Chapter I questioning strategies

Allow lots of right answers

Although most of the coursebooks opt for ‘closed-ended’ tasks with just one right answer, it’s a good idea to change such tasks to allow for more right answers. For example, if the task asks learners to put a verb in the right form like ‘She … her husband’ (leave), you can get rid of the verb and ask students to come up with their own ideas. She kissed her husband? Fed him? Taught? Everything is right — and every answer can lead to a nice story. The same can be done with matching exercises. If students are asked to match the halves of sentences, just cover the column with the endings and tell them to create their own endings first. 

This can boost students’ creative thinking skills a lot. Also, such tasks  cater for mixed-ability classes because to complete them, students will base their answers on the language they know.  And the best is that they provide more opportunities for using the language.  Correct (something) during the speech We know a dozen ways of correcting mistakes without interrupting our students too much. We do delayed correction after they’ve finished speaking, use silent finger correction to show that something is wrong or even don’t correct at all not to break their fluency. What Penny Ur says is that, first, letting a mistake go can lead to its fossilization. In this case, it will be harder for a student to get rid of that in future. Second, lots of students want to be corrected as they are speaking. I bet you’ve met them not once. So, sometimes correction on spot can be really helpful. There is nothing wrong about it.