Volume 15, Issue 8 · IJARST · ISSN 2319-1783 / 2320-1126

The Skill of Questioning as a Marker of Second-Language Proficiency among Indian Engineering Learners

The Skill of Questioning as a Marker of Second-Language Proficiency among Indian Engineering Learners is an open-access, peer-reviewed research paper by Dr. Sunita Vijay Kumar, published in Volume 15, Issue 8 of the International Journal of Advanced Research in Science and Technology (IJARST), a UGC-approved journal (Print ISSN 2319-1783, Online ISSN 2320-1126).

Author

Dr. Sunita Vijay Kumar

Abstract

Questioning is a mental process that surfaces as a communicative act which involves inquiry and subsequent construction of knowledge. In the language classroom, the capacity to frame meaningful questions is central to communicative competence, yet many learners in multilingual settings in India struggle to produce questions in English that are grammatically accurate and cognitively specific. This paper observes first-year engineering students in India, drawn from three first-language backgrounds — Telugu and Urdu/Hindi — in order to describe the syntactic structure of the questions they produce in English, to compare those structures with the corresponding forms in their first languages, and to analyse the difficulties that arise from mother-tongue interference. These questions are categorised by type according to their cognitive depth, mapped onto the proficiency descriptors of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), and attempt has been made to evolve a set of pedagogical strategies for teaching effective questioning. The paper argues that systematic training in question-formation can measurably strengthen learners' linguistic proficiency and their readiness for academic communication

Keywords:  CEFR; questioning; proficiency; communicative competence; linguistic structure; mother-tongue interference.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.62226/ijarst20262800

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DOI

10.62226/ijarst20262800

PAGES : 2576-2582 | 3 VIEWS | 2 DOWNLOADS

How do you cite this paper?

Dr. Sunita Vijay Kumar — “The Skill of Questioning as a Marker of Second-Language Proficiency among Indian Engineering Learners.” International Journal of Advanced Research in Science and Technology (IJARST), Volume 15, Issue 8. DOI: 10.62226/ijarst20262800.

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