How Does Gershon Use Socratic Question In The Classroom

The author, Gershon, did not describe explicitly how Socratic methods are used in his classroom, however, two ways of using Socratic Method of questioning in a classroom will be considered. First, when it is used by the tutor to facilitate discussion in groups amongst pupils (Socratic seminar) and second, when it is used by the tutor to question an individual for an answer (one-on-one). The following case studies describe each of these methods. Al-Darwish (2012) conducted a case study in Kuwait based on comparing teaching English Language as a second language using both Socratic and traditional questioning. 15 female teachers were asked to carry out the teaching, 7 were newly graduate with experience of how Socratic questioning works and the remaining 8 were teachers with less than 10 years’ experience. The newly graduated teachers aimed at using Socratic questioning to evaluate individual student on what they know and also to communicate with them in the target language. The result shows that there was a little difference in the improvement of the vocabulary and grammar between the two groups. Some of the issues associated with this experiment are the lack of understanding of the target language between pupil and tutor as it makes it really hard for

the tutor to generate another question to further challenge the pupils’ thinking. Most of the newly graduated teachers were concerned about the time it takes to use the Socratic Method in this kind of classroom. Even though the experiment had some issues, it might be suggesting it is not applicable across all subjects.
In relation to Gershon challenging students’ thinking, if each student were challenged individually as described in Al-Darwish (2012) experiment, this would be an exhaustive process.

In regards to Ofsted’s criteria of outstanding teaching, this method will struggle to engage all pupils, especially when it focuses more on able pupils. Garner, D (2000) describes this as vicarious learning and that a student spent 99% of the time listening to other people answering questions. From my experience in a secondary school, student will lose focus when they are not involved in the questioning and answering process. However, when students are questioned to work as a group there is a high level of participation from all

students.
In a similar experiment, Etemadzadeh et al. (2012) conducted an experiment on using questioning to improve writing skills. 60 students were picked from classes of higher ability and lower. In the pre-test, the pupils were given a picture and their task is to write an essay based on the picture. The students were divided into two groups, the experimental groups and the control group. The experimental group was treated with Socratic questions based on the picture while the control group were treated with note expansion. In the experimental group, 3 quarters of the student understood what was going. Students worked in groups and engaged in discussions where knowledge was shared. Some lower ability student could not communicate in the target language, but with the help of their friends, they were able to communicate meaningfully even though this was not the objective. Lastly, all the students in the experimental group were actively involved regardless of their ability. The result showed an increase of pass percentage from 63% after pre-test to 80% after post-test in the experimental group while the control group remained 63%. The author concluded that questioning plays a very important role in arousing student thinking skills.
This experiment showed high level of success and even tick the boxes for the 3 Ofsted’s descriptions of quality teaching listed above. However, if the questioning used was one-on-one Socratic questioning, this might result in problem for lower ability student and the outcome might be similar to Al-Darwish (2012) experiment. As a trainee teacher and based on findings, it is best to employ Socratic seminar as described in Etemadzadeh et al. (2012) experiment because it allows the tutor to plan the questions that will use to challenge all the pupils’ thinking. It also poses an advantage to the for lower ability student by enabling peer support (Etemadzadeh et al. 2012).
While Socratic Method continued to be recognised for its usefulness, it has also received some criticisms. Socratic questioning remained the main teaching process used in American law schools (Peterson 2009), Decket and Wood (2013) claimed it makes students, especially law students, feel uncomfortable, creates fear in the classroom, and also hampers their learning. Garner (2000) claimed Socratic Method can be fresh and create active classroom but the over use of the method can become boring. Garner (2000) claim Socratic Method can be fresh and create active classroom but the over use of the method can become boring. Socratic Method can also be abused by the tutor or display biases based on gender or race and can have negative impact on women and minorities (Peterson, 2009). Most of the criticisms on Socratic Methods are based on using one-on-one Socratic questioning.
In conclusion, Gershon’s description of using Socratic Method of questioning was vague and therefore cannot be directly compared to any of the case studies. However, there are proofs that Socratic Method of questions can be used to challenge students, but I believe it has far more important role to play in a classroom than just challenging the student’s thinking.