English language teachers' development of questioning skills: A study of classroom-based mentoring

Given the challenging nature of effective teacher questioning, teachers often need support in asking more learning-conducive questions. However, little research has explored how professional development initiatives could contribute to language teachers’ effective questioning practices and the cognitions behind them. To address this gap, the present study explored the contributions of a classroom-based mentoring initiative to three Hong Kong English-language teachers’ development of questioning skills, drawing on a microgenetic analysis perspective. Data included rounds of teacher–mentor conversations and semi-structured interviews conducted with the teachers at the end of the program. Data analyses showed that as the teachers became better at identifying question types and provided increasingly sophisticated reasoning for their questioning practices, they gradually increased their talk in mentoring sessions, whereas the mentor's talk decreased. Furthermore, the teachers reported heightened awareness of questioning's contributions to student learning and a shift toward dialogic questioning, which they associated with increased student engagement and enjoyment. We discuss the implications of these findings for language teachers and teacher educators regarding how questioning can be integrated into mentoring initiatives to improve teachers’ questioning skills.