Speaker
Description
Effective vocabulary instruction necessitates that teachers employ questioning techniques to facilitate both meaningful communication and cognitive growth (Chin, 2007; Salmon & Barrera, 2021; Ye et al., 2025). Nevertheless, a discrepancy often arises between teachers’ beliefs and their actual practices in the classroom (Basturkmen, 2012; Borg, 2017; Duong, 2024; Mardali & Siyyari, 2019), especially among less experienced teachers who face particular classroom limitations. This study explores the questioning practices of novice English teachers in teaching vocabulary instruction within the Vietnamese high school EFL settings. This study also investigates their pedagogical beliefs and the extent of alignment between these beliefs and actual practices. Using an exploratory research design, the research gathered data from five novice EFL teachers through video/audio-recorded classroom observations, as well as semi-structured interviews. The observational data were systematically coded and analyzed across four key dimensions: cognitive levels, question formats, question functions, and questioning strategies. The findings revealed that a notable 99% of questions operated at a lower-order cognitive level, reflecting a highly teacher-centered classroom discourse. Teachers relied on closed questions (34%), display questions (43%), and procedural or management questions to assess recall and regulate the lessons’ flow. Although Question-Planning and Question-Controlling strategies were employed, their primary function was to prompt verbal responses and assess fundamental comprehension. The integration of interview and observation data through joint display analysis revealed that while teachers’ beliefs and practices matched regarding checking basic understanding, notable mismatches occurred in scaffolding, building exam skills, and stimulating deeper thinking. The discussion suggests that this disparity between beliefs and practices did not arise from a deficiency in pedagogical understanding; rather, it was a consequence of a “pedagogical compromise” (Ye et al., 2025) necessitated by “ecological constraints” (Ye et al., 2025), including strict time limits, densely packed curricula, and students’ restricted language proficiency.
Biography
Huong Quynh Tran (Ph.D) is a lecturer and teacher trainer at the Faculty of English at HNUE for over 20 years. Her expertise spans English language teaching methodology, ICT in education and teacher professional development, with research focused on classroom interaction and English teacher education.
Lan Phuong Do is a recent graduate of the Faculty of English, Hanoi National University of Education. She has experience teaching EFL learners from different grade levels and preparing students for the IELTS examination at language centres. Her research focuses on English language teaching methodology and classroom interaction.
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