Effective Questioning Strategies In Senior High-school English Class

“Thinking-targeted teaching” is a key concept of contemporary education,while classroom is crucial to the implementation of desirable educational ideas and contents as well as the realization of desirable educational goals.Quite a few researches have proved that classroom questioning is a key booster for improving teacher-student interaction in the classroom and for enhancing the thinking of the students.In view of the fact that the scores of the national college entrance examination of most senior high-school students in Yuxi in recent years have showed a downward trend,the author of this thesis has attended 215 English lessons in three high schools in order to reveal the existing problems of classroom questioning and try to find out the effective questioning strategies.On the basis of a review of the relevant literature and related theories of classroom questioning,the author of the thesis has worked out an effective classroom questioning observation scale.With the help of this scale,the author of the thesis has carried out three classroom observations of the same English teacher and students involving the same kind of questions in the same class.As for the problems observed from the first class,the author of the thesis,together with the co-operator,have made the first improvement plan which has lasted for a 9-week implementation period.The second classroom observation has showed that the situation has got some improvement,but there isn’t any student who is willing to raise any question to the teacher.In order to find the causes or reasons why they are unwilling to raise any question to the teacher,the author of the thesis has interviewed 18 teachers respectively in these three high schools with a qualitative analysis,given questionnaires to 600 students from those schools,and employed SPSS22.0 to make the data processing and quantitative analysis.Through an integration of the second classroom observation,the results of these interviews and the data processing,the author and the co-operator,have worked out the second improvement plan which has also lasted for a 9-week implementation period,and then conducted the thirdclassroom observation.Having attended 215 English lessons,the author of the thesis has analyzed the problems in the English classes of the three high schools of Yuxi from the five aspects of quantity,quality,genre,function and implementation of classroom questioning.The relevant action research has shown that this observation scale can reflect the advantages and disadvantages of English classroom questioning,provide the measures for improvement,and help promote the teachers’ skills of questioning.The results of the interviews with the teachers reveal that the concept of the absolute authority of the teachers is ingrained,and it is necessary for teachers to change their outdated teaching conceptions.The results of the questionnaires also reveal that the students involved in the research could highly identify themselves with the role of classroom questioning.But in the traditional teaching pattern of “teachers lecturing,students listening”,students often have little chance of raising questions,which indicates that teachers should improve the traditional teaching pattern.According to the findings from these high-school English classes and classroom observation based on the scale,the author of the thesis summarizes the following six improvement strategies for the teacher’s classroom questioning,the strategy of working out questions,the strategy of raising questions,the strategy of waiting for answers,the strategy of choosing the answerers,the strategy of dealing with the students’ answers and the strategy of making reflections.With an integrative analysis of the interviews with the English teachers and the results of the questionnaire survey,the author proposes the following strategies for promoting the students’ classroom questioning,the desire to raise questions,the courage to raise questions,the chance to raise questions and the skills to raise questions.Based on a comprehensive analysis of the research findings,the author brings up three suggestions on enhancing effective classroom questioning: 1.There should be a change in the traditional conception of classroom questioning either from the teacher’s perspective or from the students’ perspective,which is the basis of efficient classroom questioning;2.There should be a good teacher-student relationship,which is the foundation for efficient classroom questioning;3.It is necessary to attach importance to the application of questionchains,which is the cornerstone of efficient classroom questioning.This research holds that the following aspects of efficient questioning in senior high-school English class should be improved: 1.Exploring the philosophical principle and theoretical basis of effective high-school English classroom questioning;2.Working out the criteria and evaluation system for effective high-school English classroom questioning;3.Developing relevant teacher-training courses and materials for effective high-school English classroom questioning,which will improve the weaknesses in this research.