In an ELT classroom, referential questions are used to do what?

• A. Elicit information
• B. Check comprehension
• C. Encourage guessing
• D. Summarize points

Answer: (A)

Referential questions are used to elicit information from learners—they prompt students to share details, experiences, or opinions in their own words. The aim is language production: students must generate a response rather than simply confirm something the teacher already knows. This makes them excellent for speaking practice, encouraging fluency and meaningful interaction, and for gauging what a learner can express about a topic. Use follow-up questions to deepen the discussion and get more detail.

These questions differ from ones used to check comprehension, which seek specific facts from the material to verify understanding, and from prompts that encourage guessing, which focus on predicting or hypothesizing rather than obtaining actual information from the learner. They also differ from summarizing prompts, which aim to condense information rather than produce new language from the student.