Fostering Speaking via Integrated Questioning: Does it Count for Transcontextual Transferability?

Given the significance and problematic nature of speaking in EFL instruction as well as lack of orthodoxy of views on acceptance or rejection of language learning transferability, this study proposed an inventive model to teaching thinking via questioning as a way to trigger speaking. It compromises six components, and organizes a rich interactive teaching/learning environment to gauge its usefulness in the development of EFL learners' oral skill as well as its inter-domain transferability effects. To this end, we compared the performance of 60 participants on pre-post-treatment oral narrative tasks over thirteen treatment sessions with a time allocation of 45 minutes for each session: One group with isolated questioning instruction and the other with integrated one. The results of independent samples t-test indicated that instructional treatment assisted the experimental group participants to outperform the control group learners solely in terms of measures of lexical and grammatical complexity. It is also suggested that the merits of questioning intervention transfer to learners' performance on a delayed task in a new social domain. As proposed, implementing the integrated approach of HOQs assisted EFL learners to successfully accomplish demanding oral tasks initially in academic setting and in later delayed novel transcontextual settings.