Looking Inside an EFL Classroom: Promoting Productive Learning through Teachers’ Questioning Strategies

Engaging students to participate in productive learning is a prerequisite for successful instruction. Teachers as instructional leaders should be creative and proactive in finding the best ways to enable effective learning to take place. One of the most well-known strategies is the use of appropriate ‘questioning’ during the instructional process. Teachers’ questioning strategies can encourage learning, but at the same time, they can also discourage learning when they are not carried out effectively. As teachers’ ways of posing questions are paramount for effective learning, it is timely to research this issue, teachers’ ways of asking questions during classroom instruction, and their students’ responses. The participants were two English teachers and their students at a secondary school in Aceh Province, Indonesia. The data were collected through classroom observations, in-depth interviews, and questionnaires. The study found that teachers used various questioning strategies, such as designing icebreaking activities and giving simple quizzes as attention grabbers. In addition, some types of questioning strategies, such as repetition, simplification, decomposition, structuring the questions, reacting to the students’ answers (giving a reward, complimenting, and motivating the students), using native language, and giving students some wait time to think about the answers were among the many strategies applied in the classroom. These questioning strategies were considered effective by the teachers and students in the study to promote productive language learning.


INTRODUCTION
Teaching is a complex yet interesting profession; it requires not only teachers' knowledge of content but also teachers' pedagogical knowledge (Ashton, 2018). Teachers play a highly important role in classroom instruction. Their responsibilities range from determining appropriate teaching materials to managing the classroom for effective teaching to occur (Lazarides et al., 2018). Effective teachers would identify the most suitable teaching techniques and encourage students to engage in productive learning (Livingston, 2017;Louws et al., 2017). In fact, the basic tenet of the modern pedagogical process is in teachers' ability to encourage students to be fully participative in their learning, since it is only by doing so that students can absorb, seek, apply and share their skills and knowledge (Abdullah et al., 2012). In addition, Dewey (2019), the initiator of pragmatism argued that learning takes place only when someone experiences the process of learning, and this experience is only possible through prolonged interaction between teachers and students (Schmidt, 2010). For this reason, mutual interaction in the classroom is seen as mandatory. One way to encourage students to engage in the learning process effectively is through the good use of questioning strategies in the classroom. This is because the types of questions a teacher poses can yield various results; they may trigger an active classroom or vice versa. The questioning strategies also delimit teachers' domination during teaching, which represents the modern language teaching atmosphere (Zulfikar, 2015). Brown (2001) emphasized the need for strategies to prevent teachers from dominating the class. It is important to note that classroom domination by teachers does not only harm students' creativity but also reduces students' ability to grasp subject matters (Otukile-Mongwaketse, 2018). In addition, Kim (2015) stated that "in the learning process, teachers' talk time, the structure of questions and students' response has a relation with teachers' strategies in the classroom" (p. 118). For that reason, teachers are encouraged to use appropriate strategies to attract their students' learning attention. To engage and stimulate students to participate in classroom instruction, teachers need to take initiative, in which they could use group discussions, pair work, collaborative learning, and questioning (Anderson et al., 2018). Teachers' questioning is an important part of the teaching process because it allows students to swiftly participate in classroom activities. Teacher-student and student-student interactions should occur during the learning process. Teachers' classroom questioning is at the heart of this interaction, and classroom questioning is important in teaching, especially in the context of EFL education.
Furthermore, questioning can improve communication between teachers and students while energizing the classroom environment at the same time. Students' attention and interest in class might be piqued by teachers' questions (Yang, 2017). It is believed that teachers' questions are paramount in the learning process. Questions, when they are posed appropriately, will not only stimulate students to think critically but also become ice-breakers for classroom interaction. However, if questions are wrongly put, it may impact students' learning motivation negatively (Yang, 2017).
It is important to note that, although studies on teachers' questioning strategies have been abundant (See DeWaelsche, 2015;Döş et al., 2016;Rido, 2017;Yang, 2017), this research interest has not been very popular in the Indonesian context. EFL students in Indonesia may feel anxious when using the target language (English) in the classroom, and it is for this reason that EFL teachers should be creative in posing questions to students to encourage them to engage in English lessons actively. Relevant studies in the Indonesian context are still limited. There were studies conducted by Fitriati et al. (2017) and Astrid et al. (2019) on this issue, but the contexts of their studies are different from the context of this recent research. For example, Fitriati et al. (2017) only focused on the relationship between the types of questions and the improvement of students' verbal skills, whereas Astrid et al. (2019) investigated teachers' questioning strategies used in one of the Islamic secondary state schools in Palembang. As the research on teachers' questioning strategies has not yet reached a wider audience in the Indonesian school context, the current research on the types of questions posed by teachers, especially in the EFL context, and how they lead to students' learning engagement, is timely. To proceed with this inquiry, we posed several research questions: 1. How do teachers use questioning strategies in their classrooms? 2. What are students' responses to these types of questions? 3. Do they see these questions to have benefitted their learning or not?
Classroom observations, in-depth interviews, and questionnaires were used to generate findings for these inquiries.

Teachers' Questioning Strategies
Brown (2001) suggested that beginners have little or no prior knowledge whatsoever about the target language. This suggests that teachers should identify effective questioning strategies that may stimulate students' learning. Harvey and Goudvis (2000) described "questioning as the master key to understanding. It is a stimulus for student's talk, engagement, and the quest for new knowledge" (p. 81) It also refers to teachers' classroom tactics of asking various types of questions in various ways to help increase their students' learning accomplishments while also allowing students to express critical questions (Yang, 2017). Therefore, teachers' questioning is considered paramount in language teaching, and thus, teachers should find ways to identify appropriate questions to activate students' prior knowledge and engage them in the exploration and transformation of knowledge actively. The questioning strategy is defined as "one of the parts of the contextual teaching and learning method" (Nurhadi, 2004, p. 43). Questioning allows teachers to engage students in meaningful learning while allowing students to improve their problem-solving and higher-order thinking skills at the same time. Fitriati et al. (2017) also stated that one of the most T. Zulfikar, K. Syahabuddin, K. Maulidia, Emawati & Amiruddin, Looking inside an EFL classroom: Promoting productive learning through teachers' questioning strategies | 1022 significant aspects of classroom learning is 'questioning'. It allows teachers to learn what students know and understand while also providing opportunities for students to seek clarification and assistance from their teachers and peers. Furthermore, according to Harvey and Goudvis (2000), 'questioning' is the most effective strategy when it encourages students to completely participate in the learning activity.
In addition, questioning strategies in EFL/ESL classrooms produce effective learning only when these questions can encourage students' classroom participation, help teachers build a closer connection with their students, enable teachers to check students' understanding of subject matters, ease teachers to evaluate students, and help students deal with difficulties in expressing themselves in the target language (Cakmak, 2009). In addition, Ma (2008) asserted that the purposes of questioning are twofold. First, it helps teachers attract students' attention to learning topics. Asking preview questions on learning topics will open up students' curiosity about particular topics they will learn. Second, questioning is used to check students' understanding of that particular subject matter. Azerefegn (2008) also agreed that questioning functions as a formative assessment by which teachers identify the extent to which students comprehend their previous learning topics prior to learning new ones in a particular classroom meeting. In short, Ma (2008) suggested that a teacher asks questions in the classroom to check students' understanding and give spaces for them to express ideas. With this purpose in mind, the teachers can predetermine the types of questions they will ask. Although questioning strategies seem to be a small part of classroom instruction, it benefits the instructional process, and for that reason, teachers should identify the kinds of questions to use and what they expect to achieve by asking those particular questions.

Types of Questions and Questioning Strategies
Any questions posed by a teacher should lie on a certain philosophical basis. This is because different questions yield different responses. For example, questions asked to encourage students' interaction in the classroom are different from those used to stimulate the emergence of creative, critical, and higher-level thinking. Experts suggested that display and referential questions and open and closed questions are general types of questions used by EFL/ESL teachers (Brown, 2001, 2007) Huitt (2011 categorized learning into six stages, which is later known as Bloom's Taxonomy, and it is referred by many educational practitioners. Interpreting; also convey the information by using their own words and the ability to understand the meaning.
Commonly words used: 'describe', 'compare', 'contrast', 'rephrase', 'put in your word', 'explain the main idea' Application questions Applying information heard or reading new situations.
Commonly words used: 'apply', 'classify', 'use', 'give an example', 'solve', 'illustrate', 'how many' These types of questions have been popular within educational settings. However, some other scholars classified different types of questioning as well. For example, Chin (2004) mentioned several types of questions. First, descriptive questions engage students to establish their own narrative information using the words, such as 'tell', 'discuss', 'describe', 'show', and 'illustrate'. In this questioning type, the students are only asked to recall information. Second, analysis questions, which seek to identify facts and call for sustained answers involving critical thinking using the words 'why', 'how would you explain the facts that', 'what is the importance of', and 'prove what you just claim'. The third type of question as suggested by Chin (2004) is the evaluation question. This kind of question requires students to be reasonable in their answers using the words like 'explain how' and 'evaluate the statement that'. Fourth, compare/contrast questions, which expect students to think critically and find out the similarities and differences between ideas or arguments. These questions begin with words like 'compare', 'contrast', 'what is the similarity', and 'what is the difference? The final question strategy offered by Chin (2004) is the causal relationship questions. These questions are posed using wording, such as 'what are the results of?' and 'what are the causes of?' to find out a causal relationship or determine whether such a relationship exists. All of these are the types of questions elicited by scholars in the field aiming at helping students to participate in meaningful learning.

Students' Learning Engagement
Students' learning engagement is resulted from the level of students' eagerness to learn (Dahliana, 2019). Students' engagement is a behavioral and emotional measure of a student's active participation in the learning process (Fredricks et al., 2004;Skinner et al., 2008). Furthermore, according to Harper and Quaye (2009), learning engagement entails not just active involvement and participation but also feeling and sense-making in addition to activity. Furthermore, according to Kuh et al. (2006), student engagement is defined as participation in an educationally beneficial goal. Furthermore, according to Stovall (2003, as cited in Beer et al., 2010, students' involvement encompasses not only the time students spend on assignments but also their willingness to participate in activities. The amount to which students can recognize the school's principles and participate in both non-academic and academic school activities can alternatively be defined as student involvement (Willms, 2000). Fredricks et al. (2004) proposed three categories of students' engagement: first, affective engagement refers to positive emotions during learning activities, including students' attitudes, interests, enjoyment, and enthusiasm for learning. Like Fredricks et al. (2004), Chavan (2015) stated that emotional engagement includes motivation and feelings towards learning. Second, cognitive engagement is linked to learning-related mental processes, such as self-regulated learning, metacognition, focus, and learning techniques. Cognitive engagement, according to Chavan (2015), is comprised of students' beliefs and values, homework completion rate, response to learning obstacles, attentiveness, and effort devoted toward the learning process. Finally, behavioral engagement refers to students' participation in both academic and extracurricular activities. It can be quantified by observable behavior such as participation and attendance during the learning process. Behavioral engagement and external engagement can often be noticed, according to Ansong et al. (2017). It can be in the forms of asking and answering questions, participating actively in discussions, paying attention during the learning process, or any other constructive classroom conduct. Research suggested that students engage in learning activities at different levels. In the engagement rubric (see Table 2), Parn (2006) categorized four levels of students' engagement: fully-engaged, fairly-engaged, slightly-engaged, and disengaged students.

METHODS
This study was conducted using a mixed-method approach as it suited the nature of the study that required both types of data, namely quantitative and qualitative data.
We used explanatory sequential mixed methods (Creswell, 2012(Creswell, , 2014, in which the quantitative data is followed by qualitative data, such as interviews and observation of the instructional process in a secondary school in one of the regencies in the Province of Aceh, Indonesia. For this research, we observed the instructional process, interviewed teachers, and surveyed students' opinions. We provided a detailed explanation of the methodology in the following sub-sections.

Research Context and Participants
This research was conducted in one of the Islamic secondary state schools located in Pidie Jaya Regency. It is a medium-sized secondary school, in which 216 students were enrolled and 27 teachers were employed. In the context of the Indonesian education system, EFL (English as a Foreign Language) is considered a compulsory subject for all secondary schools. This suggests that in the research setting, namely the Islamic Secondary State School 4 of Pidie Jaya regency, English is compulsory. All students regardless of their interest in English are required to enroll in the subject. The participants of the research were two English teachers in Years 10 and 11. They are coded as Ss (i.e., students), S1 (student 1, S2 (student 2), and so forth, in this article. Furthermore, two teachers were selected on the basis of their length of teaching experience. The two teachers were purposively selected since the research aimed at exploring EFL teachers' questioning strategies and their impacts on students' learning engagement. They are coded as T1 (teacher 1) and T2 (teacher 2), respectively, in this article.

Techniques of Data Collection
To understand major trends of questioning strategies EFL teachers used in class, we surveyed students' opinions using questionnaires. It allowed us to map the types of questioning used and the responses of the students. McKay (2006) suggests that a questionnaire is one of the main research instruments used in survey research. Our survey focused on the behavioral and attitudinal information of our participants or respondents. We designed questionnaires to survey teachers' and students' behavioral information, such as their regular classroom practices. We also constructed a questionnaire that enabled us to understand students' responses and attitudes towards their teachers' questioning strategies.
The qualitative data, from which we understand the social phenomenon in-depth (Cropley, 2002;Glesne, 2006Glesne, , 2015Taylor & Parsons, 2011), were generated from in-depth interviews and observation. These are typical qualitative methods of data collection (Flick, 2018;Leavy, 2014). We observed two EFL teachers twice during their teaching and interviewed them afterward. The interview took place after school hours, as agreed upon by the researchers and teachers. We also observed students' classroom practices and their responses to teachers' questions.
To explore students' perceptions of teachers' questioning strategies, we developed a short questionnaire. The questionnaire was in the form of multiple-choice questions and Likert-scale type of questions (see Appendix). We also designed semistructured interviews to gain more in-depth information regarding teachers' ways of asking questions during their classroom practices and the reasons leading to their particular practices. Moreover, we designed qualitative observation guidelines, which allowed us to explore teachers' classroom practices comprehensively. The observation was conducted throughout the class hour, in which we sat down at the back of the class to observe classroom practices and types of questions the teacher asked, and students' responses. In addition, to help us remember the phenomenon being observed, we video-recorded classroom practices upon securing permission from the teacher and students as well. The observation enabled us to take field notes to portray teachers' instructional process.

Techniques of Data Analysis
Quantitative data were analyzed following the standard method of data analysis, such as statistical measurement of the types of questions being used in the classroom. We used basic statistics to count and report the findings of the questionnaire. In analyzing the results of the questionnaire, we referred to Sudjana's (2005)  The data generated through questionnaires were analyzed and scored based on the frequency of answers. The steps were as follows: scoring the students' responses to the teachers' questioning strategies, calculating the responses to find frequency and percentage, and displaying the data through tables consisting of the statement, the frequencies, and the percentage.
The qualitative data, on the other hand, were analyzed using coding techniques, as advised by scholars in the field (see, Babbie, 2018;Glesne, 2015;Silverman, 2017Silverman, , 2020. Three stages of coding techniques were used, namely open coding (take the textual data and break it up into discrete parts), axial coding (draw connections between the codes), and selective coding (select one central category that connects all the codes from the analysis and captures the essence of the research).

FINDINGS
We reported our findings based on our main inquiries: understanding teachers' questioning strategies and students' responses to these strategies and the possible impacts of these questioning strategies on their learning engagement in the classroom. We first described the finding on types of questioning strategies, followed by the description of students' responses.

Types of Questions Used in the EFL Classroom
The results of our survey through questionnaires, in-depth interviews, and observation (the details of which have been explained in the Methods section), showed that there were six groups of questioning strategies used by the two teachers.

Descriptive analysis, and evaluation
This section first provides quantitative data through basic descriptive statistics. The data shows general trends in the questioning strategies used by the teachers.  Out of three emerging types of questioning strategies, descriptive questions seem to be more dominantly used by the two teachers, reaching 87.55% and 83.43%, respectively. We found that most of the time, T1 and T2 asked descriptive questions, such as "What was our previous material?", "What have you learned from the first picture in the book?", "Last week, we have [sic] learned about invitation letters, right? Two types of them, what are they?" were questions asked to recall information. We understood that this type of questioning strategy was addressed to explore students' understanding of previously presented learning topics. In fact, we found that descriptive questions were asked in the first several minutes of the meetings.
In addition, analysis questions were also sparingly used by the two teachers (3.67% and 11.66%, respectively). Students were given numerous types of information to fill out. For example, a question, such as "I or me come to Yogyakarta?" is a type of question intended to motivate the students to guess the answer based on the earlier discussion of the subject. The other question, such as "Do you think reading books is important? Why is it important?", measures students' analytical ability. The evaluation questions, reaching 9.18% and 4.91%, were used to find the reasons for their answers. For example, "Okay, then I am wondering if you know how to pronounce it?" It occurred when the students had the wrong pronunciation. The other evaluation question was also asked, "How many types of invitation letters we have learned?"

Analysis from in-depth interviews
From the interviews with both English teachers, we found that they employed various teaching questioning strategies.

a). Attention grabbers
The data show that the two teachers began the class in similar ways. They, for example, introduced the lesson and encouraged students to ask questions regarding topics such as icebreaking activities. (1) "Usually, I will start the lesson by asking some questions like 'how are you today?', 'how do you feel today?', 'have you got the breakfast?' something like that. It is, you know, like warming up. And then, I will give the students three or five questions about the last materials, our last materials as the quiz. I mean, when I give the quiz to the students, so the students who answer the question will get points as the rewards".
Similarly, T2 stated: (2) "Maybe, I can say like warming up. I ask them 'how are you today?', 'who is not here today?' Next, I give them some questions about the last materials as a little quiz".
In addition, the teachers utilized questioning strategies, such as rephrasing, simplification, repetition, decomposition, and probing. For example, T1 stated: (3) "The strategy, questioning strategy, I used to this one (point-out to the paper) rephrasing strategy.
So, I used to use rephrasing when I ask the students because my students sometimes face difficulty in understanding the questions, so I need to rephrase and repeat it, umm...until they can give the best response to the questions".
In addition, T2 also used rephrasing, repetition, and probing, as she said: "I used translation: okay, rephrasing is also used, repetition is also available, and sometimes another strategy is also used". Moreover, the teachers also used modifying questions, which provided more chances for the students to understand the questions. Our observation showed that the teachers also employed repetition, simplification, decomposition, structuring the question, reacting to the students' replies (providing a reward, praising, and motivating the students), using their native language, and giving students time to work out the answers.

b). Repetition
The other questioning strategy used by the two teachers is repetition. The purpose of the repetition is to ask the same question again. To encourage students to answer the questions, the teachers asked them again. This method was demonstrated by T2 in the following excerpts: Similarly, the other teacher, T1 used repetition during teaching. Repetition was used to clarify questions because they could be unheard or/and because students faced difficulties understanding teachers' questions.

c). Simplification
The method of simplification is to make the query more specific or to narrow down the initial question. It is similar to the strategy of rephrasing. However, the teachers are expected to simplify the meaning of their questions by utilizing a variety of tactics, such as clues, examples, and word concentration to make the prior question more understandable. The two teachers used the simplification technique below: (6) T1 : "What is our last material? What have we learned last week?" S2 : (One student raised her hand) T1 : "Siti, what is the answer?" S2 : "Conversation and vocabulary builder miss" T1 : "That is the practice of? That is expressing of…" Ss : (Silence) T1 : "Come on, what is the answer? What is our last material? It's about…about… (pause) expressing of…" Ss : (Silence) T1 : "Anyone knows? What's our learning material last week? What we have learned last week". Ss : "Ehmm". T1 : "Come on, anyone knows? (pausing) expressing of congra…" Ss : "Congratulations".
T2 also used the simplification strategy in asking questions, which can be seen in the following excerpts: (7) T2 : "How many types of invitation letters have we learned? How many types of invitation letters we have learned so far?" S3 : (Silence) T2 : "How many…Berapa banyak? Do you still remember?" Ss : "Two".
The simplification strategy was employed by T2 through the use of code-mixing questions (English and Indonesian) that elicited students' responses. In addition, by using the partially-completed utterance "expressing of congra…", the teacher expected that the students would continue/complete it.

d). Decomposition
Teachers used the decomposition approach to break down a large question into smaller components in order to inspire students to respond to it. The deconstruction was demonstrated by the two teachers in the following excerpts: T. Zulfikar, K. Syahabuddin, K. Maulidia, Emawati & Amiruddin, Looking inside an EFL classroom: Promoting productive learning through teachers' questioning strategies | 1030 We also found something in common in T2's class, as in the following excerpts: (9) T2 : "Do you find any argument in the text? Do you find any argument?" S5 : "Yes". T2 : "Okay, how many arguments are stated in the text?" S5 : "Four". T2 : "What's the second structure?" S5 : "Introduction".
The decomposition strategy was found to be helpful and useful for both teachers to encourage students' responses to their questions. It indicates in the excerpts that the teachers merely used simple sentences to assist their students in understanding their questions, and in turn, enable them to answer the teachers' questions.

e). Restructuring questions
The other type of questioning strategy is structuring questions. This type was implemented to help students figure out the topic being learned. An example of this could be found in the following excerpt. Similar to T1, T2 seemed to restructure the question as well to help students comprehend the gist of the topic being discussed.

Students' Responses toward Teachers' Questioning Strategies
The other inquiry in this study was also obtained through questionnaires. The survey sought to identify students' responses to their teachers' questioning strategies in the classroom. The following data were revealed through questionnaires. Table 5 shows the students' perceptions of the teachers' questions. All students had positive perceptions about their teachers' questioning strategies. Most of them stated that the ways of teachers posed the questions were in the 'excellent' category.

Types of students' responses
Our observation revealed that teachers asked all students a particular question and allow any of them (students) to respond. However, the ways of students' responses were different. Table 6 shows findings from the questionnaire. The data show that most ten graders from both classes voluntarily responded to their teachers' questions while the other half of them only responded when they were nominated or assigned by the teachers. However, there was a big gap in the types of responses given by the two classes, in which Ten Graders B seemed to prefer agreeing with peers' responses to expressing their own ideas. Despite the difference, the data indicate that all students engaged in classroom instruction in some particular ways.

Students' enjoyment and excitement in answering the questions
The majority of the students appreciated the challenge of figuring out the answers to the questions. This was supported by the findings of the interviews, which revealed that students were actively engaged in the classroom. However, we discovered that some of them required additional motivation to participate.

Students' feelings on impromptu questions
The data in Table 8 show the information on students' feelings if they were asked impromptu questions. More than half of ten graders A and half of ten graders B were nervous and confused when they were asked to answer the questions spontaneously. Experiencing these kinds of anxiety might be due to the students' lack of preparation for the lesson, confusion while responding to questions, and fear of responding to teachers' questions in English.

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS
The data of this study were generated through classroom observations, in-depth interviews, and a questionnaire. The findings showed that our participants used common strategies in questioning. They used descriptive questioning types most frequently in the teaching-learning process. This is in line with the findings of Rahmah's (2017), Rido's (2017), and Sari's (2017) studies. This is because descriptive questions do not require in-depth thinking to answer (Huitt, 2011). These questions allow students to just recall previous information. In Bloom's taxonomy, this type of question is seen as a low level of questioning strategy (Huitt, 2011). In fact, in every meeting, at some points of time, teachers employed descriptive questions as 'ice breakers' (Sari et al., 2020) prior to actual teaching, whereas analysis and evaluation questions were sparingly used by teachers since these questions require students' critical thinking, and thus may in fact discourage students to participate (Zulfikar, 2013). This suggests that the types of questioning strategies teachers use in some ways shape students' responses and behavior (Haydon & Hunter, 2011).
Other strategies used by the teachers were repetition, simplification, decomposition, and restructuring the question (see Wu, 1993). These questioning strategies were used to meet the students' needs. It is important to note that effective teaching occurs when teachers are responsive to students' needs (Lawes, 2000). Our data on teachers' questioning strategies were also shared by the study of Fitriati et al. (2017). Two EFL teachers in Central Java were found to use simplification, decomposition, and repetition questions. These types of questioning strategies were raised by teachers to facilitate students' learning. However, raising meaningful questions contributing to the enhancement of students' cognitive ability requires a high level of teachers' metacognitive skills, which will allow them to give thoughtful questions to students (Choi et al., 2005). For that reason, EFL teachers are also expected to prepare themselves with certain skills to enable them to ask effective questions to students.
The findings from the questionnaire suggested that most participants agreed that their teachers implemented good questioning strategies; the students were willing to respond; they were given a considerable amount of time to think before they responded to the questions posed by the teachers. Giving sufficient wait time is necessary for the students to think and digest their teachers' questions prior to giving answers (Döş et al., 2016). Lack of waiting time given to students was also found to have contributed to students' difficulties in answering questions correctly (Yang, 2017). Teachers' considerate feelings about their students' well-being are important to enact students' inner capacities. However, not all teachers spent time evaluating their classroom practices. It is for this reason that some commentators in the field of education urge teachers to engage in reflective practices (Burhan-Horasanli & Ortaçtepe, 2016;Salmani Nodoushan, 2011;Zulfikar & Mujiburrahman, 2018). Reflexivity allows teachers to not only monitor their classroom practices but also gain an in-depth understanding of their students. Upon engaging in reflective practices, teachers can be aware of their students' needs, which then helps them organize their classroom practices that fit their students' needs.
Although teachers attempted to use various questioning strategies, and in fact used a reasonable wait time to achieve students' responses, some of the students were not very engaged with learning. Students' lack of engagement was also the result of impromptu questions. However, the data suggest that none of them was withdrawn from classroom interaction. They might not respond to the teachers' questions directly. They would rather comment on their colleagues' responses occasionally. This is because cultural values indeed shape students' learning attitudes (Chiner et al., 2015;Wassell et al., 2018). The Indonesian students, for example, as suggested by Zulfikar (2013) tend to be not very talkative during learning. Students' ways of responding are different, yet the majority believe that the questioning strategies used by their teachers helped them gain knowledge during the instructional process.
Our research shows several teachers' questioning strategies in EFL classrooms, and although its context was limited to only one secondary school, it provided insights to teachers regarding various questioning strategies. The implication of this study is therefore obvious, by which teachers in many other types of Indonesian schools may evaluate their own classroom practices, particularly on whether they have used appropriate questioning strategies that meet their students' well beings. To promote students' activeness during learning, teachers are not only required to prepare 'welldesigned' learning materials but they are also expected to create a learning atmosphere that activates students' learning modes and critical thinking. One of the strategies the teachers can implement to boost students' activeness is good choices of questioning strategies. As ways of questioning influence students' responses, it is time to believe that students' failure to engage in active learning is multifaceted; it might be because of students' lack of learning motivation themselves, institutional cultures, or their teachers' incapability to activate students' learning modes (Zulfikar, 2009).

CONCLUSION
Our study revealed important information on teachers' questioning strategies. The observation, in-depth interviews with teachers and students, and questionnaires showed that the two English teachers employed the following questioning strategies: repetition, simplification, decomposition, framing the question, reacting to the students' responses (i.e. providing a reward, complimenting them, and motivating them), utilizing native language, and asking descriptive questions. These strategies were intentionally used by the teachers to correspond to the students' responses and attitudes. The study also revealed that there was no single questioning strategy that worked best in all classroom contexts. The teachers shifted their ways of posing questions in accordance with the classroom atmosphere. Students' characteristics also dictated teachers' use of questioning strategies. In this case, teachers might simplify their questions when students were not responsive to a particular type of question. They could also decompose their questions so that their messages were well-received by the students.
The findings regarding the nature of students' responses were also discovered. Students' responses to the teachers' various questioning strategies were positive, which suggests that they saw their benefits, such as enabling them to interact more in the classroom. Another reason why they perceived it as advantageous was that they had time to digest their teachers' questions when they were posed differently. Our study also showed that the students enjoyed answering their teachers' questions and were unconcerned if their classmates would laugh at them if they answered them incorrectly. Finally, the researchers discovered that the teachers were successful in motivating their students to participate actively in the whole class discussion. They employed a variety of questioning strategies to make the students react to the questions. It is crucial to note that students' responded to the questions in a variety of ways, but they shared one similarity in which they believed questioning tactics can help them avoid learning anxiety.
T. Zulfikar, K. Syahabuddin, K. Maulidia, Emawati & Amiruddin, Looking inside an EFL classroom: Promoting productive learning through teachers' questioning strategies | 1038 APPENDIX Questionnaire for the Students Dear Student, This questionnaire is designed to collect data about the students' responses to the questioning strategies English teachers use in the classroom. This questionnaire will take about 10 minutes of your time, and I would be grateful if these questions were answered honestly. Please note, that there are no right or wrong answers and all the information will be kept confidential. It is believed that your response would help the researcher to get the necessary information. Part 1: put a tick mark in the boxes given below! Name : Class : Sex : Male Female Choose one of the answers to the following questions and statements that is appropriate to your opinions!