When does a person need food?
What do birds like?
All indefinite questions deserve and usually receive an indefinite answer, and hence lead to and encourage guessing. If the answers to such questions as the above are not indefinite, they must be purely memoriter, merely reproducing the words of the text without comprehension of any real meaning.
Indefinite questioning usually comes from a lack of clear thinking on the part of the questioner. The teacher himself does not know precisely what he means to ask, and hence cannot be definite. It is safe to say that the teacher's questions covering a subject will never be any more clear or definite than the subject itself is in his mind. Indeed it is hard for one to be wholly definite in questioning even when he is a perfect master of his subject. Certainly, then, eternal vigilance will be the price of clearness and definiteness on the part of the young teacher who is as yet striving for mastery of what he is teaching.
7. Secondary principles of good questioning
Besides the foregoing fundamental principles underlying the art of questioning, there are a few secondary principles, some of which are of hardly less importance:—
1. Questions should be asked naturally, and in a conversational tone, and not explosively demanded of pupils.
2. Usually the question should be addressed to the entire class and, after all have had a moment to think, some one then designated to answer. The reason for this is obvious. If the one who is to answer is designated before the question is asked, the incentive to the rest of the class to think the answer is greatly lessened.
3. No regular order should be followed in calling on pupils. If such an order is established, the lazy and uninterested ones have a tendency to remain inactive until called upon. By the hit-and-miss method of calling no one knows at what moment he may be the next one, hence there is a strong incentive to attend to the lesson. It is also desirable to call on a pupil occasionally the second time very soon after he has previously been called upon. This prevents him from thinking that as soon as he has recited once he can then safely relax his attention.