A Comparative Study Of Teachers’ Questioning In Senior High School English Reading Classes

As one of the most frequently-used teaching techniques,teachers’ questioning has a direct impact on whether teachers can achieve predetermined teaching goals.In recent years,many researchers conducted studies on classroom questioning.Most of the previous studies addressed the state of teachers’ questioning among expert teachers and the research subjects were always the college or junior high school teachers.But few of them did a comparative study on teachers’ questioning between high-quality class and normal class.Based on Krashen’ s Input Hypothesis,Long’s Interaction Hypothesis,and Swain’s Output Hypothesis,this study compares the teachers’ questioning in six senior high school high-quality English reading classes and six senior high school normal English reading classes.The research questions of this study are(1)What are the similarities and differences between teachers’ questioning types and strategies of high-quality English reading classes and normal classes;(2)What are the similarities and differences of the ways of answering questions between high-quality English class and normal class;(3)What are the similarities and differences of the waiting time between high-quality English class and normal class.Through classroom observation and interview with six senior high school normal class English teachers,this study discovers some similarities and differences of teachers’ questioning between high-quality classes and normal classes:(1)In both high-quality classes and normal classes,teachers asked more low-level questions in the reading classes,especially for the knowledge questions and compilation questions.By contrast,in high-quality classes,teachers preferred to ask more high-level questions such as analysis questions and evaluation questions than the normal class teachers.What’s more,in both high-quality classes and normal classes,teachers like using redirecting and repeating strategies.Compared with the teachers of normal classes,the teachers of high-quality classes preferred to use advanced questioning strategies,such as probing strategy and prompting strategy;(2)In both high-quality classes and normal classes,teachers like asking students to answer questions by chorus or nominating.Teachers of high-quality classes preferred to asked students to answer the questions in chorus,while the teachers of normal class preferred to nominate students to answer the questions.In addition,the spatial distribution of the students that answered teachers’ questions was relatively reasonable without serious bias in both the high-quality classes and normal classes.But,teachers of normal classes paid less attention to the students sitting on the left and right side of the classroom;(3)Waiting time was not enough in both classes.For some complex questions,the normal class teachers left less time for students to think.After that,combining the interview results,this study makes some suggestions to improve teachers questioning qualities.First,this study makes the following suggestions for both the teachers of high-quality classes and normal classes:(1)Different types of questions need to be included in the classes.(2)Teachers should encourage a variety of ways of answering the questions.Self-answering should be avoided.(3)It is also important to encourage students to think and express their doubts in time.Second,this study makes the following suggestions for teaching normal classes only:(1)Senior high school English teachers should make clear the relevant English teaching theories before teaching.(2)Teachers need to use the textbooks more creatively.(3)The questions or tasks can be divided into different levels for different student groups.Finally,the author presents the limitations of this study and makes suggestions for future research.