Key

E X A M S & E VA L U AT I O N

questions
T
Chris Payne suggests here are 130 countries in which The KET Speaking paper
around four million candidates
The Speaking test is taken in pairs and
practical solutions to sit Cambridge English
examinations each year. comprises two parts:
surmount examination Thousands of those candidates take the In Part One, each candidate answers
Key English Test, also referred to as questions of a personal nature that
stumbling blocks. KET. This is at a pre-intermediate level are asked by the examiner, known as
of English, corresponding to A2 of the the interlocutor.
Common European Framework of
Reference for Languages (CEFR): two In Part Two – our area of interest here
levels below the well-known First – the candidates interact with each
Certificate exam. other, using prompt cards to ask and
KET consists of three papers: answer questions of a non-personal
Reading and Writing, Listening and kind.
Speaking. It can be taken in two The candidates are assessed on their
versions: ability to communicate clearly, and are
Key for Schools – which has content not expected to produce completely
and topics targeted at school-age accurate language. In fact, they only lose
learners. marks if their inaccuracies cloud the
meaning of their utterances. But
Key – which is more suited to adult naturally, candidates would perform
candidates. better in the test if they could ask
A large number of candidates produce questions correctly.
questions in their speaking test such as:
Is he play sport?
Forming questions
What she teach? Although our students do not have to
ask perfectly-formed questions to ensure
Is the lessons on Friday?
exam success in KET, the ability to form
She wear a uniform?
correct questions will also improve their
This article considers specifically the real-life communication skills. I believe
ability to ask questions, which is tested we are duty-bound to strive to help our
in Part Two of the KET Speaking paper. learners become more competent
I will attempt to pinpoint which types of communicators – by pursuing the elusive
questions cause learners the most goal of accuracy.
problems, and I suggest four fun So let us now look at what learners
activities for practising question need to do in order to ask correct
formation in the classroom. questions. For reasons of space, we will

16 • Issue 98 May 2015 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • www.etprofessional.com •

focus only on present tense object problems lie. Why does a seemingly Considering this is also a common
questions, as they tend to be the kind simple change in the order of the subject chunk, it is perhaps surprising that just
that candidates are mostly expected to and the auxiliary or use of the do/does half the questions were accurate.
ask. The prompt cards usually require operator prove so difficult for students Although 72% of the students knew
Yes/No questions and Wh-questions. to apply in real-time communication? they had to place the auxiliary before
the subject, the subject–verb agreement
Is it because meaning is so easily
Yes/No questions: (concord) was wrong. For example:
conveyed without accuracy that it
Sometimes called ‘polar questions’, Where are he from?
renders correct forms redundant?
these are formed by placing a form of 4 Where are the lessons? (61%)
an auxiliary verb – eg be or can – before Are certain kinds of questions more
the subject. This is normally referred to challenging than others? For instance, Concord was again the source of most
as ‘inversion’. For example: are do/does questions harder to master errors.
than is/are questions, which use Earlier in this article, I asked
Is the shop expensive?
inversion? whether do/does questions are more of a
Can you speak Italian?
challenge than questions that require is/
Are we to expect a Wh-question,
In the absence of an auxiliary verb, we are inversion. This study indicates that
which places two words before the
place the dummy operator do/does they are not – unless they are used with
subject, to be harder to form than a
before the subject and the main verb in Wh-words. The highest percentage of
Yes/No question, which places one?
its base form. For example: accuracy for all Yes/No questions was
For example: Where does she play
50%. Here are two examples for each type:
Do you like chocolate? tennis? and Does she play tennis?
Does she play the piano? 1 Does he play sport? (50%)
My quest for answers to these questions
2 Do you wear special clothes? (33%)
prompted me to carry out some
Wh-questions: small-scale research on 36 students, with Is/are questions fared worse:
To form Wh-questions, the students follow an average age of 12. The aim was to
the same procedure as above, but place 1 Are the/there lessons on Friday? (27.5%)
ascertain how they performed under test
the question word before the auxiliary 2 Are the horses nice? (22%)
conditions.
or dummy operator. For example: So, armed with some KET Part Two Concord was a persistent problem for
When is your birthday? prompt cards, I conducted mock oral is/are questions. For example: Is the
Where does he live? exams with the students, during which I lessons expensive?
transcribed the exact questions that they For do/does questions, is was a
asked. frequent ‘intruder’, as in Is he play sport?
Prompt cards Here, it is safe to say that confusion
probably arises because present
The cards which are used in KET to Findings continuous questions are formed using
stimulate questions typically include
prompts similar to those on the Clearly, a small-scale experiment such as is/are. For example: Is he playing tennis?
made-up example shown here: mine is at best exploratory, and the Although these results are
results of the mock speaking tests disappointing if accuracy is our goal, we
SCHOOL SHOP cannot provide us with any conclusive can take heart from one particular
findings. That said, not all classroom observation. In all the Yes/No questions
Where?
research needs to involve statistical that were tested, the students often
Expensive? analysis of large amounts of data in succeeded in placing the auxiliary is/are/
Sell/sandwiches? order to give us a valuable insight into can or do/does before the subject. This
When/close? the learning process. shows evidence of learning, but
Phone number? On the whole, the students managed accuracy was affected by lack of
to communicate their intended meaning, subject–verb agreement.
There is often a variety of acceptable albeit with varying degrees of accuracy. Finally, the hardest questions to
questions which may be produced using Let us start by showing which types of produce correctly were those with
the prompt cards. Suggestions for this questions were produced most accurately. Wh-questions that need do/does. Here
one are: The percentage of grammatically correct are two more examples:
questions is given in brackets.
Where is the shop? 1 What does he teach? (27.5%)
Wh-questions, which we would expect
Is it expensive? A common mistake was, again, to use is
to be formed using the auxiliary is/are,
Does it sell sandwiches? or omit does altogether. For example:
were the easiest for the students to
When does the shop close? What is he teach? and What he teach?
produce. Here are four examples:
What is the phone number? The most problematic questions of
1 What is the phone number? (100%) the whole experiment were those with
2 What is his name? (94%) When.
Some research
Presumably, 1 and 2 posed few problems 2 When does he start? (0%)
In order to help our learners to perfect
because of their chunk-like status.
their question formation, it would be This question yielded no correct
useful to know where the potential 3 Where is he from? (50%) production at all! The main problem

• www.etprofessional.com • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • Issue 98 May 2015 • 17

Key
1 the learner who completes and answers
a man
Is your their questions first.
or a
teacher This game is fun, and because it

questions
woman?
combines knowledge with luck of the dice,
strong students won’t always win easily.
give you
Does your 3 Board game
a lot of
teacher
here was the complete omission of does. homework? This game (see page 19) uses question
For example: When he start? prompts and topics, and is played in
We know from studies (eg by Wiliam pairs or threes. The learners will need a
2
O’Grady) on the developmental order counter each, and one dice per pair or
When your
for Wh-words that when is one of the group of three. There is a photocopiable
are exams?
last question words to be acquired by template on page 20 for you to make
native-speaker children. This raises the your own game.
question of whether it is also one of the The learners place their counters on
your ‘Start’ and roll the dice:
last Wh-words to be learnt and used When
exams
correctly by L2 students of English. do
start? If they get a 5 or a 6 at the start, they
can’t move.
A question of practice
If the learners turn over ‘Is your teacher’ If they get a 2, they move to
Learners generally understand the rules ‘expensive?’ and use this word to ask a
and ‘give you a lot of homework?’ they
of question formation, but fail to apply question about the topic (school trip)
ought to notice that it is not a correct
them during communication, in which shown at the top of the column of
match.
meaning takes precedence over form. This question prompts. For example: Is the
common scenario may frustrate teachers 2 Dice race school trip expensive?
and learners alike if they are in pursuit
The learners produce Yes/No questions The game proceeds like this, with the
of accuracy. A more Panglossian view is
and Wh-questions. On a number of questions that the players have to ask
that learners can still communicate
blank dice (you will need one for each being decided by the throw of the dice. If
without accuracy. Nonetheless, they can
pair of students) write on four of the a wrong answer is given, they move back
undoubtedly benefit from plentiful
faces Is, Are, Do or Does (use an initial to the previous circle. The first player to
practice of question forms, as it raises
capital letter) and on the other two faces, reach the ‘Finish’ circle is the winner.
their awareness and can lead to more
write a question word with either do or (This game is adapted from an idea at
sustained accuracy.
does and is or are. This example activity onestopenglish.com.)
In keeping with the widely-held tenet
uses When with do? and When with is?
that comprehension precedes production,
my first practice activity is a receptive one
4 Ace fun
in which the learners need to understand Does
language without having to produce it. When is
The other three are productive and Are
are done as pairwork activities in order When do is
to maximise the practice opportunities Do
for each learner. They become
progressively less controlled, so that the
learners need to think more about
Each pair of learners is given a question
correct forms and gradually have to
dice (see above) and a sheet of paper which
produce more language.
includes the tail of different questions (I
usually use 12 for each student). This final activity generates a lot of fun
1 Question pelmanism
The object of the game is to roll the practice with questions. All you need is a
In the traditional game of pelmanism, dice and use the word(s) shown to deck or decks of playing cards and a
cards are laid face down on a table or on complete the questions. The winner is selection of flashcards showing different
the floor, and the object of the game is to
remember where matching pairs are and
turn them over. If you turn over a pair Student A Student B
you keep it, and the winner is the player
who has the most pairs at the end. 1 ______ your parents speak French? 1 ______ your exams start?
This game can be adapted for 2 ______ your birthday? 2 ______ you left-handed?
question practice by designing pairs of
cards with question heads that are 3 ______ your mother afraid of spiders? 3 ______ your mother listen to music?
similar. In this way, the learners have to 4 ______ you ever late for school? 4 ______ your father tall?
think about and understand the
grammar of questions in order to find a 5 ______ your father drink coffee? 5 ______ you ever wear glasses?
correct match. Here are some examples:

18 • Issue 98 May 2015 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • www.etprofessional.com •

 Board game • Asking questions
SCHOOL TRIP FOOTBALL BIKE RACE ZOO RAIN FOREST
LESSONS

6 5
WHEN WHERE RAIN
PAY? START? OFTEN?

5 2 3 1
HOW
COST?
JOIN?
1 4
4 1 6 2
DANGEROUS
EXPENSIVE? DIFFICULT?
ANIMALS?

2 3 6 4 3 1
FOR CLOSE ON
START KIDS? SUNDAY?
FINISH
3 2 5 2 5 3
TIME LONG WHAT
RETURN? RACE? DO?

4 1 4 1 6 6
NEED
WHAT
FOOTBALL
SEE?
BOOTS?
5 3 5 4
WHERE
DATE? PRIZES?
SLEEP?

2 4
6 5
WHAT TIME
INTERESTING?
START?
1

lexical sets, such as animals, transport, word because it is an ace. For example, the O’Grady, W How Children Learn
food, clothes, etc. student says: Why elephants are very big? Language CUP 2005
Pairs of learners are given a pile of The question is wrong, so Student B Speaking Test Preparation Pack for Key
flashcards with a mixture of pictures picks up and keeps the ace of spades. English Test CUP 2009
from each chosen lexical set, and six Now it is Student B’s turn to play a Cambridge English Key for Schools
playing cards for each learner. card for Student A to ask the question. Handbook Cambridge English
The object of the game is to get rid If Student B plays the four of hearts, this
of all your cards first or hold fewer requires a question with Do/Does, because Chris Payne is the owner
of Paddington School of
cards than your partner at the end. it is a red card. Suppose the next flashcard English, Linares, Spain.
Write the rules on the board for the is of a bus, and Student A asks Do you He is an experienced
teacher and a former
learners to refer to as they play: catch the bus to school? The question is Cambridge English oral
correct, so the card stays on the desk, and examiner and oral
Red card = Do/Does examiner trainer. He has
the game proceeds until you have a winner.
Black card = Is/Are/Can written several published
articles on ELT.
Ace, King, Queen, Jack = Question
word
Student A plays a card (eg the ace of All these activities have been trialled
spades) and turns over a flashcard (eg an successfully with children. However,
[email protected]
elephant), which Student B will use to they can also be adapted for use with
form a question. adult learners. If we aim to unlock our
Student B has to ask a question that students’ potential to become more
is related to elephants, using is/are/can effective communicators, questions are
because the card is black, and a question key.

• www.etprofessional.com • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • Issue 98 May 2015 • 19

 FINISH

6
4

3
1

5
6
1

3
2

4
Board game • Asking questions

5
6

4
3

1
2

2
5
1

3
6

5
3

1
5

6
2

3
1

4
START

20 • Issue 98 May 2015 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • www.etprofessional.com •