Brunei teachers' perspectives on questioning: Investigating the opportunities to "talk" in mathematics lessons

Abstract

A teachers' practice cannot be characterised by a single lesson, hence comparison is best made with lesson sequences that better sample the diversity of a teacher's practice. In this study, we video recorded lesson sequences in four Year 8 mathematics classrooms, as well as interviewed each of the four teachers in Brunei Darussalam. Because of our methodology and based on the findings from the richness in the data that was collected, there were some features in the video and interview data that emerged. One of the features is the significant short utterances made by the students as well as their respective teachers, and the extent of the teachers' own and their students' questioning behaviours in the lessons as perceived by the teachers themselves during the video-stimulated recall interviews. In the four Brunei classrooms that we studied, most of the lessons were so rushed, the teachers did most of the talking and when teachers and students do interact, it almost always involved faster-paced exchanges between them. Thus, restricting students to single words ("yes" or "no") or short choral responses. Overall, the findings appear to indicate that short utterances implied that there were less (or even no) opportunities for fuller student participation in classroom discussions.