Questions where the teacher already knows the answer. The purpose is not to seek information but to get the learner to display their knowledge of the language, hence the name. Long and Sato (1983) introduced the term in their study of ESL classroom discourse, contrasting display questions with referential questions (where the teacher genuinely does not know the answer).
Examples:
In each case, the teacher knows the answer. The question tests whether the student does.
Display questions dominate language classrooms. Long and Sato (1983) found that ESL teachers asked far more display questions than referential ones, a pattern repeatedly confirmed in subsequent research. The reasons are practical:
The critique of display questions, articulated most forcefully in the communicative teaching tradition, is that they create inauthentic discourse. In real conversation, people do not ask questions they already know the answers to (except in quizzes and courtrooms). Classroom interaction dominated by display questions looks like this:
T: What did she do yesterday? S: She went to the park. T: Good. And what did she see? S: She saw a dog.
This is the IRF/IRE pattern (Initiation–Response–Feedback/Evaluation), described by Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) and Mehan (1979). It produces short, constrained responses, minimal student thinking, and no genuine communication.
Brock (1986) demonstrated experimentally that when teachers were trained to ask more referential questions, student responses became significantly longer, syntactically more complex, and contained more connectives. The display question condition produced shorter, simpler output.
Thornbury (2006) noted that eliciting sequences are "often wrongly categorised as display questions"; he distinguishes between checking what students know (display) and getting students to guess what they do not know (eliciting), which he considers a different and sometimes problematic practice.
Despite the critique, display questions are not inherently bad. They serve genuine pedagogical functions:
The issue is not display questions themselves, but their dominance. A lesson consisting entirely of display questions is a missed opportunity for genuine communication.
Good questioning practice involves a mix:
| Stage | Question type | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Presentation | Display | Check understanding of new language |
| Controlled practice | Display | Practise target forms with known answers |
| Freer practice | Referential | Generate genuine communication |
| Discussion | Referential + open | Develop fluency and critical thinking |
| Review | Display | Consolidate and check retention |