Classroom techniques: Guess the questions (Nation, 1989)

Goal   

• to encourage ākonga to read a text closely and thoughtfully 
• to practise question formation 

Features  

• information distribution – shared 
• student arrangement – individual (or pairs/groups) 
• student focus – meaning (language accuracy to a lesser extent) 
• language modes – reading and writing 
• can be amusing! 

Materials  

See Materials that come with this resource to dowload Guess the questions (.doc).

Procedure 

1. Write selected words on the board and tell ākonga that these words will be part of the questions, or answers to questions, about the text that they are going to read. 
2. Ākonga read the text and write down the questions they think the kaiako will ask. 
3. Ākonga tell the kaiako what questions they thought of and compare these to the kaiako questions. The questions can then be answered. 

Kaiako considerations  

The words you select to put on the board can be key verbs or nouns, but not question words (ākonga can guess the question words). 

Variations  

• Present the words in a list, where each pair of words comes from one question (to make it fairly controlled and easier), or list the words randomly. 
• Vary the student arrangement to increase the amount of interaction by having ākonga work in pairs and/or groups. 
• This could lead into the 'ask and answer' technique. 
• Change the kind of words you give as clues. 

Benefits of this technique   

Ākonga have to think deeply to complete the task, a key feature of an effective learning technique. 

Evaluation of the task  

• Can ākonga come up with sensible questions? 

References  

Nation, I. S. P. (1989). Language Teaching Techniques. English Language Institute Occasional Publication No. 2. (p. 77). 

This is part of the resource set "Second language learning tasks".