong implications for the decision EFL teachers make on the selection of questions for their classes, as well as the impact of such practices on the students’ outcome at the end of the course or year. Therefore, further studies should be conducted to understand the students’ abilities in the use of English as a result of such practices. In addition, similar studies in Mozambican higher education should examine whether EFL teachers under training are prepared to use questions in class.