The Application Of Bloom’s Taxonomy Of Educational Objectives In Teachers’ Classroom Questioning Of Senior High School English Reading Class

Benjamin Bloom first introduced “Taxonomy of Educational Objectives” in 1956.Since its inception,the theory has attracted the attention of many scholars and triggered a research boom.After nearly half a century of extensive application,a large number of experts and scholars revised “Taxonomy of Educational Objectives” based on the original edition to make it more perfect and applicable in 2001.English is the most widely used language in the world.English has also become one of the main subjects in the teaching field.Naturally,a lot of experts and scholars at home and abroad tried to apply Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives to English teaching.As a language,English includes four basic skills: “listening”,“speaking”,“reading” and “writing”.Among them,“listening” and “reading” are input skills while“speaking” and “writing” are output skills.China is a non-English country,lacking the environment of “listening”,“speaking” and “writing”.Most of English materials are related with “reading”.So,“reading” becomes the main way for language input.Besides,reading is core material in English textbooks.In addition,reading also occupies a considerable proportion with the highest score among other questions in college entrance examination.Therefore,reading is very important in the minds of teachers and students.Teachers’ classroom questioning occupies a relatively large proportion in the classroom language.It is the essential form of classroom interaction.It also gradually becomes the main method for teachers to teach reading and for students to improve their reading ability.Although teachers’ classroom questioning have been widely used in English teaching,there are still various deficiencies in teachers’ classroom questioning of English reading class in senior high school.Among them,the prominent one is that teachers’ classroom questioning involves more lower-level cognition(remembering,understanding and applying)and less higher-level cognition(analyzing,evaluating and creating).This paper aims to study teachers’ classroom questioning of English reading class guided by Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives to promote the English reading ability of senior high school students.Therefore,three research questions are proposed: First,what is the application status of the theory in teachers’ classroom questioning of English reading class in senior high school? Second,which cognitive level does teachers’ classroom questioning of English reading class in senior high school mainly focus on? Third,under the guidance of the theory,whether teachers’ classroom questioning of English reading class can effectively improve the English reading ability of senior high school students and is reflected in which level?Thus,the author uses the method of questionnaire survey and interview to obtain the application status and current deficiencies of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives in teachers’ classroom questioning of English reading class in senior high school;Classroom observation method is used to record teacher’s specific teaching process and analyze the cognitive level reflected in the teachers’ classroom questioning;Comparative experimental method is used to analyze the data of the first test and the last test of the class A&B(reading score of six levels)to check whether teachers’ classroom questioning of English reading class guided by Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives can effectively improve the English reading ability of senior high school students.The research results show that Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives is generally applied in teachers’ classroom questioning of English reading class.Besides,from the perspective of the six levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives,it is found that the actual reading teaching focuses on the first three lower-level objectives: remembering,understanding and applying,but lacks the next three higher-level objectives: analyzing,evaluating and creating.In addition,the English reading scores of the experimental class guided by Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives are higher than the control class without the guidance of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives.And through the comparison of the difference(average score of the experimental class minus the average score of the control class),it is found that the improvement of evaluating and creating are the most obvious.The research conclusion is that the application of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives needs to be improved.Teachers’ classroom questioning is also necessary to be developed at a higher level(analyzing,evaluating and creating).And,teachers’ classroom questioning of English reading class under the guidance of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives can effectively improve the English reading ability of senior high school students.