An Investigation And Analysis Of HT And MT Questions In Xinjiang

The study on teachers'questions in the class has been a continuous concern both at home and abroad. Among the various classroom researches, teacher talk has always been the central issue. Since teacher talk plays such an important role in language teaching, a great number of scholars (e.g. Chaudron, 1983; Gaise, 1977, 1979; Henzl, 1979; Long, 1983; etc.) have made a lot of empirical researches on it. On the other hand, a large number of researches in SLA have brought to light the significance of teachers'questions since the 1980s (e.g. Allwright, 1984; Ellis, 1990; Long, 1983; Swain, 1985; etc.). A large number of observations and investigations indicate that questioning is one of the most dominant instructional techniques in classrooms. The results obtained from these researches show that teachers'questions and questioning strategies have a close relationship to learners'target language acquisition process.The present research is conducted with a purpose to investigate the characteristics of teachers'question types and questioning strategies in EFL classroom in Xinjiang University, to compare the similarities and differences between HT (Han nationality teacher) and MT (ethnic minority teacher) English teachers in these aspects, and to explore the role teachers'questions play in improving the learning of English major students.The subjects involved in this research are 2 HT and 1 MT chosen from College of Foreign Languages Xinjiang University, who are in charge of the intensive reading course for sophomores. The author makes observations of the classroom activities and audio-records the classroom discourse as a whole. All the audio-recordings are transcribed into written materials after class. Then the data is classified and analyzed in the statistic way in mainly 3 aspects: types of teachers'questions, teachers'questioning strategies and wait-time research.As for types of teachers'questions, this thesis is concerned with the frequency of display questions and referential questions. As far as the questioning strategies are concerned, the thesis mainly deals with three strategies, that is, repetition, prompting and probing. In addition, based on the ideal questioning model advanced by Bloom, the author investigates and analyzes the six levels of questions raised by two kinds of teachers. The six levels of questions, from low to high order, are knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. By hierarchical, it means that the upper levels are dependent on the lower ones. The purpose of the study is also to explore whether the teachers can build their questions based on this hierarchy, therefore enhance the students'language acquisition.Due to the author's limited knowledge and the limitations of the research itself, there is still some room for the topic to be discussed and researched. Therefore, at the end of the thesis, the author also puts forward some suggestions.