International Journal of Bilingual & Multilingual Teachers of English

ISSN (2210-1829)
Int. J. Bilin. Mult. Teach. Eng.4, No.1(July-2016)

Questioning the Author:

English Language Teachers’ Perspectives

Jessie Png

English Language and Literature Academic Group, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Received 1st June 2016, Revised 2nd June 2016, Accepted 5th June 2016, Published 1st July 2016

Abstract: Questioning the Author (QtA) is an approach used to teach reading comprehension. Americans Beck and McKeown tried
it out in the 1990s and found it to be effective in getting children to discuss what the author had to say about the text they were
reading. This paper focuses on a study conducted in a non-western country. It involved teachers in a particular Singaporean primary
school who were introduced to QtA, a teaching tool which they were not familiar with. This paper discusses the responses of the first
batch of these teachers in that school who tried out QtA with their classes. The transcripts of their interviews and their written
reflections show that once they had undergone the lesson planning and practice sessions, and the actual teaching of QtA lessons, their
approach to teaching reading comprehension changed. The change also came about because the teacher-participants saw the benefits
QtA had on their students who came from multilingual backgrounds. This study shows that QtA can work for countries in the East
too, that teachers’ mind-set can be changed with time and professional support.

Keywords: Questioning the Author; Reading Comprehension

1. INTRODUCTION
Many reading experts in the West have come up with the teachers so that they can inject more discussions in
different methods for English Language teachers to use to their reading lessons, so that the students can negotiate for
enhance their students’ comprehension during reading. meaning as they discuss the reading texts. The responses
However, the Initiate-Response-Evaluate (IRE) approach of these teachers to the use of this new teaching
is still popularly used in countries like Singapore, and instrument will also be discussed.
presumably in other countries in the East. IRE is a
questioning approach whereby the teacher initiates a
question, a student responds to that question, and the 2. LITERATURE REVIEW
teacher then evaluates if the answer is right or wrong A. Teaching of Reading in Singapore
(Bellack, Kliebard, Hyman, & Smith, 1966). This kind of In a small-scale research in eight primary schools in
questioning practice is “more like a recitation (Stodolsky, Singapore, Wong (2006, 2007) found that the teachers
Ferguson, & Wimpelberg, 1981) than like the give-and- tended to use the school’s prescribed textbooks very
take dialogue that Bridges (1979) and others call closely, and then used the IRE approach to elicit
discussion” (Alvermann, O’Brien, & Dillon, 1990, p. responses from their students. At the end of the lessons,
298). One of the methods to teach reading that goes students would complete worksheets. Critical analysis
beyond students merely retrieving information, promotes skills were hardly looked into (Wong, 2007). Wong’s was
discussions and higher-order thinking is Questioning the not the only research with such a finding. Skuja-Steele
Author (QtA) (Beck, McKeown, Sandora, Kucan & and Silver (2004, 2005) also found this to be so in mid-
Worthy, 1996). QtA promotes collaboration and primary English Language lessons in Singapore.
discussion while students read a text (Gunning, 2010). In a pilot study of reading comprehension at Primary
Students are given opportunities to think critically about 4 level, done at the same school in the research presented
the text. In this paper, the author will present a part of a 3- in this paper, the research team found that “teacher-
year intervention study done with a group of English fronted interactions predominated, although group work
Language primary (elementary) school teachers in a was used; there was an emphasis on answering worksheet
Singaporean school. The research team introduced QtA to questions, with little if any meaningful, authentic, or

E-mail address: [email protected]

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 26 Jessie Png: Questioning the Author: English Language Teachers’ Perspectives

sustained student talk” (Foong, Png, Raslinda, & Silver, pertinent to the construction of meaning in the text. In
2009, p. 3). This approach to teaching reading `turning back’, the teacher re-directs students’ attention
comprehension mirrored the ones mentioned in the above to the text in order for them to attain more information,
studies. This was one of the reasons for an intervention repair a misreading, or clarify a point. In `revoicing’, the
study to be carried out in this school. The research team teacher re-phrases students’ statements. In `modeling’,
aimed to help the teachers in this school to promote more the teacher demonstrates how he or she constructs
discussions in reading comprehension lessons by getting meaning from the text. In `annotating’, the teacher fills
the students to negotiate for meaning as they interact with up any information gap that has resulted from a
the reading texts. After all, reading “involves both discussion; it might be an information missed out by the
reconstructing an author’s message and constructing one’s
author. Finally, in `recapping’, the teacher summarises
own meaning using the print on the page” (Hayes, 1991,
p. 7). The teaching instrument QtA allows students to do the main points of the text (Gunning, 2010). These moves
just that, and hence, it was chosen for this research. need not take place in any particular order.

B. Questioning the Author The use of QtA has reaped results. In an instructional
QtA is an “approach to comprehension instruction” intervention research using QtA involving fourth grade
which “focused on the importance of students’ active students in a social studies and a reading/language arts
efforts to build meaning from what they read and the need classes, Beck, McKeown, Sandora, Kucan, & Worthy
for students to grapple with ideas in a text” (Beck & (1996) found that the amount of student-talk more than
McKeown, 2006, p. 8). Beck, McKeown and Worthy doubled in the reading/language arts class and tripled in
(1993) wanted to, through QtA, “create an entrée to text the social studies one. Over the one year of research,
ideas by guiding students to think of the meaning of a text “students’ remarks became more complex” (p. 401), and
as something to be negotiated, as if setting up a dialogue the students “were listening to their peers and responding
with the text’s author” (p. 560). Students are to see that to them in a spirit of collaboration” (p. 402). In a more
the content of a text is merely a collection of ideas written recent research conducted by Sencibaugh and Sencibaugh
down by the author, and that these ideas may be unclear (2015), it was found that QtA had “significantly
or incomplete. It is hoped that that will make texts “less
improved the reading comprehension of eighth grade
intimidating” to students (Beck & McKeown, 2002, p.
students when implemented systematically and taught
44). In other words, students are to see the author as
fallible. explicitly” (p. 91).

In QtA, as students read a text, “the teacher 3. RESEARCH DESIGN

intervenes at selected points and poses queries to prompt A. Background
students to consider the information in the text. Queries
The research discussed in this paper refers to a three-
drive discussion and keep it focused on meaning” (Beck
year intervention study on Primary (Grades) 3, 4, 5
& McKeown, 2002, p. 44). There are two types of queries
reading in a school. Prior to this research, there was a pilot
that can be employed with either narrative or expository study conducted in the same school to test out the
text. They are initiating and follow-up queries. Examples teaching materials and the plans for the QtA lessons.
of initiating queries which are used to start off students’
thinking of important ideas in the text are: The three-year study involved three generations of
teachers, that is, in the second year, another group of
 What is the author trying to say? teachers joined in the study and in the third year, yet
 What is the author’s message? another group of teachers joined in. The Generation 1
(Alvermann & Phelps, 2002, p. 225) teachers had to lead the Generation 2 teachers in lesson
planning and discussions in the second year, and then the
Examples of follow-up queries which are generated to Generation 2 teachers had to lead the Generation 3
help students evaluate, link ideas and make meanings are: teachers the following year. This paper will only focus on
 Does the author explain this clearly? the Generation 1 teachers.
 Does the author tell us why? The research team comprised a Principal Investigator
 How does this connect to what the author told us (PI) and a Co-PI who are academic staff from the National
before? Institute of Education; two Research Associates who were
(Alvermann & Phelps, 2002, p. 225) primary school teachers attached to the Institute, and two
Research Assistants. The two Research Associates helped
QtA can be carried out using six discussion moves: out with the training, interview and lesson planning
“marking, turning back, revoicing, modeling, annotating sessions, while the Research Assistants did the video-
and recapping” (Gunning, 2010, p. 350). In `marking’, recording, taking down of field notes, and other
the teacher singles out a student’s comment or idea that is administrative matters.

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 Int. J. Bilin. Mult. Teach. Eng.4, No.1 , 25-31 (July-2016) 27

B. Subjects from the teacher-participant with only half a year of

For the purpose of this paper, the author who was the service will not be used in this paper.
Co-PI, will only focus on the first two years of the
research. In the first year, six teachers teaching English TABLE 1 : PROCEDURE (YEAR 1)
Language participated in the study. Five of them had more Months Activities
than eight years of teaching then, and one had only half a 6 training sessions on QtA (reading of articles on QtA;
Jan-Feb
year of service. In total they taught six classes of 235 demonstration of QtA)
students with various linguistic backgrounds. These Lesson (regular) observations and interviews after
teachers volunteered to be part of the project. lessons
Feb
Critique on QtA lesson planned and used by Research
C. Methodology team
In the first two months of the research, the teacher- Mar-Apr Lesson planning (QtA) – team work
participants underwent six training sessions on QtA. They Lesson practice 1 (QtA) (video-taped) –critique
May
read and discussed the articles on QtA, and watched the -- reflections
Lesson 1 (QtA) (video-taped) – observed, interviewed
researchers modelled the use of QtA. Concurrently in the Jul
Lesson planning for QtA lesson 2
second month, the teachers were being observed teaching Lesson practice 2 (QtA) (video-taped) –critique
their regular lessons and were interviewed after their Aug
-- reflections
lessons. Sept Lesson 2 (QtA) (video-taped) – observed, interviewed
In the subsequent months they were shown a QtA End Sept-
Lesson planning for QtA lesson 3
lesson which was planned and used by the research team Oct
during the pilot study and had a discussion on the lesson
plan. The following two months they planned their first 4. FINDINGS
QtA lesson in their teams, according to the level they A. Start-of-Research Interview
taught. Once that was done there were practice lessons
whereby one teacher per team taught their lessons. The For the first two months of the research, the teacher-
rest of the teacher-participants and the research team role- participants underwent training on QtA. After the second
played the part of students. These sessions were video- training session, they were interviewed individually.
recorded. After each teacher-participant had taught, time Among the questions asked during the semi-structured
was set aside for reflections from those who taught and interview were: “What do you already know of QtA? Is
for feedback from fellow teacher-participants and the that what you have learned from the first two meetings
research team. Once the refinement of the lessons taught we had or did you already know about QtA?” .
was done, the teacher-participants then carried out their
lessons with their classes. Their lessons were video-
Yvonne (the teacher-participants’ names are
recorded so that one of the researchers could meet with
pseudonyms), who had thirty years of teaching
the individual teacher-participant to go through the lesson
taught. The teacher-participant would be led to reflect on experience, said that QtA is used to “understand the text
her/his lesson. For the rest of the year, two more QtA better”; “to comprehend what is written, then ultimately
lesson plans were prepared and the procedure mentioned [for students] to answer the comprehension questions”. It
above was repeated. Table 1 shows the sequence of the is interesting to note that Yvonne had nothing much to
activities mentioned above. In Year 2, the teacher- say though she had gone through two of the training
participants continued to prepare lessons in their teams sessions. However, it is not surprising that she still clung
and taught them. They needed not have the lesson practice on to the traditional idea of teaching reading
sessions if they did not require them. They also played comprehension, that is, to teach so that students could
leadership roles in Year 2 but this will not be discussed in answer the comprehension questions that are likely to be
this paper. found in the worksheets. Like Yvonne, Carol (13 years in
the service) had not much to say except that from the
D. Data Collection
“title of this strategy … we question the author … ‘Why
For the purpose of this paper, the discussion of this is written in this manner?’”.
findings will be based on the data collected from the semi-
structured interviews with the teacher-participants in the Alison (15 years in the service) said that QtA is
second month of the research, after their second training
“quite spontaneous”; “there’s still a need for some kind
session had taken place. One of the purposes of this
of preparation”; “the teacher has to be trained … to
interview was to analyse how much they had learnt from
the training session. Their written reflections eight months respond, to ask the proper questions because … we
after research intervention, and their reflections written in always try to ask the proper questions that will relate to
Year 2 after they had conducted their regular reading or … factual questions”; “We are assuming that the author
fifth QtA lessons were also used as data. Data collected is not perfect, which is usually not the case. We will say

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 28 Jessie Png: Questioning the Author: English Language Teachers’ Perspectives

that ‘Oh they are always right. You better know what is text and had them share that knowledge with their
the answer’ … which I think is quite suitable for our classmates.
children, especially those who are not very good at
English … like my class is a very average class”. In the Start-of-Research interview, Yvonne regarded
QtA as a tool to help students “understand the text better”
Brian (13 years in the service) and Anita (9 years in so as “to answer the comprehension questions”. In this
the service), like Alison, were also struck by the feature reflection, she stated that she had begun to teach
that in QtA, it is assumed that the author is fallible. The comprehension “without looking at the questions first. It
teachers found this aspect a positive point for their is alright that not everything can be clearly explained. It
students as it would make them think that they might not is alright to throw the questions back to the pupils to
be weak should they not understand certain parts of the answer them”. She also began to “get pupils to talk and
reading text. question the texts, to clarify when in doubt”. This is
definitely a shift in paradigm for Yvonne. It is not easy
The above views of these teacher-participants on QtA for a teacher who had been in control of her classroom
will be compared to their reflections written at the discourse for thirty years to let go of that control.
different stages of the research intervention to see if the However, there were still two things she would not
views had changed. change: explaining “the main ideas in each paragraph”
and “the meaning of the vocabulary words”. It is
understandable for her to still hold on to what she
B. Written Reflections (8 months into intervention)
believed to have worked for her students all these years;
Eight months into the intervention, the teacher- after all, she was only exposed to QtA for eight months
participants were given some questions to reflect upon. and taught only two QtA lessons at this point in time.
One of the questions was: “Has participation in this
project changed my way of teaching in lessons other than Carol had nothing much to say about QtA in the
the ones with the prepared plans [QtA lessons]?” Start-of-Research interview except that in QtA one
All of the five teacher-participants gave affirmative questions the author. In this reflection she wrote: “I find
answers to the above question. According to Alison, that other than using QtA for my EL lessons, I
“When it comes to questioning technique, I am asking occasionally get pupils to ask: ‘Why is this Science
more ‘open’ questions and allowing the pupils to help concept written in this manner? So, is it clear?’”.
one another answer/respond to the discussions. At Evidentally, Carol was applying QtA to her Science
different points I am able to assess pupils’ understandings lesson. Like Yvonne, she also held on to certain habits –
and re-emphasise them rather than wait till the end of the getting her students to “summarise the main ideas of
lessons”. It is worthy to note that Alison had come to paragraphs” and “use annotations [make notes] when
realise that she needed not rely on students doing they are answering the questions”. She still believed that
worksheets after the reading lesson to assess her students’ “these skills are needed or will be useful during
comprehension of the text. She had disputed the examinations”. As a teacher who had been in the
traditional belief of many Singaporean English Language Singaporean examination-oriented educational scene for
teachers that having students do worksheets is the best thirteen years, it is not unexpected for her to still think of
form of assessing students’ understanding of a reading helping her students do well in their examinations.
text. Incidentally, in QtA, summarising is one of the moves
made by the teacher but in Carol’s case, it was done by
Brian had also begun to ask more open-ended her students. Hence, Carol was not far off from using
questions and had had his students to discuss more. He QtA in that aspect.
found that “the discussions became more interesting and
fruitful and the pupils were more participative”. The most
striking change was that he also transformed the way he C. Written Reflections on Reading/QtA lesson (Year 2)
questioned pupils, “even for Maths and Science”. Being After conducting their regular reading or fifth QtA
able to apply the strategies learnt for English Language lesson, the teacher-participants were given a reflection
teaching to other subjects is an accomplishment for the sheet. Among the questions, the ones on the overall
teacher-participant and a success for the research team. lesson to reflect on were:
a). What are the main things that you remember about the
Anita had similarly given her students more lesson? (What was happening at those points?)
opportunities to discuss with their peers and also with b) Why are those points memorable?
her. As a result, her lessons had become livelier. She also
tapped on students’ prior knowledge in relation to the

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 Int. J. Bilin. Mult. Teach. Eng.4, No.1 , 25-31 (July-2016) 29

c) In what way(s) might those points change your was again very supportive of the use of QtA in this
thinking about the lesson? QtA? Teaching reading particular reflection. Equally positive in this reflection
comprehension? was Carol. Carol had made great progress in the span of
two years. She started off having nothing much to say
All the teacher-participants chose to reflect on their about QtA but one year later she definitely knew more
QtA lessons. By Year 2, the number of Generation 1 about it and saw the value of this approach of teaching.
teachers was reduced by one as Yvonne had left the Initially, she was not confident that she could handle her
school then. Below are the reflections of the remaining students’ spontaneous responses to the QtA queries
teacher-participants: because she was more comfortable with the IRE
approach but at this point of the research, she was excited
Brian: “I do sincerely feel that QtA is the way to go about her students posing queries about the texts. The
for reading lessons. It really encourages interactions observations of her lessons confirmed her improvement
and discussions among pupils and teachers … The too.
teacher in a QtA lesson really becomes a facilitator Anita wrote in her reflections mentioned in Section
and does not just spoon-feed his pupils. The pupils 4B that she allowed for discussions in her class and again
will be trained to think independently and make in this reflection it could be inferred that she got her
enquiries of their own”. students to think and discuss the text again. However, she
still lacked confidence in teaching reading using the QtA
Carol: I am positive that given time, I would like to approach. This is a point for all education practitioners
explore texts using QtA and bring them [students] to who want to embark on professional development to take
whole new dimension of reflective thinking and note. To fully embrace a new teaching method takes time
analysing. and support.

Anita: Teaching this QtA lesson was good for this Alison mentioned some of her challenges. These
passage [reading text] because it gets me and the kids challenges are real especially for a teacher, like many
to think beyond what is written, i.e. to read in others, who was used to the IRE approach of questioning.
between the lines. When I was coming up with the Time management is also an aspect to look into for a QtA
major understandings for each chunk, I was lesson, but it will become better with experience.
wondering if they would be too difficult for the
pupils, but is seemed like they got it. My confidence
in teaching a good QtA lesson is still 75%. For most 5. DISCUSSION
times, I think I am still wondering whether or not I One of the purposes of this research was to introduce
have done things the ‘right way’. I suppose there is no to the teacher-participants QtA so that they could inject
other way of gaining confidence other than reading, more discussions into their reading lessons and that the
watching and conducting more QtA lessons. students in turn could negotiate for meaning as they
discussed the reading texts. The findings of this study had
Alison: QtA is one strategy which allows pupils to proven that after using QtA in their lessons, the teacher-
see the text as authentically an expression of the participants did generate more discussions between them
author and not just a mere text to read. Therefore, it is and their students, and among the students too. They had
natural not to understand certain ideas … Instead also encouraged the students to think at a higher level.
pupils are encouraged to clarify through questioning.
However, the challenge for me as a facilitator is to be In this study, QtA had positive outcomes on students
patient and listen to every pupil’s response and to in the non-western part of the world where students are
figure out any misunderstanding. Responding to the seemingly quieter and less responsive than their
pupils’ answers so as to make clarification and not counterparts in the west. It had also worked well for
going off track is also quite a task for me. students who were weak in the English Language and
who came from multilingual backgrounds. Alison’s class
All the four teacher-participants had positive was a case in point. Alison thought that letting her
feedback on QtA. As compared to what they knew about students know that the author was not perfect would
QtA during the Start-of-Research Interview, they were boost the students’ confidence in their reading ability.
definitely more knowledgeable as to what QtA was all Her weak students indeed gained confidence in speaking
about at this point in the second year of the intervention. up so much so that she found it a challenge to be patient
Brian was already positive about QtA when he wrote his to listen to their responses. This parallels the response of
reflections mentioned in Section 4B of this paper, and he a fourth-grade teacher whom McKeown, Beck and

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 30 Jessie Png: Questioning the Author: English Language Teachers’ Perspectives

Worthy worked with. She was delighted to see that 6. CONCLUSION

during her lessons, the discussions were “being led The author of this paper has presented the views of
mostly by two students who were the lowest achievers in the teachers who had planned and carried out QtA
her class” (McKeown, Beck, & Worthy, 1993, p. 565). lessons over a period of two years. These teachers had
That teacher believed that QtA had helped “previously testified to the benefits of using QtA, an approach that
unreachable students to become engaged in reading and was new to them, to analyse the author’s ideas in texts.
discussion” (McKeown, et al., 1993, p. 565). They witnessed their students reading the texts more
closely and discussing more than they did before the
If QtA works for the English Language lessons, it can research. These teachers had gone beyond the IRE
also work for lessons conducted in other languages. As a approach of teaching reading comprehension. They had
matter of fact, it can also be carried out in other subjects. also proven that a teaching instrument originated from
Teacher-participant Brian employed some of the QtA the West can be used in non-western classrooms.
queries and moves in his Mathematics and Science
lessons, and Carol tried that in her Science lessons. Beck, Acknowledgment
McKeown and her team experimented QtA with a Social This research project was funded by the Office of
Studies class. Educational Research, National Institute of Education,
Singapore.
Implementing new teaching methods comes with its
challenges. In the second year of this study, teacher- REFERENCES
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