BILINGUAL TEACHERS' QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON BILINGUAL STUDENTS' RESPONSES DURING INSTRUCTION IN ENGLISH READING

This descriptive study contributes information about the verbal interactions of bilingual teachers with bilingual students as these students acquire a second language (English). The purposes of the research study were (1) to describe and analyze the questioning episodes of bilingual elementary teachers as they interact with bilingual students; (2) to describe and analyze bilingual students' responses and initiated questions to teachers' questions and responses during instruction in English reading.; Twenty-four classroom observations collected tape recorded discourse from four bilingual teachers (grades 2-5) and twenty bilingual students (five from each classroom) over a six-week period. Observations were conducted during English reading instruction when teachers and students were discussing the stories previously read.; A coding system designed by the researcher was used to classify elements of the verbal interactions with special relevance to discussions of questions and responses made and elicited by both the teacher and the student. Findings from the study's twelve research questions reveal that: (1) bilingual teachers talk disproportionately more and ask more questions, especially lower cognitive level questions, than students; (2) bilingual students' responses and initiated questions, though substantially fewer than the teachers', increase when teachers talk less, ask fewer questions per minute and when certain teacher reactions, such as evaluation, are utilized in responding to students; (3) within questioning episodes, patterns of teacher talk revealed influences on students' talk such as question-response-evaluation-response exchange rather than subsequent questioning following a student's response.; Conclusions include that bilingual teachers' questioning patterns are similar to those of monolingual teachers in that they both ask more questions and talk more than students and they control students' talk by directing responses to the teacher's question. Two teachers revealed less control when their students talked more by expanding thoughts and initiating new responses and questions, indicating that teachers can influence students' English language development when certain classroom conditions persist. Conditions of less teacher talk and questions and greater use of other response forms can create an environment that arouses a student's curiosity, enabling encouragement and expansion of language.; This study provides practical suggestions for bilingual teachers that should enhance their efforts to increase English language usage of second language learners.