An investigation of teachers’ questions as a tool to feature social constructivism in sociolinguistics lessons: a case study in a Vietnamese university

Abstract

Social constructivism has been proved to be an effective approach toward learner-centered lessons and active learning with the essential role of teachers’ quality questions to trigger discussions. This research study was conducted at a private university in Vietnam where social constructivism has been implemented in Sociolinguistics for English-majored students with constructivist questions contributed by lecturers and attached to the official syllabus. This paper aims to analyze those questions using four criteria of constructivism to shed light on how the ready-made questions correlate with the social constructivist criteria in the implementation of lessons of Sociolinguistics for English majored students. Analysis results show that elicitation questions and non-constructive questions dominate at 31 percent each while reflection questions comprise a modest 3 percent. The study results imply a pattern for teachers’ quality questions together with suggested examples in the subject of Sociolinguistics so that they can authentically serve as useful tools to foster features of a social constructivist classroom.

Keywords

• Social constructivism
• teachers’ questions
• sociolinguistics
• English as a second/ foreign language
• active learning
• Bilingualism / ESL