TEFL A-Z - Teaching techniques – concept questions

Concept questions (also referred to as concept check questions or CCQs) are questions designed to check learners’ understanding of a language item. To formulate effective questions, we need to keep in mind several key points:

1. Concept questions need to cover every aspect of the meaning of the language item.

For example:

“You don’t have to do your homework”.
- Is it necessary to do your homework? (no)

This question checks one aspect of the meaning, but is not enough to cover every aspect, and doesn’t address the possible (and common) confusion with “mustn’t”. We need to add at least one more question to overcome this:

“You don’t have to do your homework”.
- Is it necessary to do your homework? (no)
- Can you do your homework if you want to? (yes)

Here’s another example:

“an oven”
- Can you cook food in it? (yes)

This question covers perhaps the most important aspect of the meaning of “an oven”, but doesn’t distinguish between “an oven” and “a microwave”, “a saucepan”, or anything else that you could conceivably cook food in. We would need to add some more questions to eliminate these other possibilities.

2. The questions shouldn’t use the target language.

For example, to check understanding of past progressive used to interrupt another action in the past:

“I was eating dinner when you called”.
- Was I eating dinner before you called?

The question attempts to address one of the aspects of the meaning (the action started before you called) but it uses the very same language of which we are trying to check the understanding.

So we need to formulate our questions in another way:

“I was eating dinner when you called”.
- Did I start eating my dinner before you called? (yes)
- Did I stop eating my dinner when you called? (maybe)

Verb forms like this lend themselves very well to having their understanding checked with timelines. If you are referring to a timeline on the board with the short “past simple” action already marked, you could reformulate your questions like this:

- When did I start eating dinner?
- When did I stop eating dinner?

3. Concept questions should check the understanding of the language item, not of the situation.

For example, when checking understanidng of “mustn’t”:

“You mustn’t walk on the grass”.
- Why mustn’t I walk on the grass?”

This question, quite apart from using the target language itself (see point 2), is checking understanding of the situation – the reasons why it is forbidden to walk on the grass – and not the meaning of “mustn’t”. Instead, we need to ask:

- Is it ok if I walk on the grass? (no)
- Can I decide? (no)

4. The questions shouldn’t use language which is overly complicated or long-winded, or more complicted than the target language.

For example:

“I had my nails done yesterday”.
- Did I enlist the services of a beautician and put myself in his charge to undergo a manicure, or did I perform this beauty treatment myself?

This is, of course, an exaggerated example. The type of question, however, is a good one – it asks for a simple choice between two possibilities, and this brings us to point 5:

5. Concept questions should, where possible, require a simple yes or no, or a choice between two possibilities.

If you add shades of meaning, nuance and the possibility of debate to the answers, the likelihood of a successful check of understanding are reduced.

So, with the “nails” example, we can ask the same question like this:

“I had my nails done yesterday”.
- Who did my nails? (the beautician)

Or, if you like:

- Who did my nails? The beautician or me? (the beautician)

You could even go further, and present the choice between two possibilities by contrasting the target language with the alternative:

“I had my nails done yesterday”.
- Who did my nails? (the beautician)
“I did my nails last weekend”.
- Who did my nails? (me)

Here are a few more examples:

“She’s just come back from India”.
- Did she go to India? (yes)
- Did she go a long or short time ago? (a short time ago)

“If only I’d arrived yesterday”.
- Did I arrive yesterday? (no)
- Do I feel good or bad? (bad)

“He’s over the moon”.
- Is he happy or sad? (happy)
- Is he a little happy or very happy? (very happy)