Using Creative |Questions to Facilitate L2 Acquisition

• Main Authors: Lee-ching Hsu, 徐麗琴
• Other Authors: I-li Yang
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2002
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/68395567951069080094

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 英語教學碩士在職專班 === 91 === English Abstract This study examined how creative questions can operate as effective tools for L2 acquisition. As Long and Sato (1983) found, ESL teachers ask significantly more closed questions such as display questions and comprehension questions, to which the answers are fixed or limited, than open questions such as referential questions or creative questions, to which answers are free and diverse. The main purpose of this study is to determine if the use of creative questions makes a different effect on student responses. The research contained a qualitative study of language creativity of the student responses and a quantitative study of the amount of student participation. Four classes of junior high school students participated in this study. Eight creative questions were asked over a period of four months. Classroom observation was the method adopted; students’ oral and written responses were tape-recorded and collected at the site. The results suggest that: (1) Creative questions elicited significantly more student responses than display or comprehension questions did, (2) Creative questions triggered longer and more syntactically complex sentences, (3) Creative questions provided students opportunities to use the target language for genuine communication, (4) Through creative question-answer activities, students demonstrated their language creativity. They were able to use richer vocabulary, create various content ideas, employ different ways of expressions, and share their personal ideas as well as true feelings.