Browsing by Author "Jonkka, Maija"

Goals. The study focuses on students´questions in mathematics in preparatory class. When focusing on students´questions it´s possible to examine the ways how students ask questions and what kind of problems students face when learning mathematics and new language at the same time. The context of this study is the beginning of language learning. The theoretical basis of this study is in theories of classroom interaction and socialisation to new language. The aim of this study is to examine what kind of questions students ask and what kind of functions the questions have. Methods. The study was carried out as part of the project Meeting in the middle at the University of Helsinki. The data was collected in a 7th-9th preparatory class. The data consist of six videotaped lessons. There was 6 – 11 students in those lessons and the class teacher and sometimes also a school assistant. The method of analysis is conversation analysis. Findings and conclusions. Students asked quite lot questions in mathematic lessons. Every student asked questions from teacher but the form of the questions varied. Students asked yes/no questions, wh-questions and also nonverbal questions. The questions were divided in three categories based in the functions of the questions. The first group was checking questions. The students used those questions to varify their understanding, answers or calculation. The second group consisted of inquiry questions. These questions were motivated from assignments or teacher´s speech.Those questions were mainly asked by students with higher Finnish skills. The third group of questions consist of request of help. In that kind of questions students expressed that they needed help but they didn´t individualised the point of the problem. Teacher had an important role to solve the point of the problem. Nonverbal communication and single words had also a big role in these questions.