







































AsiaCALL Online Journal Received: 28/02/2021 

ISSN 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj Revision: 18/03/2021 

Vol. 12, No. 3, 2021  Accepted: 20/03/2021 

pp. 74-81  Online: 24/03/2021 

74 

 

 

Developing English-Speaking Skills through Socratic Questioning in Online 

Synchronous Learning 
 

Kurt S. Candilas 

 
Dean, Arts and Sciences Program, Lourdes College, Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines 

Corresponding author’s email: kurt.candilas@lccdo.edu.ph, mrkurtz21@gmail.com  

 

Abstract 

Online synchronous learning is a digital teaching platform that supports learning in the 

time of the pandemic. However, it provides less speaking participation for students. This study 

explores the effectiveness of Socratic questioning in developing students’ English-speaking skills 

during their online synchronous class. This study used the Pre-experimental - one-group pretest 

and posttest design. Thirty-five (35) students who were asked for their consent participated in this 

study. The study was conducted in one of the classes in Purposive Communication in a private 

college in Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines, for the first semester of the AY 2020-2021. The 

instrument used in assessing students' English-Speaking Skills is the Student Oral Observation 

Matrix (SOLOM), taken from the Riverside County Seal of Multiliteracy (2008). The study used 

Paul's (2001) model of Socratic questioning. Based on the findings, through the lens and principles 

of reasons, Socratic questioning helped improve students’ English-speaking skills in 

pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, fluency, and comprehension. The result of this study 

confirms Paul's (2001) model of Socratic questioning, stressing that by working through an 

organized procedure of framing questions during discussions and other oral-related activities, 

learners are disciplined and trained to speak and reason. This finding, therefore, calls for the need 

of teachers to utilize Socratic questioning in their online synchronous learning to develop student’s 

skills in speaking, which in turn enliven their active participation in the virtual class.  

Keywords: English-speaking Skills, Socratic Questioning, Online Synchronous Learning 

 

 

 

mailto:kurt.candilas@lccdo.edu.ph
mailto:mrkurtz21@gmail.com


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75 
 

Introduction 

COVID-19 pandemic brought a sudden impact and took a toll on all schools' educational 

processes and services across the globe. It brings challenges to the academic community to 

redesign and realign its operation systems on instructional delivery (Adedoyin and Soykan, 2020; 

Kaur, 2020). Teachers from primary up until they graduate level have had to switch and adapt to 

different distance education forms. Among these other educational platforms of distance education 

is online learning.  

           Indeed, online learning is no longer a new trend in education. Many schools across the 

countries have had this mode of learning even before the advent of the COVID 19. The 

mushrooming of online education at present has just become a worldwide movement for education 

due to the declaration of COVID-19 as a global health crisis. In online learning education in the 

time of the pandemic, educational institutions used either synchronous and asynchronous digital 

teaching (Karatas and Tuncer, 2020; Farros, Shawler, and Gatzunis, and Weiss, 2029). These two 

basic types of digital teaching are commonly used by schools to support learning.  

 Acknowledging the need of students to continue learning amidst pandemics, online 

education learning is seen to be the viable way for continuing education which also helps to put a 

curb on the spread of COVID-19. Weighing the benefits of online education learning for students 

to be independent and collaborative (Berge, 2000; Parker and Gemino, 2001, Chan et al. 2009), 

another equally severe outcome of the existing online education that has received little attention is 

the declined opportunity for students to improve their speaking proficiency (Tanian and James, 

2002). Being an English and communication teacher and the dean of a college in a private tertiary 

school in Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines, the researcher has observed this phenomenon where 

students during their synchronous classes are reluctant to express their thoughts and opinions 

during lectures and other online learning activities. It is also observed that when their teachers are 

asking them, the substance of views is not clear and coherent. The ideas being expressed are likely 

unstructured and unparalleled to what is being asked from them. Some of them are shy and would 

not say a word due to the difficulty of using appropriate English words. Others, too, are 

translanguaging using the Cebuano Visayan Language when they are answering and questioning 

during their virtual class so that their ideas can get across to their teachers and classmates, 

respectively. This phenomenon was also observed and reinforced by other previous studies even 



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before the pandemic where online education is already existing and offered in school (Arnold, 

2007; Tanian and James, 2002; Skinner, 2009). 

Although these setbacks in speaking may be attributed to some reasons, the present study 

seeks to develop the students' speaking skills through Socratic questioning in asynchronous 

learning. The objective, therefore, is to introduce Socratic questioning as an approach to teaching, 

thereby aiming not to strike fear in the hearts of students so that they may articulate intelligibly 

their thoughts guided with their beliefs that do not withstand scrutiny. Hence, the conduct of the 

study. 

Statement of the Problem 

1. What is the participants’ level of English Speaking Skills before and after the intervention 

considering the following: 

1.1 pronunciation; 

1.2 vocabulary; 

1.3 grammar; 

1.4 fluency; and 

1.5 comprehension? 

2. Is there a significant difference in students' performance in Socratic Questioning before and 

after the intervention? 

 

Methods 

This study used the Pre-experimental - one-group pretest and posttest design. Using this design, 

the students were assessed in their English-Speaking Skills during pretest and posttest. The 

intervention of Socratic questioning was given after the pretest and before the posttest to compare 

the difference of scores and to see the improvement of students in speaking English. Before the 

conduct of this study, the thirty-five (35) students were asked to participate. The study was 

conducted in one of the Purposive Communication classes in a private college in Cagayan de Oro 

City for the first semester of the AY 2020-2021. These students were selected as the participants 

of the study as they are the current students being handled by the researcher himself. Also, the 



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nature of the participants’ subject in the researcher’s class is communication. This impels the 

researcher to choose these participants as they have already prior knowledge of speaking. The 

instrument used in assessing students' English-Speaking Skills is the Student Oral Observation 

Matrix (SOLOM), taken from the Riverside County Seal of Multiliteracy (2008). A fellow inter-

rater was also requested during the assessment of students English-speaking skills to ensure the 

objectivity of the assessment. The study employed Paul’s (2001) principle of Socratic questioning 

using the following processes: questions for clarification, questions that probe assumptions, 

questions that probe reasons and evidence, questions about viewpoints and perspectives, questions 

that probe implications and consequences, and questions about the question. The Socratic question 

as the intervention was allotted for eight weeks. Such categories for questioning do not necessarily 

follow a pattern as students' responses are leading to another category of questions that the 

researcher is determining. To implement the Socratic Questioning, the researcher being the teacher 

himself, conducted the following tasks every week during the synchronous learning: planned the 

sessions every synchronous session always to have the significant questions that provide structure 

and direction to the lesson; crafted questions to be clear and specific to students learning; 

maintained silence and wait for at least 5-10 seconds for students to deliver their response to the 

question; kept the discussion focus; followed-up students verbal responses and let them elaborate 

their thoughts and ideas; used probing questions for reasons and evidence, and summarized what 

has been discussed. Descriptive statistics such as mean distribution were used to measure the 

students' English-speaking skills and T-Test to measure their performance in implementing 

Socratic questioning in the virtual class in Purposive Communication. 

 

Results and Discussions 

Table 1 shows the mean distribution of students' level of English-speaking skills before 

and after the intervention. As gleaned above, student participants' responses in English-speaking 

skills showed the homogeneity of their responses, as indicated in the standard deviation of 0.49 

from both pretest and posttest. This entails that they had similar responses to the indicators. In the 

pretest, the result indicated that comprehension (3.73), grammar (3.28), fluency (2.78), 

pronunciation (2.71), and vocabulary (2.59) of participant's areas in English-speaking skills are 

rated as good. A rating of good from these areas means that participants manage to understand 



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most of what is said at a slower than normal speed although repetitions are observed, frequent 

errors of grammar and word order occasionally obscure the substance of what the student 

participants intend to mean from their answers, speed and fluency are strongly affected by 

language problems which made them have occasional word fillers when talking, pronunciation 

problems necessitate concentration and occasionally lead to misunderstanding, frequent use of 

wrong terminologies in English are also observed during the one-on-one virtual informal 

interview. 

Table 1. 

Mean Distribution of Students’ Level of English-Speaking Skills Before and After the Intervention 

English Speaking Skills Pretest Posttest 

 

 

Pronunciation 

Mean 2.71 2.78 

SD .044 .046 

Description Good Good 

 

 

Vocabulary 

Mean 2.59 3.73 

SD .031 .047 

Description Good Very Good 

 

 

Grammar 

Mean 3.28 3.33 

SD .083 .086 

Description Good Good 

 

 

Fluency 

Mean 2.78 2.88 

SD .046 .037 

Description Good Very Good 

 

 

Comprehension 

Mean 3.73 3.93 

SD 0.47 .053 

Description Good Very Good 

 

 

Overall 

Mean 3.02 3.33 

SD 0.49 0.49 

Description Good Good 

Legend: 4.51-5.00 Excellent  1.51-2.50 Fair 

  3.51-4.50 Very Good  1.00-1.50 Poor 

  2.51-3.50 Good 

 Moreover, an improvement in student participants' English-speaking skills is observed 

after being subjected to Socratic questioning. This improvement is evident in the participants' 

posttest rating, where vocabulary (3.73), fluency (2.88) and comprehension (3.93) were rated as 

"Very Good" after the implementation of the intervention. Although the two areas, such as 

pronunciation (2.78) and grammar (3.33), are rated as good, it also shows an improvement as 

revealed in their mean rates. Hence, the overall mean also increased from pretest (3.02) to posttest 

(3.33).  



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Table 2. 

Result of the Test of Difference in the Students’ Performance of Socratic questioning Before and 

After the Intervention 

Dependent Variable 

 

Socratic Questioning 

Pretest Posttest t p 

English Speaking Skills Overall Mean 2.97 3.33 8.391* .000 

SD .049 .049   

     

*Significant at 0.05 level. 

           Table 2 presents the score difference of the student’s performance of Socratic questioning 

before and after the intervention. The figures reveal that participants being subjected to Socratic 

questioning strategy (t=8.391, p=.000) is significant to their English-speaking skills before (2.97) 

and after (3.33) the intervention. This improvement in students’ performance confirms the 

researcher's observations in his virtual class during synchronous learning with his students where 

before the intervention, the students are just likely expressing few sentences when they are asked 

with their ideas; their pronunciation is likely to be not spontaneous as sound patterns from their 

Cebuano Visayan Language are traceable, their grammar is likely unstructured where the use of 

tenses and subject-verb agreement are sporadically erroneous which makes their verbal responses 

unintelligible, and they have had the tendency to shift from their native language for them to 

express their ideas and content fully. These observations were then improved when the researcher 

utilized the Socratic questioning as a strategy and approach when discussing his lessons. 

Accordingly, during the Socratic questioning implementation, the researcher lets his students be 

actively engaged in his discussions by asking them a question from the beginning, middle, and 

ending of the lecture, which requires each of them to generate answers. Also, Socratic Questioning 

is employed during students' speaking-related tasks such as reporting, oral recitations, oral 

revalidation, interviews, picture analysis activity, impromptu and extemporaneous speeches.  With 

these tasks, students were required to share to class their viewpoints of the lesson, after which the 

teacher posed questions that let them elaborate their ideas to keep focused on their elements of 

thought, systems of thought, and standards of thought. These processes were facilitated using 

open-ended collaborative discussions and dialogues where students are responding with a shred of 

textual pieces of evidence and references to support their point or thesis. Likewise, they were as 

well provided with examples and deep discussions to bring in them the thinking of the standard of 

Paul’s (2001) model on the principles of Socratic questioning such as questions for clarification, 



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questions that probe assumptions, questions that probe reasons and evidence, questions about 

viewpoints and perspectives, questions that probe implications and consequences, and questions 

about the question. Follow-up questions are employed to cross-check the depth of their verbal 

responses. This was nonetheless used to measure the students' expressive language of speaking, 

particularly on its relevance, fairness, clarity, and precision, to name a few. With the 

implementation of Socratic Questioning for eight weeks, students' active engagement in 

synchronous learning is evident. During synchronous learning, the researcher observed that 

students are now conscious of their pronunciation and correct grammar usage. They listened well 

to the teacher and would have to ask back when they seemed not to understand the lesson during 

the discussion. They, too, are now asking back the teacher when they are not able to understand 

the question being asked from them, which calls then for the teacher to rephrase and paraphrase 

the question for clarity and intelligibility. It was also observed that when they are asking back their 

teacher, they wanted to have an assurance that they had comprehended the question raised to them. 

Furthermore, during speaking related activities, it was also confirmed by the researcher that they 

are likely to substantiate their ideas by only talking to what is being asked from them. In a nutshell, 

this modelling of practice in soliciting verbal responses to students supports Copeland (2005) and 

Paul's assertion (2006) espousing that these activities fueled with the approach of Socratic 

questioning bring students an in-depth examination and understanding of their ideas and content 

on how they rationalize and respond to questions. Ross (2003) further explains that these activities, 

such as mentioned above, captured the Socratic method's very essence in examining the values, 

principles, and beliefs of students to let them be expressive orally.   

 

Conclusion and Recommendation 

Evidently, Socratic questioning helped improve students' English-speaking skills such as 

pronunciation, fluency, grammar, vocabulary, and comprehension. The result of this study 

confirms Paul's (2001) model of Socratic questioning, stressing that by working through an 

organized procedure of framing questions during discussions and other oral related activities, 

learners are disciplined and trained to speak and reason. This finding recommends that teachers, 

when having a synchronous meeting with their students, may have to utilize Socratic questioning 

to develop student's skills in speaking and enliven their participation in online learning.  



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81 
 

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https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0166-2383
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0166-2383
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10864-020-09421-2

