Variety of Questions in English Online Courses: The Case of the University Of Yaounde I

Abstract

Over the centuries, educationists and psychologists from different nationalities have been concerned about how to make English language lessons more interesting. John Dewey, often known as the ancestor of constructivism, proposed an integrated approach to teaching, Castling (1996) suggests that teachers must use a wide range of teaching aids and language resources to create and sustain motivation. Harmer (2000) advises teachers to make use of a variety of techniques, materials and activities in order to keep learners engaged and interested. Tchombe (2004) contends that no single method can be appropriate to guarantee reasonable learning outcomes, so she recommends the eclectic method or variety. This clearly means that, more than the spice of life, variety remains the spice of lessons because it fights effectively against boredom. The present paper seeks to raise awareness about the importance of variety in terms of questions during English online classes where the main motivator is physically absent. It equally aims at identifying the different questions asked by the teacher as well as their various pedagogic and pragmatic functions during Year 1 &2 English tutorials in 2021. As far as the research methodology is concerned, direct classroom observation and interviews have been done to collect data in four WhatsApp groups, the research setting. In addition, descriptive statistics is used for data analysis. It is important to mention that the linguistic analysis is done in accordance with Austin &Searle’s (1962) and Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives.