Developing Teachers' Self-Questioning Skills in a Workshop: Insight from a Professional Development Program

This study investigates teachers' ability to formulate questions to understand English passages after they had participated in a self-questioning workshop, and what they learnt from the workshop. Three secondary English teachers were involved in the self- questioning workshop in a specific context in Indonesia. The workshop was completed in three sessions comprised of three phases: the prior-workshop assessment, the workshop, and post-workshop assessment. These activities were video, and audio recorded. A case study research design was employed. Data were gathered from generated questions, interviews, observations, and reflective journals during the workshop. The findings reveal that the type of generated questions improved after the workshop, shifting from questions with explicit answers to better questions that require inferences and implicit answers. The teachers perceived the questioning workshop to be beneficial for learning, reflection, and improvement of their teaching. They were able to recognize the importance of high-quality questions, reflect on their teaching practices, and learn practical knowledge including anticipation of challenges they might encounter to implement the workshop for their students. The findings also underline the importance of a supportive environment, such as creating an informal atmosphere and encouraging discussion, as necessary to allow the teachers to fully engage in the workshop.