Unfortunately, by its very nature, your interrogative CQ is both grammatically and cognitively more complex to process (especially when delivered orally) than the statement you’re checking, in English, at least. Now it’s often pointed out that a CQ should not include language or grammar that is more complex than the concept or instruction it’s trying to check, which makes sense. So the data you receive in response will inevitably be unreliable. 50% of them may get it right, even if they don’t understand, just by guessing. The first problem is the binary nature of your question. Let’s imagine you ask your class of 20 students a binary question with two possible answers (Alone or in pairs? Easy or difficult? etc.) to check understanding of an instruction or a concept. Why ICQs and CCQs can’t necessarily be relied uponĬQs can’t be relied upon for the simple reason that they don’t check understanding reliably. Let me provide an example using an entirely hypothetical scenario: I do so in a spirit of exploration, and would firstly like to admit that when I’m working on CELTA or CertTESOL courses, like my colleagues, I do encourage trainees to make use of ICQs and CCQs when appropriate. In this blog I would like to explore the possibility that asking ‘Do you understand?’ may be at least as effective as asking CQs, if not more so.

Indeed, when such trainees observe the classes of more experienced teachers, they often note the absence of CQs, and some may even come back having heard experienced teachers using the dreaded: “DO YOU UNDERSTAND?” Oh, the shame of it!īut should we really be so fearful of this question? After all, it is perhaps one of the most common and natural questions to ask in similar situations (informal learning opportunities) outside the classroom. Yet, when compared with many other aspects of pre-service training courses, there is a comparatively low survival rate for check questions (CQs) after trainees graduate. For trainee teachers on pre-service training courses, ICQs (instruction check questions) and CCQs (concept check questions) can often be some of the most challenging thi ngs to get right.

What is icq and ccq