The English Teachers’ Questioning Strategies to Improve Students’ Engagement in EFL Classroom

Questioning is known as the most influential teaching skill and frequently used as efficient strategy for teachers in classroom teaching. A question proposed by the teachers can stimulate the students’ learning, gain knowledge, help students build understanding to think critically and creatively, and know the output of the students before or after teaching. Unfortunately, asking questions to the students does not always work well. Sometimes, the teacher fails to engage the students to answer the questions. Therefore, teachers should consider the use of questioning strategies to improve students’ engagement in learning. This study aimed to find out the English teachers’ questioning strategies used by the teachers to improve students’ engagement in EFL classrooms, and to explore the students’ responses toward of the teachers’ questioning strategies. The research participants were two English teachers at MAN 4 Pidie and their students. In this study, several methods were used, that were: classroom observation, interview and questionnaire. The result of the study showed that the teachers mostly used descriptive question in teaching and learning process. The teachers also applied some strategies in questioning, that were: warming up and quiz to grab students’ attention, repetition, simplification, decomposition, structuring the question, reacting to the students’ answers (giving a reward, compliment, and motivates the students), using native language and giving students wait time to think the answers. The research finding also showed the positive effects from the use of questioning strategies which affected interaction. Therefore, the researcher suggested that teachers should be more aware of their questioning skills and use them to improve the students’ engagement in EFL classroom.