Teachers’ Questioning Behaviour in EFL Classes in Higher Education Institutions at Wolkite University, Ethiopia

: The objective of this study was to investigate teachers’ questioning behaviour in EFL classes in Higher Education Institutions at Wolkite University in Ethiopia. The study was a descriptive case study with a mixed-methods approach, but mainly qualitative. Data were collected through classroom observations, interviews and questionnaires. The participants of the study were English language teachers and first-year students of Wolkite University. A simple random sampling technique was used to select and observe seven teachers. Each class was observed twice. A purposive sampling technique was also employed to select the seven sample teachers for interviews. Besides, 31 EFL teachers, who were selected purposefully, filled in the questionnaire. Furthermore, 230 students were taken from the target classes through a stratified sampling technique. Of these, fourteen students (i.e., two students from each observed class) who were randomly chosen were interviewed face-to-face. The findings were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively. The qualitative data were analysed using open Code 4.02 and corpus analysis toolkit (AntConc) software programs, and for the quantitative data, percentages were used. The result of the study showed that EFL teachers largely utilised close-ended/display types of questions in the classes. The findings also showed that learners’ outputs were related to the types of questions that teachers utilised. The finding further indicated that when learners were asked open-ended and/or referential questions, their utterances were longer and more complex for they strived to clarify their outputs and negotiate the meanings with their interlocutors. Moreover, it was found that when teachers opted for closed-ended/display questions, learners’ oral contributions were so simple, short, and restricted, and often comprising one or two words. The findings also suggest that the formulation of questions should be given emphasis in the English language methodology courses. Finally, it would be useful if such research undertakings are conducted at different levels of the educational system of the country. More importantly, teacher-training institutes would benefit if some research on teachers questioning behaviour is carried out.


Background of the Study
In a teaching and learning process, teachers often engage in the use of questioning skills for any type of teaching purpose. Teacher's questions become the main tool to achieve the teaching and learning goals [20]. To elicit the students' responses and encourage their participation in the EFL class, teachers as one of the teaching techniques to initiate classroom talk frequently use questions. Questions potentially make students engaged to speak because questioning produces oral interaction between teachers and students. When a teacher asks, students who know the answer will try to respond.
English as a foreign language learners can perform and participate in classroom activities by answering their teacher's questions. EFL students responding strategy is a learning opportunity in which they are presumed to devote to thinking and producing comprehensible output, testing their hypotheses about how the language works, and modifying their output when getting negative feedback.
Through questions, the talk in the EFL classes will be created in the classroom [26,27]. The talk will be dominating during the teaching and learning process so the discussion is created between teacher and students questioning and answering mechanisms. In this regard, [6,31,[17][18][19] state that in language education, teachers should direct students to question, provide them to think at a high level, enhance students' participation, and improve their listening ability. Teachers' questioning also stimulates students to speak because teachers are found to speak more frequently in questions while students will speak in answers [10] Therefore, students can practise speaking English properly when answering the teachers' questions. In addition, their speaking ability will improve through responding to the questions. In fact, effective questioning techniques can foster students to respond; but can this get practically applicable in the EFL classrooms. However, this research investigated how questioning and answering exchanges facilitated and/or hindered learning in EFL classes. The purpose of this research is, therefore, to investigate EFL teachers' questioning behaviour in the EFL classes.

Statement of the Problem
How teachers ask questions affects their students listening comprehension and output. Actually, teachers' questions do not always successfully encourage students to respond. This problem is caused by, maybe, many factors. One of the factors is that English remains an unfamiliar language for most students in Ethiopia. Students do not have exposure outside the classroom and the classroom is, probably, the only source of the language; it makes them difficult to understand the lesson as well. Hence, asking unclear questions will make students more confused and silent. Besides, the type of question EFL teachers forward matters for the effectiveness of the teachinglearning process to be successful.
However, many instructors in higher institutions in Ethiopia, including EFL teachers complain that students at different levels including during questioning and answering exchanges lack the expected command of English proficiency in general and speaking proficiency in particular when they ask [28,16,17,30].
In connection to this, the researcher's English language teaching experience at higher education has shown him that students have difficulties in responding to questions. He observed this from his personal classroom contact with those students and the subsequent low scores these EFL students get in oral presentations and/or defenses sessions, confrontational debates, and oral tests and examinations. The common problem of EFL classrooms is that EFL classes are usually faced with non-interactive learners who are frequently unresponsive to questions and avoid interacting with their teachers. Most of the students keep quiet and do not respond to the teachers' questions. This unresponsive behaviour of the students may happen due to different reasons, but its consequence is the deficiency in speaking skills [15,16]. [36] also assert that EFL classes end up with a boring question and answer exchange between the teacher and a few actively participating students.
There are some studies, which were conducted in Ethiopia to investigate EFL teachers' questioning behaviour at different levels. For instance, [14] studied the questioning strategies that EFL teachers and learners were practising. The result depicted that the strategies were not properly implemented in the EFL classes. Besides, [28] investigated the relationship between uptake and classroom questioning behaviour and he found that teachers frequently asked students without the willingness of learners to respond. Moreover, from the researcher's informal observation while he was teaching Communicative English Skills, students were often quiet and evidently unresponsive to the teachers' questions. Unless manifested through scientific study, this is difficult to accept. This means that the issue needs deep scientific investigation. Therefore, no research has investigated teachers' questioning behaviour at higher education levels, in EFL classes in the Ethiopian context. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate teachers' questioning behaviour in EFL classes and its influence on the development of students' oral performance.

General Objective
The general objective of this study was to investigate the nature of English language teachers' questioning behaviour in EFL classes at Wolkite University.

Specific Objectives
The specific objectives of this study were to: a. Investigate teachers' oral questioning behaviour; b. Identify the types of questions EFL teachers were asking

Research Questions
The study attempted to answer the following research questions: a. What sort of questioning behaviour do teachers utilize? b. What types of questions EFL teachers were asking?

Significance of the Study
This study is helpful from theoretical and practical perspectives. Insights gained from studies on teachers' questioning behaviour may enhance mutual understanding between teachers and students in EFL classrooms. Moreover, the study could help the ELT communities, researchers and practitioners to decide where to focus before making a further step in changing the nature of the question and answer exchanges in the classroom. It could also provide EFL curriculum designers, material producers and teachers with useful theoretical contributions about the practices of oral discourse and learners' interaction (questioning) in EFL classrooms. Besides, it can fill in a gap in the EFL classroom research context about how teachers interact with students through questioning and answering exchanges. Furthermore, it may be a springboard for further research on the area.

Scope of the Study
The study was thematically delimited to teachers' questioning behavior, and how students replied to these questions in Communicative English Skills course classes, and its role in the development of students' oral performance focusing on the 2017/18 academic year first-year students at Wolkite University. Thus, the study was delimited on Communicative English Skills course classroom and first-year students. Teachers and students who taught and took the course, respectively, were the participants of the study. Lastly, the aforementioned research setting was selected because of the researcher's familiarity and acquaintance with the area, and it is believed that colleagues could cooperate to make the study obtrusive.

Limitations of the Study
The data collection and analyses were carried out with caution to ensure the reliability and validity of the study. However, there were some limitations. Firstly, the study was conducted only in one university. So caution must be taken when attempting to generalise the findings to the larger populations in the Ethiopian higher education context. Secondly, it was planned to observe eleven teachers' classes, but four teachers did not volunteer to be observed.

The Research Design
The purpose of this research was to investigate EFL teachers' and students' questioning and answering exchanges in Communicative English skills classes in Higher Education institutions in Ethiopia. The study is a descriptive case study. It endeavours to explore what goes on between non-native English teachers working with their EFL speaking students in a tertiary level institution in Ethiopia [33,34]. The rationale for mixed methods is that it offers a potentially more comprehensive means of legitimizing findings than do either QUAL or QUAN methods alone by allowing investigators to assess information from both data types [7,9]. This study, specifically, employed a concurrent triangulation approach, which is probably the most familiar major mixed methods. The triangulation design is a one-phase design in which the researcher implements the qualitative and quantitative methods during the same timeframe and with equal weight; however, priority may be given to either. In other words, in a concurrent triangulation approach, the researcher collects both qualitative and quantitative data concurrently and then supports each other to determine if there is convergence, difference, or some combination.

Research Site, Population and Sampling
The research site was Wolkite University, which is located in Gurage Zone, Southern Nations and Nationalities, Ethiopia. It is 158 km far from Addis Ababa. The total number of students enrolled in the 2017/18 academic year was three thousand twelve. The target populations of the study were EFL teachers' who taught the Communicative English Skills course in the 2017/18 academic year and their first-year students' of the same year. The University was selected because it is convenient for the researcher, and a clear elucidation is made to describe the participants and the sampling techniques below.

Teachers
The total population of English language teachers during the 2017/18 academic year was forty-three. From these, five teachers who were included in the pilot study were excluded from the main study. To determine the sample size of teachers for classroom observation, a simple random sampling technique was employed, and through this sampling technique, seven teachers who were teaching Communicative English Skills course in the University were chosen. Through a simple random sampling technique, a class was chosen for classroom observations. These teachers' classes were recorded, videotaped and observed for an average of forty minutes'. Each classroom was observed twice. Purposefully, thirty-one teachers who were teaching the course filled in the questionnaire. Lastly, there was also an interview for teachers, and for this interview, purposively selected seven teachers whose classrooms observed in advance were selected, and they were interviewed face-to-face.

Students
The total population of first-year students in the University in the 2017/18 academic year was three thousand twelve. For the interview, fourteen students were randomly selected: two interviewees from each teacher's class. These fourteen students were selected randomly through the lottery method. The total number of students interviewed was fourteen. Classes of these participants were observed in advance. The type of interview was semi-structured, and they were interviewed face-to-face. For the questionnaire, 230 students were selected from the seven teachers' classes where the observations were made first through a stratified sampling technique. In other words, the seven teachers taught these students. Thus, these departments were different and the number of students varies from department to department. During selection, to avoid biases, the researcher used a stratified sampling technique and they were taken randomly considering their proportion. These departments were:

Data Gathering Instruments
In order to collect the necessary data, three different instruments were employed. These were observation, questionnaire and interview. To check the reliability and validity of the data gathering instruments, experts in the field, specifically people who are TEFL and Behavioral Sciences scholars, commented on each tool. These scholars were Associate Professors and PhD holders in TEFL. After noticing constructive comments that were given by these experts, the data collecting tools were modified.

Classroom Observation
To investigate teachers' questioning behaviour in EFL classes, classroom observations were used. The primary purpose of this observation was to collect data related to what phenomena are going on during the teaching and learning process, and how students are responding to the given questions in EFL classes. It was believed that this tool is salient to obtain data that represent actual classroom behaviour. Bhandarkar and Wilkinson (1999), cited in (14), stated that compared to other methods of data collection, observation is important to record behaviours as it occurs. Added to this, observation techniques yield data that pertain directly to a typical behavioural situation. The above authors asserted that using classroom observation is the most appropriate research method for studying specific information about classroom behaviours. As (12, 1) added that observational studies allow a researcher to see directly what happens, rather than depending on the respondents. Besides, [14], stressed that we should include observation of classrooms in any study of practises, then after one can gain some knowledge of factual, rather than reported behaviour. Moreover, to understand FL/L2 production, we must observe the utterance-building process as it unfolds in real-time [22].
The observation was done using checklists adapted from the Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories (FIAC) and Foreign Language interaction system (Flint), which is designed for the foreign language classroom contexts. The researcher and the other two co-observers using the checklists made the observations. Checklists facilitate organising well observations [25]. Before the actual observation, the researcher trained the co-observers on how to observe and tally using the designed checklists for the study, which is adapted from Flanders's analysis of teaching behaviour and Moskowitz's Foreign Language interaction analysis system (FLint) in [2,35]. For the observation, an inter-observer agreement was done, and a high level of interobserver reliability result (i.e., 0.947) was obtained.
Allwright & Bailey [2] and Brown [3] consider Moskowitz's FLint system is known as the most widely used modification (for language pedagogy) of Flanders' interaction analysis categories. To observe the ongoing classroom oral performance critically, lessons were observed and recorded using audio-video recordings. During these periods, notes were taken on classroom behaviours that were happening during the teaching-learning process and considered relevant to the purpose of the study. Written notes from the live classroom observation lead to a salient theme [25]. Thus, from the total classes that the sampled teacher was teaching, one class, which was randomly selected, was observed twice. If classes are observed repeatedly, artificial behaviours can be minimized [32]. So, seven different teachers were observed. A given classroom observation took an average of forty minutes. This was done after identifying lists of classes that an instructor was teaching. Classes were observed after getting permission from the participants. Participants were not informed of the date and the target classrooms that need to be observed specifically. This helps to get genuine information from classes observed without prior informed participants, and classes should be observed naturally [2]. However, due to some official interventions like DC urgent meetings made during the observation times, three classes were observed more than twice. This was done to compensate for the interrupted observations.

Teachers' Questionnaire
Responses obtained through the questionnaire gave insights into the respondents' understanding of teachers' questioning and students' response behaviour in EFL classes. To strengthen and crosscheck the data gathered from observation, the questionnaire was prepared. In preparing the questionnaire, attempts were made to include different behaviours and practise of teachers' questioning behaviour. The items were prepared from the literature. The types of items (on a Likert scale) were both close-ended and openended. To avoid respondents' unwillingness to respond to the questionnaire, a closed-ended questionnaire seemed to be pertinent as compared to open-ended questions, which may take much of their time [13]. Rating Likert scale was also found to be the best working technique to measure the extent of teachers' behavioural opinions and/or views in teaching the target language. Furthermore, they point out that rating scale is widely used in researches as they allow the researcher to mix measurement with "opinion, quantity and quality" (p. 257). The questionnaire was scaled based on the Likert measurement system with a five-point ranging from (1) never, (2) rarely (3) sometimes (4) often (5) always. This scale was piloted and it was found to be appropriate to the descriptive categories selected. Items were categorised thematically based on the basic research questions of the study. Lastly, there are also a few open-ended questions included in line with the objectives of the study.

Students' Questionnaire
The study also employed students' questionnaires. The questionnaire was prepared to gather data about the students' interaction during the lesson and their perceptions towards the behaviour of teachers' questioning behaviour in EFL classes. Besides, it assisted to elicit whether teachers' questions create input or not. It helped to triangulate the data obtained from the teachers' questionnaire, classroom observations and interviews. The types of questions were both close-ended (using a Likert scale) and open-ended.
Items were categorised thematically based on the idea of the basic research questions of the study. Concerning the response accuracy of the questionnaires, among the total number of questionnaires (230) distributed, it was 218 questionnaires filled in properly and returned to the researcher. Five questionnaires were not returned from the participants and the rest seven were discarded because these questionnaires were incomplete.

Teachers' Interview
Through interviews, it was possible to gather information using the other instruments that were not possible to gather through observations [21]. It helped to elicit the teachers' indepth opinions about their classroom questions when teaching and their opinions towards the interaction. Besides, it was intended to depict from the teachers' behaviours that they may consider affecting their actual classroom questioning and interaction processes in providing necessary input for learners [6]. In the study, semi-structured interviews were used. The data obtained from this tool served to elaborate on and verify the findings obtained from other data gathering tools. Interviews with teachers were conducted a few days after finishing classroom observations. The reason was for fear of leading them to make a conscious effort to change their teaching behaviour. Thus, thirteen interview questions in line with the research themes were prepared. Thus, face-to-face interviews were conducted with seven instructors (whose classrooms were observed) about their practises and perceptions about classroom talk. The interview process was continued until the data saturation level was secured.

Students' Interview
Similarly, there was an interview for students on those research themes designed for this study. The type of interview was semi-structured. Interviewing allows access to a wide variety of information in-depth and quickly with the possibility of follow-up and clarification [29]. In this regard, [4] added that in semi-structured interviews, the researcher is free to probe areas of interest and pursue the main concerns and issues identified by the research participant. In this type of interview, he added that interviewees are capable of expressing answers in their own words, without the restrictions associated with structured interviews. The information gained from this interview helped to ensure the data obtained from other tools. Therefore, eleven semistructured interview items were designed in the English language for students, and face-to-face interviews were conducted with randomly selected fourteen students regarding questioning and answering exchanges in the EFL classroom. The interviewing process continued until the data saturation level was obtained.

Data Collection Procedures
The researcher followed definite procedures in the process of data collection. Before directly proceeding to the actual classroom observation, the researcher agreed with the participants of the research on the observation procedures.
Participants were asked to read and agree or disagree with the classroom observation consent forms. Based on these forms, they were given to read and show their willingness to be audio and video recorded while the teaching-learning process was in progress. After getting consent from both teachers and students, the researcher and the co-observers went to the classrooms and mock-recorded observations were made twice. This was done to create familiarity with the observation and minimise artificial behaviours. Then, when students realised the easiness of the observation, the next step was preparing for the main classroom observation.
Data collection endeavours were commenced with classroom observation. For capturing behaviours, the observers sat at the back of the classroom to observe the participants. At the end of each three seconds [11], the observers had to decide which category best represents the communication events just completed [2,11]. The category numbers were written down on the data sheet simultaneously to assess communication in the next period and continued at a rate of 20 to 25 observations per minute. In addition, notes were used to explain the class formation or any unusual circumstances. Care was given during observations to be as discreet and inconspicuous as possible. Based on the designed observation checklists, the observer and the coobservers tallied and marked the different components of observed classroom behaviours. The value of these variables explained the teacher's classroom behaviour in different manners and helped to categorise behaviours in the light of the foreign language interaction analysis system. After the classroom observation, the questionnaires were distributed to both teachers and students, and finally, interviews were conducted face-to-face.

Techniques of Data Analysis
The data, as discussed above, were collected through classroom observation, questionnaires and interviews. Before the data were analysed, they were categorised based on themes in connection to the research questions of the study. Then, they were sorted out qualitatively and quantitatively. The data gathered from the classroom observations and the researcher verbatim transcribed interviews, and then fellow PhD students checked the transcribed data. Verbatim transcription was made by the researcher to expose him to the data. Transcription was also made for students' interviews by the same. Then, expositions to the audio and video data as well as the transcription were made to two PhD candidates to crosscheck the authentication of the transcription. This was made to secure the face validity of the transcription.
The data obtained from interviews were coded using an open code 4.02 software program, although there are no set guidelines for coding data, some general procedures exist [7,8]. The process of segmenting and labelling text to form descriptions and broad themes in the data was done through the above-mentioned software program. The aim of this coding process was to make sense out of text data, divide it into text or image segments, label the segments with codes, examine codes for overlap and redundancy, and collapse these codes into broad themes. In the process, the researcher selected specific data to use and disregard other data that do not specifically provide evidence for the purpose of the study.
Besides, the corpus analysis toolkit (AntConc) software program, which is from the Corpus Linguistics type, was used to analyse and count spe*cific behaviours needed in relation to the research questions of the study. AntConc is free software, multi-platform application, making data ideal for researchers. It is designed for specific use in the classroom that includes a powerful concordancer, word and keyword frequency generators, tools for cluster and lexical bundle analysis and word distribution plot. It helped the researcher easily find those keywords and/or themes given to search and through critically reading the transcriptions, the behaviours were counted.
According to [8], the qualitative and quantitative data were analysed independently as the study employed a mixedmethods approach. This was done to elucidate each component, minimise the influence of one component on the role of the other and obtain substantiated findings. In this regard, [8] recommends this approach, and the analysis of the data should proceed independently for the QUAL and quan phases and mixing should occur only at the final interpretation stages. In many cases, it may be better to keep the analyses separate and only to mix the QUAL and quan results at a late[r] stage to illuminate and corroborate each other. Validating this, [7,8] notes that the mixing of the quantitative and qualitative data analyses finding in the concurrent triangulation research design is usually done at the interpretation or discussion section. Hence, the analyses of the qualitative and quantitative data were made separately, and the findings were merged as recommended by these scholars at the end of the discussion section. In short, the qualitative data was transcribed and the verbatim transcription accounts were thematically analysed. In order to uncover the meanings of the data, the researcher followed Dorneyi's classification of data analysis. The analytical processes that the researcher has followed in the study at hand are in short transcribing the data, coding, categorising, producing derived data (tentative interpretation) and interpreting the data obtained from open code 4.02 software.
Therefore, after the observation and interview data were organised thematically, it was analysed qualitatively by taking extracts from the observation's transcribed data of the patterns of interaction, and from the open code 4.02 thematic categories of the interview data in line with the specific research questions of the study.
Regarding the quantitative data, the SPSS version 22 software program was used, and then data were analysed using simple descriptive statistics of frequencies and percentages. In short, this research followed the QUAL + quan procedure to analyse the data obtained from classroom observations and interviews followed by the analysis of the quantitative data. Thus, first, the data obtained from classroom observations and interviews were analysed followed by the analysis of the quantitative data that was obtained from both teachers' and students' questionnaires. Data obtained from observations and interviews were merged and analysed together to validate, strengthen and support each other, and the data obtained from the teachers and students' questionnaires were analysed separately, and then the findings obtained from the classroom observations, interviews and questionnaires were analysed and triangulated in the discussion part.

Findings and Analyses of Questioning Behaviour
This part analysis and discusses, the data obtained from classroom observations, questionnaires and interviews. The data was collected from EFL teachers and students. Both the qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed and interpreted separately and merged in the discussion part at the end. Teacher A's classroom discourse was dominated by the question-and-answer routines with the teacher asking questions as one of the principal ways in which he controlled the discourse (see episode 1.1 above). In the case of teacher A, many of the question types selected and used were of closed-variety so that learners produced short responses. After examining the recorded lessons, it was realised that on many occasions teachers could ask a chain of questions from a given oral response produced by their students. That is, once students interacted with their teachers throughout answering a given question, they tried many times to drag them in a course of negotiation of meaning by addressing other questions.
Despite the teacher's attempts (Teacher 'A') to make the lesson communicative, the nature of questions forwarded was a display in type (see the above episodes). This teacher aimed to produce genuine responses than restricted and simple responses. The extent to which a question produces a communicative response is less important than the extent to which a question serves its purpose at a particular point in a lesson. Thus, initiation of ideas (questions) from the teacher, the response from students and feedback and/or evaluation (IRF/E), which is considered as a traditional sequence, was practised. In educational settings, 'instructional' sequences involve teachers asking, 'known information' questions, and providing evaluative feedback in the third turn. This sequence can stagnate classroom learning. The classrooms were characterised by IRF/E sequences. The exchange comprised two teacher moves for every single student move. At the most rudimentary level, IRE sequences are a quick way of gauging students' knowledge on a topic. Therefore, either teachers were evaluating their students' response on the forms of the language, or they were moving on simply without commenting on the learners' response. The next extract shows this behaviour.

was taken from Teacher A)
In turn 69 above, the student gave long and extended responses, and in turn 70 the teacher accepted the reply which was right and praised the replier. After that, the teacher structured the lesson "if you go to the second point, what drinks are given to babies who are not breast feed?" … the teacher could have said [are not breast-feeding/do not breastfeed] the teacher asked students' experience which can be categorised under 'display' question which did not let learners talk long and extended explanation. Genuine questions that the teacher did not know the answers were not asked in this classroom. This revealed that the teacher was asking display or 'rapid-fire' questions that restricted learners extended response and lead to short, incomplete and thoughtless answers. This, in turn, limits students' learning opportunities to practise orally.
In extract 1.1, the teacher nominated a student to give a response to the question asked. The chosen learner gave extended answers in turns 73, 77 & 79. In turn 80, after the teacher encouraged the respondent, he was structuring the next question; (i.e., in turn, 80) and nominated one student calling out his name. The teacher elaborated more on the question by giving extra and relevant clues to make it easily understood by learners. This is because the learner was struggling to respond appropriately to the teacher's prompt and question. However, not all teacher questions were clearly understood by students, and it seemed to realise this, the teacher rephrased and clarified his queries in turn 80 for a comprehension check.
The question that teacher A was raising in the classroom was more of display; however, the nature of the display and referential questions applied in the classroom possibly depends on the pedagogical purpose of the lesson. It looked that the use of referential questions stimulated much longer and syntactically more complex student responses than the use of display questions. Furthermore, teacher 'A' used two techniques to involve students during the question and answer exchanges. These were individual nomination and invitation to reply to the questions.
Teacher 'B' in class 2 almost did not address questions to his students. He took the floor to explain the concept and/or meaning and features of 'public speech' without involving learners in the process of meaning negotiation in question and answer exchanges, as is evident in teacher B's lesson transcription. The teacher asked no question; he explained the concept of public speech. In other words, the teacher was explaining ideas without trying to engage students in an interactional process. Students were not dragged into the process of meaning negotiation with their teacher; for as it is apparent from the episode, he monopolised and took control of the discourse. This teacher asked rhetorical questions, and of course, for such types of questions, learners are not expected to react, and these questions have less value in creating learning opportunities.
In all the observed classes, question and answer exchanges were the main instruments teachers employed to address their lessons. Below is an excerpt that shows when teacher 'B' answered differently for the question, asked by student 10. In turn 57, the learner asked a question and in turn 58, the teacher replied a bit differently. The teacher replied to combinations of both formal and informal greetings; however, the learner's question was to make clear about formal and informal greetings. This revealed that the learner did not get a proper response to his question because of the teacher's hedging reply. Extract

was taken from Teacher C)
The learners were interested to get the answer from their teacher in turns 57 and 59, but they could not get that because of the blurred response that was given by teacher 'C' on the formal and informal greeting responses which they had got from their teacher. The teacher could have explained it clearly in turn 60 instead of providing the learners about the types of greetings which was questioned in turn 59, despite the learner's question was to know the basic difference(s) between formal and informal greetings. The teacher himself missed the proper forms of the verb to be in turn 58 (which was mistaken) instead of saying "how are you" he said, 'how you' which is mistaken in structure. For this mistake, the record listened to repeatedly. In turn 62, Wolkite University, Ethiopia consciously or unconsciously, teacher 'C' uttered out 'I think…' that possibly indicates, as the teacher was not certain on the point that he was teaching.
In extract 1.3, Ayana asked a question in turn 77, and the students replied in a chunk in turn 79, "well-stay", which was the direct translation of L1. Nevertheless, the teacher kept quiet in correcting the mistake; however, in the next turn of his own, he responded to them, "thank you," and they might not make out it clearly. Therefore, the majority might take this reply of the teacher as acceptance. The teacher's questions were framed in a way that did not allow students to make extended responses as it can be seen in the utterance in turn 77. From this, one can realise that responding to chores may help learners' in many ways. First, everybody, especially reticent students, had got equal opportunities to talk. Second, they were less worried about making mistakes than being singled out to answer, as their incorrect replies were not easily identified among all the voices. Third, the students were able to get indirect help from each other by hearing their neighbours' replies. Nonetheless, all these points could be helpful if learners correctly responded to the given questions so that all these learners, as it is seen in turn 79, learned the wrong response to 'welcome', and the teacher is responsible for this, but he did not provide direct correction to the error. Extract

was taken from Teacher G)
In turn 79, when the learner replied "well-stay" as a correct way of response, which is the direct translation from L1, the teacher should not keep quiet. Implicitly teacher 'G' could have corrected the respondent when he said so though he approved the correct answer in turn 80 either implicit or explicit corrections were necessary to make the learner clear the wrong answer.
In turn 194 of the excerpt shown below, the teacher was angry due to the grammatical error that learner 36 made in turn 187. She made a gender inconsistency error, and the teacher in turn 194 criticised the learner. In turn 202, the teacher laughed at the learner's response because the teacher's expectation seemed to have more extended speeches than the short conversation done by the conversants (S39 & 40)

was taken from Teacher B)
The above interactions seemed more likely to occur when the initial move made by the teacher did not require a prescribed answer and where the learner had a chance to enter the discourse on their own say. In the examples given above, the students were the 'primary knowers' in that they possessed specific information (what happened in the group work that was how to introduce others) that the teacher did not have. Of course, it was the teacher who controlled the knowledge associated with the overall thematic development of the unit of work (i.e., how to introduce others), and who controlled the overall structure of the discourse such as initiating moves temporarily located that control in the student. They were the initiators of the specific topic of the exchange; however, the conversants confined and limited (student 41 in turn, 199) the exchanges that could have practised extensively. The teacher, in turn 202, was expected extended conversation, which should not be ceased for a while despite there were errors made in turns 193,197,198 and 199 about the correct verb forms of come. After that, he could not even tolerate and hide his laugh. At the very beginning, this teacher encouraged the whole class to create/bring any authentic type of topic that exists in the real world, but learners failed to do that. However, the teacher's trial was indeed encouraging. The effect seems to modify relations of power by shifting the location of knowledge onto the student, thereby modifying knowledge asymmetries and typical student-student(s) roles. In this classroom, teacherguided reporting episodes typically incorporated dialogic patterns of exchanges were made by learners that could be exemplary for EFL classes.
In the extract shown below, learners preferred to stay silent, (turn 60) to reply to the given question. It might be due to fear of making mistakes and thinking that classmates might laugh at them or they might not have the expected linguistic know-how. In turn 58, the teacher asked them a question, but learners kept silent, so he replied it himself in turn 61. Like the excerpt below, learners were sometimes unable to answer the teacher's questions on their first initiative. Therefore, question strategies (or follow-up strategies) may be effective in eliciting syntactically more complex and longer output.

was taken from Teacher G)
In this utterance, students preferred to be 'modest' by providing short answers to the display questions (for instance, in turn 57) so their classmates did not gain the impression that they showed off. Responding to teachers' spoken questions orally was crucial for the learners since teachers' question elicits learners' responses that demonstrate their linguistic knowledge and obtains maximum classroom participation. It is through the response teachers solicit that they can monitor students' progress and determine if the teaching-learning objectives have been achieved. In the above excerpts, the teacher could make the short responses given by the learners, for example, telling them to bring authentic classroom contexts and creating opportunities to practise the target language; however, he tried but failed to do that. During this time, he could have changed his way of instruction or he could have provided them with a sample.
In the subsequent excerpt, student-student exchanges were rare in teacher G's class and almost non-existent. The paucity of student-student(s) interactions made the students fail to see themselves as accountable for their peers' contributions as all the talk was directed to the teacher with the teacher as the sole recipient. The teacher tried to drag his learners' responses to every utterance they made. For instance, in turn 70, Shelema started to give a response and in turn 71, the teacher repeated the learner's utterance so that he could initiate and drag the learner into the classroom discourse. The advantages of these types of discourse repetition were useful for learners who were unable to listen to what the earlier speaker had said. It might be re-listened whenever repetition was made, and perhaps implicit corrections can be addressed.

Teachers' Interview
Face-to-face interviews were conducted with seven Communicative English Skills course instructors working at Wolkite University in connection with their practises and perceptions about their talk in the class. In this section, the findings and analyses of the data gained from these seven teachers through interviews are presented. For ease of analyses, the participant teachers were coded from T1 through T7.
Teachers were interviewed about the question types they utilised in the EFL classes. In this regard, T1 said, "Most of the time if I want my students to practise the language or certain expressions, I raise open-ended questions, but to be frank I never ask my students open-ended/referential questions". This revealed that referential questions that the teacher does not know the answer to, but students know were not asked in the classes, as is evident in the lesson transcriptions. The result gained from the observation also proved that teachers often asked close-ended/display types of questions.
T3 added that students were submissive and quiet in language classrooms because of such reasons as their inability to understand concepts, fear of losing face, the passive learning styles they were accustomed to, lack of preparation before coming to class and their perceived linguistic ability. Moreover, he added that very few students were willing to involve individually in class, while many more expressed their willingness to participate in pair and group activities, despite they used L1 (Amharic) in the given discussions.

Students' Interview
In addition to teachers' interviews, there was also students' interview about their perceptions on the practice of classroom questioning types and opportunities gained to practise the target language. Fourteen students were interviewed face-toface individually. Many of them preferred closed-ended questions due to the nature of short and precise responses. They added that EFL teachers asked them often display types of questions that limited their extended response. They confirmed that EFL teachers were not frequently asking them open/referential types of questions, which lead them to negotiate with each other. Teachers were also criticised by these interviewees when they randomly select a student to give a response to the inquired question. During this time, learners prefer a teacher who asked and gave chance only for volunteer respondents. Learners poor command of the English language coerced them to prefer closed/display types of questions to open-ended types. Student 1 said that EFL teachers relied on closed-ended questions, which require 'yes' and 'no' responses. The most intriguing factors determining the quality and quantity of learners' output was the types of questions teachers utilised.
When teachers asked open-ended questions, responses could be long and extended. However, if long answers were provided, grammatical errors could be increased.
The interview results also showed that (interviewee 2, 4, 5, 6 & 7) teachers moved on to another respondent if none of the respondents did offer a response to the given question. If the selected student kept quiet, EFL teachers could reply themselves. Interviewee 3 also stated that most of the time the teacher encouraged learners to give a response if students kept quiet after the teacher asked them a question. Some of the interviewees also suggested that their teachers gave them some clues to respond to the given question. This implied that teachers encouraged and provided clues for learners to take part in the question and answer exchanging time and arriving at the exact answer by scaffolding the learners' effort to respond. The result obtained from the questionnaire and observation confirmed this finding. Student 7 described that the EFL teacher simply preferred silence when a student made a grammar error. Students were not certain whether the given response was correct or not. The teacher would simply continue the lesson unless some 'clever' classmates commented on the provided answer. This finding was consistent with the result obtained from the observation, in that it was noticed frequently when EFL teachers moved on to another respondent or continued to the next lesson without providing any feedback after learners gave a response. Teachers did not often show their acknowledgment, approval and acceptance of their students' responses. It was rarely noticed when they shared their appreciation throughout repeating their learners' given utterances verbatim.

Findings and Analyses of the Quantitative Data
This part of the analyses discusses the data obtained from both teachers' and students' questionnaires. As this study aimed to investigate teachers' talk and students' involvement in EFL classes, English language teachers and their students from different departments were chosen to participate in it, and hence 31 teachers and 230 students from the university completed the questionnaires. The first part of the analysis is the data obtained from the EFL teachers followed by the analyses of the students' questionnaire.

Findings and Analyses of Questioning Behaviour
The two tables below (tables 2 & 3) presented the question and answer exchange behaviours EFL teachers utilised during the teaching-learning process. In the first item, 51.6% of the teacher-respondents replied that they often asked open-ended questions that help students to talk more and for an extended period. Besides, 29% and 16.1% of them replied that they sometimes and always asked open-ended questions, and 3.2% of the remaining discussants reported that they never forwarded such types of questions. The observation result showed that EFL teachers asked 91 open-ended question types. In item 2, instructors were asked whether they asked close-ended questions or not. For this, the majority, (i.e. 45.2% and 35.5%) of them sometimes and often asked this type of question, and 16.1% of them replied that they rarely asked that type of question. The findings from item 2 confirmed that teachers preferred open-ended questioning behaviour. The result obtained from the observation indicated that EFL teachers totally asked 840 close-ended questions, which was the dominant question type utilised in the classes.
In the third item, instructors were asked whether they utilised referential questions or not. This item was similar to the first item and it was asked to crosscheck. For this, 29% of the respondents replied that they sometimes and rarely used referential questions each independently, which help learners to talk more. This result appears consistent with the observations finding. Related to this, 25.8% of the participants replied that they often did this, and the rest 9.7% and 6.5% of the respondents rated always and never. On the other hand, the reverse of referential question i.e., display question was asked in the last item above, and 38.7% of the respondents replied that they sometimes asked questions of which their responses were short and restricted. Furthermore, 22.6% of them rarely and often asked this question independently, and the remaining 9.7% and 6.5% of them rated always and never. Such types of questions are most familiar in the EFL classrooms that check the learners' simple recall of facts. Instructors were inquired about the inspiration that they motivate learners, and 51.6% and 35.5% of them confirmed that they always and often motivate students to ask questions. The remaining 9.7% and 3.2% of them said that they sometimes and rarely encouraged their students to ask questions. The result obtained from the observations verified that only 17 times learners asked their teachers questions to be clarified. In item 6, they were asked to check whether asking a question was considered by teachers a waste of time or not, and 80.6% and 12.9% of them answered that they never and rarely considered it as a waste of time, and the rest 3.2% of them sometimes and often considered asking a question as a waste of time independently. This finding is inconsistent with the teachers' interview since they explained that they were fast-moving to cover the daily-prepared lesson.

Findings from the Students' Questionnaire
The purpose of the students' questionnaire was to get their response about the nature of their involvement with EFL teachers and among themselves in the classes. The part contained 45 items on the themes such as learning opportunities, question and answer exchanges, feedback provision behaviours, wait-time and amount of talk time, and lastly, their perceptions about the classroom talk are presented.

Findings and Analyses of Questioning Behaviour
The part that follows next presented results of the question and answers exchanges in tables 4 and 5 sequentially. The number of items presented in the two tables is eight. An attempt was made to get the types of questions instructors asked. For instance, in the first item, 43.1 and 28.9 percent of the respondents witnessed that their teachers always and often asked them open-ended questions, respectively, and 18.8% of the others replied that their teachers sometimes asked them these types of questions. Likewise, in item 2, 25.7 and 25.2 percent of the repliers disclosed that their teachers sometimes and often asked them close-ended questions, successively that limits learners not to talk, and 19.7 percent of others said that they were always Wolkite University, Ethiopia fronting these types of questions. It was rarely observed when teachers forwarded these kinds of questions during the question and answer exchanges. They were also asked the frequency of referential types of questions, and 26.1% and 21.1% of them said that they sometimes and always experienced these types of questions, in sequence, which help them to talk extensively. Of course, 21.6 percent of the others also said that they never had these types of questions from their teachers, and the rest 16.5 and 12.8 percent of them reported that they often and rarely came across these forms of questions, in order. Instructors motivate their learners always and often comprising 48.6 and 18.8 percent, respectively, as table 5 above illustrated.
In the fifth item, 48.2 percent of repliers disclosed that their teachers always provided them time to ask questions in the class, and others (i.e., 17.4 & 20.6 percent) of them responded that their teachers often and sometimes gave them time to ask questions during the question and answer exchanges. Fear of disrupting the instruction and other students' concentration was asked; as a result, 30.7 and 15.6 percent of them replied that they never and rarely asked questions because of the abovementioned reasons, and the other 20.2 percent of repliers claimed sometimes, and 16.1 percent of each said that they always and often did not ask. Thirty-three percent of the discussants for item 7, responded, they never considered asking a question as a waste of time. On the other hand, 18.8% of each indicated that they always and sometimes considered it as a waste of time. Not to be judged by classmates as they were competent or not was asked and twenty-eight percent of them replied that they never frightened to be judged by others as competent or not during the question and answer exchanges. The rest, 22.5%, 21.6%, and 18.3% of them respectively replied that they sometimes never, and always feared to be judged by others as competent or incompetent during question and answer sessions.

Summary of the Findings
This study aimed to investigate teachers' questioning behaviour in EFL classes. The study employed mixed research methods, and the data were collected using classroom observations, questionnaires, and interviews. The qualitative and quantitative data obtained through these research instruments were analysed, interpreted and presented in the preceding chapter. The study was conducted at Wolkite University. The participants of the study were EFL teachers and the 2017/18 academic year first-year students of Wolkite University. This chapter presents a summary of the research findings, conclusions are drawn and recommendations given. The chapter has three sections. The first section summarises the findings of the study, and the part that follows presents the conclusions drawn followed by possible suggestions and recommendations.
The focus of the present study was on the nature of EFL teachers' questioning behaviour in the classes. It encompasses any type of questioning and answering exchanges happening in the EFL classes. In other words, the functional features of teachers' talk such as the EFL teachers' questioning and students responding behaviours were the central themes of the study. These behaviours were analysed in the light of FIAC and FLint adapted from [11], [23,2,3,35]. The study was a descriptive case study with a mixedmethods approach. It endeavours to explore what goes on between EFL teachers' and their students' involvement. The target populations were EFL teachers and the 2017/18 academic year first-year students of Wolkite University. Seven EFL teachers were taken for the classroom observations and interviews, and fourteen students who were randomly selected were taken for the interviews. Thirty-one teachers and two hundred thirty students filled in the questionnaire. The data obtained from these sampled participants were analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively.
In summary, the findings of the study proved that learners' output and interaction was related to the types of questions that teachers utilized in the EFL classes. It was found that when learners were asked open/referential questions, the utterances they produced were longer and more complex for they strived to clarify their output and negotiate the meanings with their interlocutors. It was also remarked that when teachers opted for closed or display questions, learners' oral contribution was simple, short and restricted, and often comprising one or two words. Rather than opening space for learning, they tended to close it down and result in a rather conventional and mechanical type of interaction that is often epitomised as IRF/E sequence. Apart from display questions, teachers rarely asked genuine and/or more open-ended questions that were designed to promote discussion and debate, engage learners and produce longer and more complex responses.
The type of question is one of the decisive parameters affecting the course of classroom interaction. When teachers ask open-ended/referential questions, students were assumed to produce longer utterances and multifaceted responses. Whenever they were solicited to respond to referential or display questions, their output was deemed and even expected to be considered moderate and simple in structure. Question and answer exchanges were the most frequently used technique by teachers. The dominant nature of question types which teachers utilised was a display and/or closedended. These questions, in turn, did not allow learners to express their ideas extensively. It was also found out that teachers accepted the first contribution/response of learners rather than maximising it. Open-ended types of questions were rarely asked, and these questions served to initiate practise in communicative language use. Besides, learners gave the answer in unison, the response by providing the answer aloud together with others.

Conclusions
It can be concluded that EFL teachers dominantly asked close-ended/display questions. Open-ended/referential types of questions were rarely asked. It was determined that when learners were asked open/referential questions, the utterances they produced were longer and more complex for they strived to clarify their output and negotiate the meanings with their interlocutors. It was also realised that when teachers opted for closed and/or display questions, learners' oral contribution was simple, short and restricted and often comprising one or two words. Apart from display questions, teachers rarely asked genuine and/or more open-ended questions, which were intended to promote discussion and debate, engage learners and produce longer and more complex responses. Besides, teachers did not ask questions that require complex information processing and higher-level thinking on the part of the students.

Recommendations
Based on the conclusions drawn, the following recommendations were made: Closed questions that are used to display knowledge were found to be dominant in the EFL classes observed. In order for teachers to increase students' output, there should be a conscious selection of open/referential questions the answers are not predictable or pre-known to the teacher. The culture of cosseting student learning, by simplifying questions or providing information to students should be reduced in favour of challenging students' thinking and linguistic skills. Teachers should also give more time to students to generate their own questions before commenting or starting another question.
Teachers should ask questions that stimulate thinking or motivate students to engage actively in their own learning. Teacher questions need to be conceptualised as dynamic discursive tools that are used to build collaboration and scaffold comprehension. In relation to this, scholars recommend that teachers' questions need not be questions that simply elicit a translation of vocabulary; rather, they need to be embedded within a context that allows students to engage in oral interactions that will help push them to produce language that will ultimately aid in their FL learning. Moreover, it is recommended for teachers to use a balanced range of question types. If teachers use the same types of questions, in fact, they may restrict their students' learning opportunities. Teachers are recommended to ask questions first, give students time to think, and only then nominate a student to answer.
Moreover, questions should be given emphasis in the English language methodology courses. Therefore, responsible bodies: Teachers educators and/or language experts or the teacher training institutions should train EFL teachers on ways of asking questions, what types of questions to ask, how to encourage learners to ask and/or respond to questions, and specifically, teachers should use techniques like praising, giving clues and directing rephrased questions towards their students. Teachers are advised to rephrase their questions and/or provide learners with clues to arrive at the correct answer. Learners' contributions should be expanded rather than cramped. In order to receive correct answers, teachers should use clear vocabulary and familiar terminology when they formulate questions. Furthermore, teachers should ask questions that encourage learners to involve in the question and answer exchanges. If teachers use questions that are challenging and interesting for students, it can stimulate the pursuit of knowledge and inspire passive students to get involved. If teachers allow their students or give their students time to listen, think, process their answers and speak, they create ample opportunities for students to talk.
EFL teachers should bear in mind that while designing, controlling and evaluating questions for their students, they should not nominate students who are apparently not paying attention [24]. Teachers should not see questioning as a form of a duel with only one side winning. Approaches such as ridiculing or startling students with questions do not stimulate their activity so it has to be avoided. Another point is that teachers should be careful in asking their students about their personal affairs in front of the multitude. Most students may consider this as highly unpleasant. Indiscreet questions may lead to students' negative attitude toward the teachers and any future communication. Teachers are also recommended to employ personal questions that aim at personal opinions, attitudes or emotions as such questions provide greater space for students' initiative and support their involvement in the discussion (i.e., referential/open-ended questions). Personal questions may result in feigned responses in case students do not wish to externalise their personality. In this case, teachers must be cautious while asking and evaluating personal questions.
Teachers must be sensitive enough to know when to intervene and provide the missing language, by means of modelling, paraphrasing and prompting. Interrupting students' contributions causes learners to miss chances for interactional adjustments. Teachers can provide the missing language by means of scaffolding. The support is provided to ensure that the learners can manage the task at hand. Thus, the elements in the task should be modified, changed or deleted depending on how the learners react to them. Based on the findings of the study, the current study also recommends that replication of this study at the elementary level would be done, and inherent results may be gained.