Has this ever happened to you? “Any questions, class?” [...crickets...] If you’ve spent any time in the classroom, you’ve surely grown to appreciate the rare student who asks the right question, the one that cuts to the heart of what you’re trying to convey. Worth their weight in gold, they are!
Wouldn’t it be great if you could get students asking the right questions regularly? What if I told you there was an “extraordinarily clear, low-tech, practical intellectual tool” for getting students to ask, not just any questions, but the right questions? That’s precisely the claim made by the book “Make Just One Change” by Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana.
In this presentation, I will relate my experiences this semester of trying to implement this “one change” in a student journalism project of upper-intermediate EFL students at Kochi University. I’ll explain where the “Question Formation Technique” idea comes from, how it works, and why it is a tool that probably belongs in every teacher’s toolbox, no matter the class.
Bio: Davey Leslie has been teaching English in Japan since 1992. He currently teaches at Kochi University.
