Teacher Discussion Forums

Any suggestions on how to go about teaching beginners how to form questions in English - when to use (do, does), etc? It's easy for me as a native speaker, but I'm not quite sure what the simplest way to break it down for a non-native speaker is.

Thank you for any ideas.
Jenny

Hi Jenny,

What a coincidence! I'm also teaching my students how and when to use is/are/do/does in questions right now. I think the most important thing is that you take it rather slow and do plenty of practice, review and refreshers throughout the whole semester.
Before you tackle questions, make sure they can make simple positive sentences in the present simple tense both with the verb "to be" and "other verbs". Before you move on to questions, you should also make sure that they know how to turn these positive sentences into negative. Only then should you start working on questions. But not questions with questions words! First cover Yes/No questions and then slowly move on to questions with question words.
It's also very important that your students understand what a verb is and that they can identify it in a sentence.

Just for fun, here are a couple of on-line demonstrations I did on question formation:

http://fog.ccsf.cc.ca.us/~lfried/gramma ... ions1.html

http://fog.ccsf.cc.ca.us/~lfried/gramma ... ions2.html

http://fog.ccsf.edu/~lfried/grammar/que ... tion1.html

Do it one by one. My lessons consist of the following sequence:
I. Changing the following sentences into questions answerable by yes or no:
A. Sentences with auxiliary verbs
B. Sentences in the simple past tense
C. Sentences in the simple present tense
II. Changing sentences into questions that start with:
A. Who
B. What
C. Where
D. When

Thank you all -- it makes sense to break everything up the way you all suggested, and Lori, I like your presentation too. I also read somewhere that it helps to teach the negative sentence form in conjunction with auxiliary verbs: exampel:

You don't work.
Do you work?

and even to teach that "do" is understood in the affirmative.

You do teach. (do is optional)
You do not teach.
Do you teach?

Thank you so much again!
Jenny

I'm glad if it helped. I tend to stay away from teaching the emphatic forms, such as "You do teach." or "He did go." because students often use them incorrectly. For those to be "correct" there has to be a story attached, and some element of emphasis or surprise.

For example, I thought you were a teacher, but you said something about waitressing. However, it's summer, and it was your second job, so when you explained that you were going to teach again in the fall, I said, "Ah, so you do teach."