What is Referential Questions

Guiding classroom interaction with appropriate pedagogical goals could be one of the most important means of creating learning opportunities for students. If interactional practices respond to the goal of teaching the L2, they can be used as pedagogical models to be applied in language teacher education. Making teachers aware of the skills, competences, and dynamics developed in classroom interaction can help them to improve teaching and learning. Within this framework, this chapter explores EFL classroom interaction and analyses students' reactions to different types of questions and feedback by the teacher. Participants belong to two groups of students in their last year at high school (N=63). Eight EFL lessons were analysed focusing on the language skills used. The results concerning questions show that students replied more to display questions and to questions for reason, for opinion, and metacognitive questions. The findings concerning feedback show that students reacted more to recast. The chapter concludes with an overview on likely applications to language teacher education.