A Study Of College English Teachers' Questioning From The Perspective Of Constructivism

Teachers'questions can promote learners'active comprehension of new information and elicit their language output. In order to develop learners'ability of constructing new information and enhance classroom interaction by taking advantage of teachers'questions in a better way, the author suggests that teachers should apply the theories of constructivism to their questioning behaviors.According to constructivism, students are the subject of learning and the problem-solvers, and teachers who function as organizers and facilitators should make great efforts to develop students'autonomy and creativity by encouraging collaborative learning among students and enhancing classroom interaction. On the basis of the theories of constructivism, the author investigates the English teachers'questioning patterns in a Chinese university by recording the data and discovering the features of the questions and identifying the problems of the teachers'questioning. Facing the current situation of college English teachers'questioning, the author presents some suggestions on questioning strategies in order to develop students'autonomy and improve effective interaction in classrooms.The author divides his dissertation into six chapters. Chapter one provides a general introduction to the dissertation, in which the background, the purpose and the outline of the study are stated. In chapter two, the author reviews the previous scholars'theories on questioning mainly including its definition, function, classification, strategies, distribution as well as wait-time for responders. Some researchers realize the impact of the theories of interaction on the study of questioning. In order to reveal the close relations between teachers'questions and classroom interaction, it is necessary to introduce Krashen's Input Hypothesis, Swain's Output Hypothesis and Long's Interaction Hypothesis in this part. In chapter three, the author presents and expounds constructivism which is the theoretical foundation of this research. The teaching and learning values advocated by constructivism are explored. After demonstrating the theoretical framework, the author describes the methods of the study, including the purpose of the study, selection of the subjects for the investigation, the instruments for data collection and the research procedure. In chapter four, based on the data collected in the five college English classrooms, the author makes great efforts to investigate and analyze several main aspects of the teachers'questioning. It is imperative to research what kinds of questions should be raised, what questioning strategies can be employed, how much wait-time should be left to the students and what kinds of feedback should be offered to the responders. In chapter five, the author lists the implication of this research and provides the suggestions on teachers'questioning. The conclusion of the present study is summarized in chapter six.